Thought for Today
1 Samuel 8:4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, 5 and said to him, "You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations."
2 Chronicles 7:18 then I will establish your royal throne, as I made covenant with your father David saying, 'You shall never lack a successor to rule over Israel.'
Psalm 10:16 The LORD is king forever and ever; the nations shall perish from his land.
1 Timothy 1:17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
My liturgical calendar notes that this coming Sunday is Reign of Christ Sunday. I know that some call it Christ the King Sunday. I should preface these remarks with the confession that regnal imagery is my second least helpful way to understand our relationship with our Creator God and with Jesus. My least helpful way would be militant imagery. I must admit, however, that the word king appears more than 2000 times in the Bible.
Leaving aside all the current political discussions about kings and kingship, I was taught in school that the Founding Fathers of the U.S.A. did consider establishing our nation as a monarchy. Given that most of the colonists or their ancestors were from nations governed by kings, and given that most nations of the world at that time were governed by kings or queens, it is understandable. There were those among those founders who wished to offer the crown to George Washington. Thankfully, Washington refused to accept the crown and did not support the idea.
King, queen, Caesar, Tsar, Kaiser, irrespective of the specific title, the idea of a single, absolute ruler has deep historical roots. Most modern monarchies are more symbolic than representative of absolute rule. Many are constitutional monarchies carefully defining and separating the duties of legislative, judicial and ceremonial entities.
Regrettably, there are still nations that, despite appearances, are still governed by an absolute ruler. Russia and China immediately come to mind. Their leaders are not called kings, but they more closely resemble the true, historical role of kings.
Do most people really want a king? Do we have some sort of genetic marker in our DNA influencing our desire for a single point of accountability for the political, economic and even spiritual health of our nations? At times, as I watch the television news, I wonder. Our network media seem to have an obsession with the British nobility as do many Hollywood celebrities.
Part of our issue in understanding regnal imagery in our faith traditions is from the historical settings of our Bible. The Israelites begged the prophet and judge Samuel, “appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations."
Our ancestors-in-the-faith wanted to be “just like all the other kids on the block.” Everybody else had a king, why shouldn’t they? Until that defining moment in their history as a people, the idea had always been that God was their ruler and king. The book of Judges relates the successes and failures of that earthy model of ‘situational judges’ arising to meet current existential crises.
Another aspect of the issue in understanding regnal imagery in our relationship with God is our human limitations in understanding God. We are faced with the challenge of trying to understand our infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Creator God with using our temporal, limited, marginally potent, often unknowing human minds. We don’t even have the ideas, much less the words to describe and understand the One who was before the beginning, “Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.”
“Exodus 3:13 But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
This coming Sunday is Reign of Christ Sunday. If regnal imagery helps you understand our relationship with our Creator God . . . that’s okay. If it does not, that’s okay also. Either way, we can find comfort in Paul’s words to Timothy; we too can pray, “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
God as King; God as Father; God as the triune Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. Any way we approach our Creator God, the important thing is that we do so. We are who and what we are because “Genesis 2:7 the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
Stay safe, talk to God today and every day, trust God,
Pastor Ray