The True King
If you do a little digging around you will soon discover that there is a whole plethora of stories about the rise or return of a good and noble monarch who will re-establish the fortunes of a particular region or country by ousting the former evil overlords and restoring justice to the realm. This is the impetus of stories such as Robin Hood, The Lion King, Lord of the Rings, King Arthur and his Knights, Snow White, Star Wars and many others too numerous to name here. This same aspiration is inherent in our political daydreams of eventually finding the perfect system of government.
There is a fundamental reason why our folk-lore, fairy tales and political fantasies are populated with stories of a just and noble king or queen, who will one day, rightly rule the world. Ever since our collective rejection of God’s authority and our fall into the autonomy of Adam and Eve we have only succeeded in producing a never-ending parade of rulers who fall short of what we instinctively know needs to be done. Just in the last 100 years we have seen the rise of Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Westernism, Islamism, Liberalism and other isms, which have all had their day in the sun, but they have all ultimately led to disappointment and dismay. Hope springs eternal in the human heart, however, and we never seem to lose confidence that the next king will be the answer to our longings. Even now there are many who believe that we just need to tweak liberalism or socialism a bit and everything will be a okeydokey. I think I can confidently predict that that no amount of tweaking will do the trick.
In any case, even if we somehow produced the perfect political system, death would still end up making a mockery of our self-sufficiency and create instability for the future. And what of justice for all those who have suffered cruelly under tyrannical systems in the past? No, we need God to be king and we need to see the end of evil and death. That would be the only just kind kingdom. The good news is precisely that, Jesus Christ is that king and the proof of his authority is the resurrection.
Unlike all the kings who have gone before, Jesus is a humble and serving king. On Palm Sunday Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on a lowly colt of a donkey. Matthew, in his rendition of this story quotes Zechariah 9: 9 saying, “Announce to the people of Jerusalem: ‘Your king is coming to you! He is humble and rides on a donkey. He comes on the colt of a donkey.’ ” (Matthew 21: 5). Our king does not ride a war-horse dressed in armour; he comes to die and rescue us from death. This is the return of the true king and he will put down all the evil overlords and restore justice and peace. It is the answer to the age long prayer, “Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6: 10).
In faith,
David Kowalick
