It’s funny how we can learn so much if we are open to new ideas and allow ourselves to grow. This happened to me this week and was a combination of being immersed in the worship services of Holy Week and reading a lot of responses to the No Kings rallies that gathered millions of people around the country. Many of these responses attacked those gathering, especially Christians, by saying that they have no king but Jesus. I get that, but the claim is still out there. As I prepared for Good Friday and listened to the readings, I was struck by something I had not really considered – Jesus never called Himself a king. I told myself that this couldn’t be true, so I re-read the passages in John 18 and 19. No – in fact, the people generally calling Jesus a king were the ones trying to kill him. When Pilate says, “So you are a king!”, Jesus replies, “You say I am a king.” The closest Jesus comes to claiming kingship is, “My kingdom is not of this world.” That might be enough for you, but I needed more.
What about the Prince of Peace? Nope – we read that in Isaiah during Advent, but Jesus doesn’t use the term. And when the Wise Men come looking as they follow the star, it doesn’t lead them to Bethlehem; it leads them to Jerusalem! Of course it does – where else would a new baby king be born, but in the place where the adult king lives? And listen – I am not denying Jesus’ heavenly kingship in any way – if God is our king, then Jesus, for Christians, is too. All I am pointing out is that Jesus did not embrace the term for Himself, and the New Testament didn’t either. The Sunday known as Christ the King has been changed to The Reign of God, which may seem like semantics or spiritual wokeness, but it now feels much more accurate, at least from a biblical point of view. Jesus may have been a king, but not in the way people then – or now – have understood the concept.
When David rapes Bathsheba, the story tells us that it was spring, the time when kings went to war. When the people of Israel nag God for a king, the prophet/judge Samuel (1 Samuel 8) warns them that a king will take everything from them – but they don’t care. They want a king like all the other nations, even though God is supposed to be their only king. So, while the people who followed Jesus thought that He would be a king in the line of David – which Jesus categorically denied – it wasn’t a king of peace or kindness or a new Jerusalem they were looking for – it was a king who would lead a violent insurrection against the monsters of Rome. Jesus wasn’t that kind of king at all – and everyone abandoned Him because of it. Jesus was a servant, not an overlord – a victim, not a destroyer. He may be a king, but not the kind we think He is. Just food for thought.
Prayer – Holy God, teach us to follow Jesus as caregiver and soul soother, not dictator or tyrant. Amen.
Today’s art is “Jesus, Crown of Thorns” by Karen Tarlton – the only crown we know Jesus wore.