Stations of the Cross, Pt. 5: "Christ the King"

CHRIST THE KING (JOHN 19:19-22)
19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21 The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."
22 Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written." (John 19:19-22)

According to legend, no king is as beloved, powerful and ideal as King Arthur, the king who obtained the throne when he pulled the sword Excalibur from a stone. He ruled a perfect enchanting kingdom called Camelot – a name prematurely attributed to John and Jacqueline Kennedy’s supposedly-happy marriage. When King Arthur first met his future queen, Guinevere, he successfully convinced her that the ideal conditions at Camelot would make her happy, too, if she stayed with him.

Unfortunately, the perfect kingdom was shattered when the well-meaning King Arthur conceived a plan to gather the bravest and fairest knights from around the world to dispense justice for his people. The best knight from the famed Knights of the Round Table, however, was Lancelot and he fell hopelessly in love with the queen and had an affair with her.

On the day the queen came to her senses to pluck up her courage to leave Lancelot, King Arthur’s roguish son from his wild past laid in wait and ambush with a group of men to arrest the cheating pair. Lancelot escaped but returned to rescue the queen from burning at the stake, to the relief of the reluctant king. Before she left Camelot for good, the former queen wanted to see King Arthur for the last time. When she bade him farewell, King Arthur asked Lancelot to take good care of the queen. Lancelot tearfully explained that the queen did not choose him either; she had decided to live the rest of her days as a nun.

Christ is a king unlike frail and foggy human kings. The kingship of Christ is also the single most serious and controversial accusation the Jewish religious leaders brought before Pilate against Jesus. Curiously, Jesus did nothing dent the allegation, to discourage or deny designation.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey, the Pharisees (Luke 19:39, John 12:18-19), the chief priests and the teachers of the law (Matt 21:15) were enraged by the excited disciples, the massive crowd and their reverberating chorus: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38).

Jesus is the King of the Jews, the King of Israel (Matt 27:42, John 1:49, John 12:13), the king who comes in the name of the Lord (Luke 19:38). Rightly, contemptuously or prophetically, Jesus was called King of the Jews eighteen times (Matt 2:2, 27:11, 27:29, 27:37, Mark 15:2, 15:9, 15:12,15:18, 15:26, Luke 23:3, 23:37, 23:38, John 18:33, 18:39, 19:3, 19:19, 19:21, 19:21) - the first time by the magi at his birth, the King of Israel four times (Matt 27:42, Mark 15:32, John 1:49, 12:13) and once, the king who comes in the name of the Lord (Luke 19:38). On top of the designations, Christ is recorded simply as “king” in eight instances (Matt 21:5, Luke 23:2, John 6:15, 18:37, 18:37, 19:12, 19:15, 19:15).

So, what kind of king is Christ? Why was He such an unwilling king on earth, upsetting the notions of his disciples and enemies? When will He reign unquestionably and how will he rule?

Jesus Christ is the Sovereign King
In most ancient culture, kings claimed a divine mandate. They were adored by the masses, accountable to no one and met with royal treatment. Even then, kingship was never permanent. Kings usually last for a generation, an era or a dynasty. Today, monarchy had given way to democracy, socialism and communism. Most kings were toppled, jailed and vilified in domestic revolutions. No monarchy’s downfall was more spectacular and vivid than the guillotine execution of France’s King Louis XVI and his 37-year old wife, Marie Antoinette, in 1793, about three years after the French Revolution erupted in 1789 and a year after the First French Republic was established in September, 1792, less than four months before the king was executed.

Royalty today is mostly perfunctory. They concern themselves with national duties, social activities and diplomatic functions. Though constitutional monarchs meet with foreign kings, prime ministers and ambassadors, they prefer to stay out of the political limelight and the newspaper headlines, content to receive a sizable budget from the state and careful to say little on how government should run.

The most famous royal family today is the English monarchy, ironically led by a queen, not a king! The English Parliament allots $11.2 million a year to the queen for her official expenses as head of state and to support her husband and mother. About 70% of that goes to staff salaries. In addition, the queen generates revenue from land and other valuables passed from generation to generation - which earned about $189 million in 2000, the year in which the royal family spent a paltry $50 million. A royal watcher muttered: “The queen and her heirs enjoy favorable tax status. Unlike the rest of us, they negotiate their own income tax rate.” (Los Angeles Times 6/20/01)

Pilate’s announcement of Jesus as the King of the Jews was not novel or sincere. Jesus was not king because Pilate or the crowd declared him so or because the disciples acknowledged him so. The wise men that sought the King of the Jews at his birth had already proclaimed baby Jesus the King of the Jews (Matt 2:2) and had beaten Pilate to the punch thirty three years ago. Unlike popular kings such as King Saul and King David, Jesus was born king of the Jews, not anointed by a prophet (1 Sam 10:1, 15:1, 15:17, 16:12), by the people (2 Sam 2:4, 2:7) or the elders (2 Sam 5:3). He was king of the Jews, but he was not slavish to Jewish or Gentile political views or personal interest. Unlike earthly kings that could collapse or end, Jesus was born of royalty and for royalty, and not born into royalty.

Jesus was a king of his own choosing and making. He was the king of the people, but he refused to be made king by the people. His sovereign empire extends to all the peoples of the earth, not just his own people or race. While He is the King of the Jews, His kingship is over all land, realm, people and countries. He is not merely King of the Jews; He is the King of the earth (Ps 47:7, Ps 47:2-3, Zech 14:9) and King of the nations (Jer. 10:7).

To the end, Jesus’ kingship was unique. The Sovereign King chose to ride in a donkey, and not in a chariot (Matt 21:5). He was the Chosen King, but not the people’s choice. He chose the unattractive duties of healing the sick, defending the helpless, ministering to people and mending broken lives, not dining with dignitaries, drinking fine wine or dressing like royalty. After feeding five thousand people, Jesus withdrew again to a mountain by himself when he knew that the people intended to come and make him king by force (John 6:15). Kingship was in his blood, but not in his ambition.

Jesus Christ is the Shepherd King
King Solomon once told a skillful craftsman: “I desire a ring with an inscription on the inside to be made for me.” The craftsman replied, “Of course, it shall be done. But tell me, what is the inscription you desire?” The wise king said, “Ah, that is for you to decide. I want you to inscribe words that will make me happy when I am sad, and the same words should also make me sad when I am happy.”

The king turned and walked away, leaving the perplexed craftsman to ponder over the strange assignment. Three days later, the craftsman appeared before the king and handed him a simple, silver band. “This is the ring you ordered,” he said. The king asked the craftsman, “Does it have the words that will make me happy when I am sad? And will those same words make me sad when I am happy?”

The craftsman handed the king his ring and said, “See for yourself.” King Solomon inspected the ring, nodded approvingly at the four words inscribed on it that say “THIS TOO SHALL PASS.” (Stella Wolf, SENIOR LIFE).

Jesus the king gave His people the greatest gift a king can give: his majestic life for their mortal lives. To that end, he was stricken, scorned and slain - the king dying for his subjects, the monarch for the masses, royalty for commoner and divinity for humanity. While some kings would volunteer to die for their subjects, none would premeditate or design that kind of kingship. He is the great Shepherd of the sheep (Heb 13:20), the Shepherd and Overseer of souls (1 Peter 2:25), the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). The Good Shepherd reigned over the hearts and minds, not the flesh and blood, of His people.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus chided the disciples for their resistance, violence and outrage: “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:52-53). And again, before Pilate, Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36).

Jesus was an unusual king, unlike the kings of the Gentiles. Jesus said to his disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:25-28). The shepherd king’s mission on earth was the forgiveness of sins, salvation of man and reconcilement with God. People’s souls, redemption and eternity were His concern and at stake. Both Mark and Matthew recorded Jesus’ identical words: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:44-45, Matt 20:28).

The Shepherd King did not live in a palace in Jerusalem. He had chosen his humble abode in Nazareth, a small village of no more than 300 people at that time, according to archaeologists. In 1996, Dr. Nakhle Bishara, the medical director of Nazareth Hospital, had come up with the idea of creating Nazareth Village for the new millennium celebrations. Bishara and an international team of developers purchased a 12-acre plot and commissioned an archaeological survey of the previously undeveloped site. Later, archaeologists Stephan Pfann and Ross Joseph Voss, who directed the excavations, revealed that the Nazareth of Jesus' day covered only 100 yards by 400 yards at most and had merely 80 to 100 houses. (“Resurrecting Nazareth” Biblical Archaeology Review, May/Jun 1999)

Our earthly holdings are actually fool’s gold in the true sense of the word - penny stocks, junk bonds and funny money. They fluctuate, tumble and crash. The kingdom of the Shepherd King however, is a long-term investment, a guaranteed return and a king’s ransom.

Jesus Christ is the Supreme King
Andrew Daughters asked in his wonderful prose: “What kind of a Kingdom has Jesus? No castle nor palace has he. No congress nor parliament sitting, deciding what laws there will be. Perhaps he has need of but two laws: Love God and your neighbor as well. To obey them is all that is needed, as all of the saintly can tell. He has neither army nor navy, no air force to guard the frontiers to keep out the strangers unwanted and maintain the enemy’s fears. Immigration he seems to encourage, of some quite disreputable, like fishermen, publicans, sinners. To such he is hospitable. It seems there’s no revenue service or taxes we must calculate. He surely cannot run a kingdom on what we put into the plate! No 1040 form comes in April to fill out before the fifteenth, with penalties charged for nonpayment, beginning upon the sixteenth. No currency’s here with his picture, no coinage engraved with his name. And where are the posters and slogans proclaiming his power and fame? And I see no trappings of kingship, no robes made of velvet and fur, no crown made of gold set with diamonds, to befit our supreme arbiter. Jesus said that his kingdom was really not what Pilate had thought it had been. It was not of this world. And its glory was not of the kind to be seen. (Andrew Daughters, The Kingdom of Jesus, CSS Publishing)

Jesus Christ will one day return bodily, then the King of glory (Ps 24:8-10) will reign in all His glory. Everyone would recognize and confess Him as the King eternal (1 Tim 1:17), the King of the ages (Rev 15:3), the Great King (Ps 48:2), King forever (Ps 29:10), King for ever and ever (Ps 10:16), the great King over all the earth (Ps 47:7, Ps 47:2-3, Zech 14:9), the great King above all gods (Ps 95:3), and King of the nations (Jer 10:7). The kingdom He brings is unshakeable, immovable and resolute (Heb 12:28).

In God’s kingdom, He raises the bar, makes the rules and searches the hearts. Access is denied to the godless rich (Matt 21:31), the religious hypocrite (Matt 23), the self-indulgent, the self-centered and the self-sufficient. A new life (John 3:3), a drastic change (Mark 10:14) and a fruitful life (Matt 21:43) is required.

In his return, he will no longer wear the mantle of the Suffering King but the Conquering King. He will no longer wear the purple robe (Mk 15:17), but on his robe and on his thigh will have the name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev 17:14, 19:16, 1 Tim 6:15). His critics will not do the answering and not the questioning. He will no longer ride on a borrowed donkey (Matt 21:5); he will ride on his white horse (Rev. 19:11), coming on the clouds of the sky, with great power and great glory (Matt 24:30, 26:64, Mark 13:26, Rev 1:7).

Conclusion: Have you accepted Jesus as your God and King? (Ps 5:2, Ps 44:4, Ps 68:24, Ps 84:3, Ps 145:1). Just as Christ suffered, we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:21-23). Are you patient in perseverance, awaiting and anticipating His return as the High King of Heaven in all His glory? Are you ready for your Master, Lord, and Savior who is the coming King? As young Simba, in Disney’s Lion King, would say why he can’t wait to be king:
No one saying, “Do this”
No one saying, “Be there”
No one saying, “Stop that”
No one saying, “See here
… free to do it all my way!
Oh. I just can’t wait to be King!