The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost, the Feast of Christ the King. It is worthwhile to look briefly at the way the people of Biblical times understood the idea of a king, and also to have a look at the way the Jewish people viewed the ideas of king and kingdom. Looking at these things will help us get a better understanding of the reason that today is designated the Feast of Christ the King, and it will also give us a clearer understanding of the meaning of our Baptism.
It is often hard for us, who live in a democracy where we elect our government officers, to understand what a king was in the near East during biblical times. A man might become king by defeating all others who wanted to be king, that is, by sheer strength...his own physical strength and the strength, numbers and power of his army which could defeat other candidates, or the armies of other candidates. Once a man became king, usually his eldest son would become king when the old king died. Kingship went down in families, from father to son to grandson. Most people believed that this was decided by God and that it was a sin to rebel against the king, who would often be called "God's anointed" because at coronations, the king would be anointed with oil. This is still done today in those countries that have kings and queens.
Once a man became king, there was no limit at all on his authority in his own country. If he decided that he didn't like someone, he could throw that person into prison without a trial. He could order a person executed without a trial. He could take over land, money or buildings whenever he liked, and could order the daughter of one of the citizens brought to him to become a wife or concubine, whether or not she wanted to fill that position. It was a very stupid thing to get your king mad at you, or to have power or riches that would make him want to get rid of you so that he could take them over! Kings served for life, and there were no checks or balances to keep their power under control. What the king said was law. Period. There was no appeal.
In the Old Testament, which was written originally in Hebrew, the word baal means: god, king and lord. It is used to describe a god, a king, a minor lord who might own a large estate or many farms, or even to describe a husband. When spelled with a capital B, it became the name of the most popular of the Canaanite gods, who attracted the worship of many Jews....quite contrary to their covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, who is the God we still worship today. A pagan god, a local lord, a husband all had unlimited power within their own area, just as a king had unlimited power within his kingdom. This was true not only in Israel, but in most of the ancient world. Roman fathers had absolute power over their unmarried children, their wives, and their servants, just as did the kings in the Middle East and in Europe, and this kind of power really continued in much of the world until around 1600, when many of the European countries started to limit the powers of kings by law.
So: when the Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and they arrived at Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments and made their Covenant with God, the basic promise was: if you people obey my law, you will be my people, and I will be your God. The other side of the coin, so to speak, was not spelled out but was quite clear: disobey me, and I will no longer take care of you and protect you....you're on your own.
With this in mind, we can see what a terrible thing it seemed to Samuel when the people asked for a king, like the other nations have. They may not have thought it through, but when they asked Samuel to go to God and take their request for a king, what they were actually saying was, God isn't enough king for us...we want a human king we can see, just like all the other nations have. We can see why Samuel was so upset. And we can understand why God was almost laughing up his sleeve. Yes, a human king was what they wanted, but the people didn't seem to realize that a human king was HUMAN. He could not be just and merciful in the way that God could be. He would almost certainly make more trouble for the people than they realized: taking over their land, raising their taxes, taking their daughters into his harem, forcing the men to be drafted into his army, and run errands for him all over the place! God told Samuel to go and anoint Saul, who became the first king over Israel. And then their troubles really did begin!
Later on, after several kings had had civil wars with their brothers over who got to be king, and after several others were made slaves by conquering armies of their enemies, they began to get the idea. Eventually, the Greeks conquered Israel, and later the Roman army conquered the Greeks, taking over Israel along with other lands the Greeks had been ruling. And so we come down to the day of Jesus, when the so-called "king", Herod, was merely a puppet king, set on the throne by Rome, to keep the people quiet. Herod wasn't even a Jew! And he was as bad as most of the kings of the time: killing his brothers and sons so they wouldn't try to take the throne away from him, taking his brother's wife to be his own wife, and so on.
And then came the arrest and trial of Jesus. The Roman governor, Pilate, found no reason to put Jesus to death. He seems to have thought that the whole business of the trial of Jesus was just different groups within Judaism fussing about Jewish religious law. And so he took Jesus out on the balcony in front of the crowd, and asked: Shall I put to death this man, who says he is your king? And the crowd roared back, Crucify him! We have no king except Caesar, the king of Rome! When they said that, they were saying, again, that God was not their king, that the king of Rome was their king instead of God. They did not know, of course, that Jesus is God the Son. But when they refused to claim any king other than the king of Rome, they were thumbing their noses at God and his right to rule over them and all that he himself had made.
Now when Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey the previous Sunday (which we call Palm Sunday), he was using a symbol of kingship that was well known to the Jews. A king who won his position in battle would ride on a war horse. A king who came in peace would ride on a donkey. So it is reasonable to think that at least some of the Jewish people remembered this and put two and two together. Some most likely decided, that Palm Sunday, that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. But when they saw him hanging on the cross on Friday, most changed their minds. How could the mighty Messiah, from God, be crucified and allowed to die like a common criminal? They decided that he was not the Messiah, the anointed one, after all. It was not until Easter Day that Jesus, through his resurrection, proved that he had conquered death and was indeed the Messiah, the King. But not many people were aware of the Resurrection at the time, and Jesus showed no desire at all to assume the position of kingship. Instead, he taught his followers that his kingdom was and is NOT part of this world. It is in the world to come, the world where Jesus rules at God's right hand, as we read in the books of Daniel and Revelation.
And now: at Baptism we are asked a series of questions, and the most important ones have to do with Jesus the
Christ. The key question is: Do you promise to follow and obey him (Jesus) as your Lord? To this we are supposed to answer: I do. When we say that, we give to Jesus complete, unlimited right to rule over ourselves....body, mind, heart and soul, and all that we have, just as the ancient kings had exactly that kind of power over their people.
Today, the feast of Christ the King, we are celebrating in advance the time, after the end of the world, when everyone living in God's kingdom will have willingly and joyfully given that power to Jesus, and will have accepted gladly his rule over all things, ourselves included. When that time comes, God's kingdom will indeed have come, just as we pray in the Lord's Prayer. Everyone will be conforming themselves willingly to the ways of God, so there will be perfect peace and harmony. And the center and light of the Kingdom will be the Lamb, Jesus the Lord, God the Son.
Our part in preparing for that wonderful day is clear: to continually do all that we can to bring our own bodies, minds, souls and emotions, and our own property, into line with what we know God wants of us, and to work to bring the rest of society into a way of living that shows God's justice and mercy and love. Today's celebration is a small taste of the glorious delights that will come one day, when we see Jesus on his throne of glory at the right hand of God himself. Amen.
