Samuel 23:1-7 Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37
Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37
As Americans, we are founded upon the principle that monarchies are not for us. But we still have Kings and Queens and their cognates in our histories, in other countries of the world, and in our popular culture.
The most accessible kings for American children are in fairy tales and Disney royalty, mostly very romantic views so as not to scare children with the terror that accompanied the reigns of many earthly kings in history.
In Europe, the royalty continue as significant features of a country's identity and they function with all of their palatial trapping remains, as tourist bait to feed the economies. And if the royal families can engage in real or contrived "scandalous" behaviors, they can feed the tabloid media industry. What are the royals doing today? Inquiring minds want to know,
In other countries of the world, king-like rulers and leaders function as serious kleptocrats, personally assuming for themselves and their families and their families and oligarchs the majority of the assets of their society. Many of them rule with reigns of terror severely limiting the freedoms of their citizenry and subjects.
Even as America does not "believe" in the validity of a monarchical government, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, God did not believe in the monarchy either. The last great Judge of Israel was Samuel and in his time the people of Israel pestered him about their needing king like their surrounding enemy nations. Why? They thought that they needed a central figure who could conscript armies for the general protection of their nation and provide some enforcement for their own social order. Samuel warned them as indicating that "we have no king but God, the Holy One," and if you want an earthly king, such a one might be able to build an army, but such an earthly king will also be a "kleptocrat" taking your properties so that he could be the wealthiest person in the nation. He also would conscript your sons into the armies and he would take your daughters as brides to attain unity among the tribes or marry the daughters of the kings of other nations to keep from going to war.
Samuel gave in to the people's request for a king, and he anointed both kings Saul and David. Samuel's warning from God about kingly misbehavior proved mainly true and the history of the kings of Israel and Judah recount many of their misdeeds, even though they did have their high points as well. The history of the kings of Israel and Judah indicate that none of them was omni-competent. First king Saul lost the kingly lineage because of his misdeeds. David, the most famous king, arranged for the death of the husband of a woman he lusted after. He was a troubled family man whose own son Absalom rebelled against him. David's son Solomon, born from the mother Bathsheba who David had stolen from Uriah the Hittite, was famously wise, wealthy, and the builder of the Temple, but because he was drawn to please so many wives and concubines, he catered to many of wives' penchant for deities other than the One Holy One of Israel.
So, how could earthly kings be a model for a heavenly one?
History has a way of forgetting faults of some. After being dislodged from their lands in exile, the nostalgia for a king like David grew. Would that there would be the coming of an anointed one like David and in his lineage who could restore Israel's sovereignty.
When things are bad, heroes are needed and the myths of heroes can flourish for people who need to have some hope that they will be liberated.
The New Testament writing were generated in the era of the myth of the Messiah for an oppressed people whose lands were occupied and it did not seem obvious that the Romans were going to be defeated anytime soon. In fact, they were brutal in putting down revolts even to the complete destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
The New Testament writers had to write in complete fantasy about how Jesus of Nazareth could be the Messiah, the anointed King for the world.
And the complete disconnect between world reality and Christian reality is poignantly seen in the skepticism of Pontus Pilate who is interrogating Jesus before his crucifixion. "So, you are a king?" the skeptic Pilate, perhaps sneers with playful mocking, noting the fact that most people who are real kings do not get tried and sent to death on a cross.
The New Testament writers are writing about their spiritual reality, a reality that does not have visual substantiation for most of the world who live in the actual visible reality the of obvious king of the world, the Caesar of Rome.
The New Testament writers, pushed everything upstairs, into another realm. Jerusalem is a heavenly one, the Temple is a heavenly Temple with a heavenly High Priest. The church is a new Israel, a new spiritual nation. Jesus, in the view of Pilate and most of the world was seen as weak and failed prophet who was not strong enough or intelligent enough to avoid getting himself killed.
His messiahship, his heavenly reign was only known by those who accessed the realm of his reappearings in the innumerable ways in which he did to those who called themselves his followers.
Pilate and others, could sneeringly say to all Christians, "So, you are followers of a King other than the Caesar? Isn't that precious. Show me your king!"
Christ the King, or Christ the Messiah as presented by the writers of the New Testament was an apologetic for the kind of inward, "spiritual" experience which was happening in such a widespread and infectious way that required them to generate a language to explain it to themselves and to those who would experience the new kind of inwardness professed by those of the Jesus Movement.
In making the case for Jesus as the Messiah, they had to bifurcate in time, two aspects of how the messiah had been presented in the various writings which existed for them to read in Hebrew Scriptures, the Apocryphal writings, and the apocalyptic writings which are extra-canonical for the historic church.
Jesus had to be explicated as the suffering servant figure of the prophet Isaiah to make sense of the incredible humiliation which on the surface seems totally inconsistent with a figure who is supposed to be kingly like David and liberate the nation of Israel. One might cite divergence on the particulars of the Messiah as a major difference between the synagogue and Jesus Movement going through a separation process. For Jesus to be a more Davidic military interventionistic Messiah, the Jesus Movement using their exposure to the apocalyptic writings had to delay this aspect of Jesus the Christ to a future.
The future intervention by a Heavenly Kingly force has the function of being a needed analgesic in visualizing hope for people who have, are, and will be intermittently experiencing suffering on both personal and societal levels.
In this regard, we live in the age of the continually delayed intervention of a powerful coercive Heavenly Messiah, but the truth of visualizing actual end to pain and suffering for people is a valid truth. One can note that much of modern society look for such temporary analgesics in the movie genres of action adventure, the utopian/dystopian, and the apocalyptic. We should never diminish the function of the hauntings of hope with the visualizations of what can and should be ideal in what justice and love can mean for us. We need not be apologetic for our apocalyptic vision; if not Christian, such visions still exist in the world at large even while some would mock our quaint out-dated biblical apocalyptic visions.
How might we continue to justify confessing Jesus as kingly, or as the most omni-competent model person for us?
Well, it is quite impressive for a person who has not been walking on this earth for a couple of thousand years to be a confessed pervasive presence in the lives of so many. One might say the massive collective effects of what has been called experiences of the Risen Christ in so many people in so many different ways, would qualify as being worthy of the Kingly designation indeed. It is a hidden kingliness within the in-Christed person.
What remains for us to validate is how Christ the Risen King becomes behaviors in our lives that are worthy of the example of Jesus of Nazareth. Are we willing to minister to the kingly presence of Christ in the poor, the needy, and the vulnerable? Or do we want to over-identity with political Christs in Christendoms or Christian Nationalisms?
If we want to be political about Christ the King today, let us politically care for the vulnerable and the needy and bring about justice in our society. Let us not be tricked to be false Christian rubber stamps for manipulative greedy and powerful people who love to use Christian votes for very non-Christ-like outcomes.
Let us accept the hiddenness of Christ the King in us today, but let that hiddenness be evident in our words and deeds of love and justice today. Amen.
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