Just Like Him

"... to become King by dying."

WHAT IS REQUIRED of a king? That he be born? That he fight wars? Must he be learned, intelligent? Of particular height and stature? Israel wanted a king, so God gave them Saul, although He was King. God said this to them. They didn’t care (1 Samuel 8:19-20). They would have a man to guide them, to stand before nations. Saul was only as good as other men. Though he stood above them, taller than most, though he comported himself well at first, in the end, he fell into sin like everyone else. Except in his case, it cost him the kingship and ultimately his mental health and his life. The kings which followed were both godly and ungodly. King David, the most revered, was known for his heart for God yet sinned and took a man’s wife for his own. King Solomon, his son, built the temple. Known for his wealth and wisdom, he drew interest from afar. But he, too, had many wives, far more than he could deal with, and lost his peace worshiping their false gods at the top of every hill.

Manmade kings cheat and lie and steal. Even the good ones. Manmade queens may hold themselves well in front of the people, but around them spin wheels of politics which threaten to tear down their image. People gather and divide and divide again, as generations change and leadership ages. What was one way decades before is unheard of in the current time, and we ask honor, remembrance, for events, for losses, that those younger than us don’t see enough to understand.

So who is a king anyway? A face? Leadership? Opinion swayed by those around them. Required to stand upright, face-forward, unblinking, they quiver at the knees and sometimes fold. We make our heroes, instead, out of AI and plastic. Dressed in strengths beyond human capacity, they swoop in and save populations, who are unaware of their capabilities. We decorate posterboard and street marquees with times for their viewing, and children, young and old, plead to be there for it. But a natural king, we say, should be removable and short-lived for only a lifetime, all his decisions weighed on the various scales of justice constructed by those who claim greater knowledge. Then, buried and gone, they are honored only in memory, as others scramble to take their place.

Israel’s kingship split the nation. King Solomon predicted it when he said he’d simply divide a stolen infant in half and settle the dispute (1 Kings 3:25). The mother of the child pleaded for his life, and so Solomon knew which woman had lied. His son, Rehoboam, became king but followed none of his father’s wisdom, though the book of Proverbs is addressed to him. Rehoboam chose the selfishness of his friends over the advice of elders in leadership, and in that came in what would split God’s people in half (1 Kings 12:8). Then we find Israel to the north and Judah below it. But Solomon, in the infant, had said God would not come to a divided people. Prophecy of the Messiah could only be fulfilled when they were one. How strange, then, that the one nation, under God who Israel became was without kingship any longer and under the thumb of Rome when the King of all Kings was born.

What’s in a king? Jesus’ authority exceeds any other, yet His life followed a pathway away from the kingdom as they knew it and toward a place in heaven that no one, then, had known. We, in the body of Christ today, honor and revere Him. Those of His people, for the most part, don’t know who He is. Jesus is either a story from history or a fable men have created. There’s nothing concrete in their view to hold onto, to believe. He planned it that way, walking the streets and countrysides of a conquered territory and calling out for repentance. Men knew the prophecies of His birth (Matthew 2:5), knew the words of those like Isaiah, yet leaned on a broken system of democracy that would splinter in the soon future and vanish from the earth (John 11:48). Their worship would come falling down, the temple lay in ruins (Matthew 24:2). He told them this while asking them to believe that He was who they had expected.

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:” (John 11:25)

What makes a King is not anger and violence. What causes Him to rise and stand firm is not bourgeoisie. A war was fought but not in the way men are used to, and a victory won, but not visible and cheered on by crowds. It is, instead, that He learned to be a King by being one of the people, by taking on their visage and carrying their weight. He learned obedience through His suffering in a way we have not seen. Because He would be King of Kings more was required. Not a picture-perfect painting hung in a golden marble hall, nor, like Rome, a trail of conquerings won by a general’s valiant hand. Not a name known from ages before. Though He is directly related in kingship to their King David, and we read His genetics in the gospels, they argued over where He’d been born and saw Him as only yet another man leading an unneeded revolt (John 15:20).

God asked Him, the Son of God, to become King by dying. To stand silent while He was condemned, in patience accepting what was grossly unfair. He could say nothing while they blamed Him and would love them to the point of their complete forgiveness. We see Jesus’ sacrifice. We don’t see why it was required. For our salvation, yes. Our King died and rose again to provide us a way to the Father. He is the Truth, the Word made flesh. He is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). He was the sacrifice which fulfilled the Old Covenant Law and the blood spilled to write New Covenant promise. Because He died and rose again, we can live in peace, shalom, well-being, without any more wars or conflicts, no chaos. Jesus Christ brought the will of heaven to earth (Matthew 6:10). All of this is true.

But death was for Him a place of obedience that He was required to walk because God would have His Son be just like Him as the King. He spoke it into existence thousands of years before with the promise that not one word would fail (Isaiah 55:11) and asked it of no one else, knowing it would be accomplished in Him. Jesus became King by being the most humble, without sin, without fault, in a manner no one expected. In a story that men, since then, have overlooked, rewritten, assumed, and disbelieved. Not gallant as store-bought heroes, nor a strength of physical sword or blade, but by virtue, in submission, His every word spoken, the Words of the Father, every action done in surrender. Holy.

“Though he were a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Hebrews 4:8-9)

Photo by Alicia Quan on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com