King of Love - 1st Samuel 8:19-22a; Matthew 2:1-2, 11; 27:27-31 (Nov 22 2015)

It’s Thanksgiving Week.  It is the week we celebrate the arrival of those who fled the rule of the King of England and sought to establish themselves here in America.  This week we remember the events that set this nation on course, years later, to reject the rule of a king and move toward the establishment of a publicly elected president.  With that in mind, isn’t it amazing that if we move away from our secular celebration of freedom from the rule of a king, and turn to our faith and consider the celebrations of the church year, that it is either the Sunday before or the Sunday after Thanksgiving that the Church observes Christ the King Sunday.

Flashback thousands of years and we see the exact opposite going on.  Moses had led the People of God out of Egypt and through the wilderness, leading them as the divine representative of God.  When Moses passed, Joshua took up the role of God’s leader of the people, as he led them out of the wilderness, across the Jordan, and in conquest of the Promised Land.  After Joshua’s death, as they settled in the Land, there was no permanent leader in place, they considered their lives governed by God and His Law.  However, from time to time, as enemies would arise and attack, God would raise up a leader to see them through the time of trouble (that most often resulted from the sin of God’s people)—among them, Othniel, Ehud, and Deborah…these were among the first and some of the best judges of Israel.  Years later, God would raise up the prophet Samuel as one of the greatest of the judges to lead as the Philistines plagued the people of God.  The people of Israel grew weary of repeatedly being attacked… they looked at aging Samuel and the fact that his sons were less than ideal leaders, they looked around at the nations attacking them for what they might have in common, and came to a conclusion:

“You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.”  Samuel was deeply troubled by this, feeling rejected by the people, his own leadership being questioned—he took it before God.  God told Samuel, “it’s okay…it’s not you they are doubting, it is not you they are rejecting…they have decided to reject me as their King…as their ultimate leader.  Listen to what they are asking, and warn them of what having a king will mean to them.”  Samuel does just that—he warns the people that he will take the sons and enlist them in his army; that he will take their daughters and make them his perfumers, cooks, and bakers; that he will take the best of their land; that he will take a tenth of their grain and vineyards; that he will take their slaves; and that he will take the best of their livestock.

That would be enough to turn about any of us off to the idea of a king, wouldn’t it?  I mean we revolted based on the whole idea of taxation without representation.  So we know that the collective wisdom of the people of Israel would heed Samuel’s wisdom as God’s representative, and once again trust in the One who brought them out from under Pharaoh’s rule in Egypt, and turn to God and God alone as their King.

Yet despite the warning, we read this morning as the people cried out, “No we are determined to have a king over us, so that we may also be like the other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”  God’s people forgot that they were not supposed to be like other nations, that in their difference they were supposed to lead the world in turning toward God as the One True King. 

God, having given us the gift of free will—the ability to choose for ourselves whether we will bow before God or bow before the idols of this world, heard their plea and told Samuel, “Give them what they want.”

You ever been there?  Have you ever had someone warn you over and over again that what you are asking for is a really bad idea?  Have you ignored their pleas and warnings to do otherwise?  How’d that work out for you?  If it worked out for you like it has worked out for me, even without knowing the Scriptures, we know what happened with Israel.

Israel was subject to one king after another who did just what Samuel warned that a king would do, and worse.  Even the best of kings, like David, though known as a man after God’s own heart—though he was promised that a descendant of his lineage would sit on the throne forever, was less than perfect.  Other kings, focused on their own self-interest, rather than leading the people of God, and the nations around them, toward God, led them astray…and the nation who had begged for a king to be like the other nations found themselves over and over again ruled over, and even taken into exile, amongst those other nations that they desired to be like.

It was centuries after Samuel, as the people found themselves under the rule of yet another empire, this time the Roman Empire, while the King Herod ruled as Rome’s representative in the region, that God once again responded to the cries of the people for help, and brought forth a king unlike any king the world has known before or since, unlike anything anyone expected.

Prophecies of this coming king, this messiah, were offered by the Hebrew prophets.  The words of those prophets were studied not only by the Jewish religious leaders, but by scholars far away from Israel as Persia (now known as Iran).  We see some of those scholars, those wise men enter the region, looking for this new king that was being raised up to lead Israel.  They begin where anyone looking for a king would begin, at the royal palace in the capital city of Jerusalem—where else would a king be, other than a palace.  Not finding him there, they continued to follow the star that they had followed from Persia, until they found themselves in the small town of Bethlehem.  This king was not found in the wealthiest of homes in Bethlehem; he was not found as some young strapping man, full of charisma; the scholars found themselves and this future king, in the humble home of a carpenter named Joseph and his wife, Mary—and learned, I am sure, of this king’s birth, surrounded not be a midwife and family, but by cattle and donkeys, shepherds and sheep—born not a house, but in the dark cave where the livestock slept.

There was definitely something different about this king.

Fast forward approximately thirty-three years and we see exactly how different.  He’s no longer a tiny baby…yet he’s not sitting in a regal throne room.  He’s not wearing royal robes or a crown made of the finest gold and gems.  He’s stripped of all but his loincloth and hanging from a cross, his head adorned with a crown of thorns, pressed firmly into his brow, with a sign above over his head that read, “This is Jesus, King of the Jews.”  Once this would be king was dead, some of his followers took his body down and placed it in a nearby tomb.

There was definitely something different about this king.

Three days later, as some women came to anoint his body for burial, the body was gone.  One of the women began mourning that someone had taken him away before she could pay her final respects, when suddenly He spoke her name.  Weeks later, as His followers were gathered around Him, He was lifted up to the heavens, returning to His Royal Throne Room, to reign over all of God’s people, over all of Creation, forever.

There is definitely something different about this King.

You see, where all the other kings had lived up to Samuel’s predictions of taking and taking for themselves…Jesus, King of the Jews, offered a completely different picture.  He offered a picture of what it was like to live under the Divine Kingship of God.

This King, rather than demand the 5000 feed him, takes two fish and five loaves of bread and feeds them.

This King, rather than send the sinners and lowly away in order to wine and dine the elite, dines with them in the face of criticism.

This King, rather than ride his horse on the other side of the road when approaching a leper colony, walks over to the lepers and touches them, brining healing.

This King, rather than command a legion of soldiers to kill his enemies, tells Peter to put away his sword, and from the cross cries out “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

This King who traded a heavenly throne for the feeding trough of a donkey and a royal crown full of divine gems for a crown of thorns, is the King of kings and Lord of Lords, the King of all Creation, the King of the Universe, the King of Love.

This is the King who said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength….love your neighbor as yourself…This is my commandment, that you love one another…They will know you are my disciples by your love.”

My brothers and sisters, this is the King that we worship, this is the King we follow, this is the King that in our baptism or confirmation or reaffirmation of faith have pledged our fidelity and loyalty to…this is the King who demands our allegiance above all other loyalties.  This Thanksgiving, my brothers and sisters more than celebrating steps towards democracy, let us pledge our loyalty the true King of all of us, Christ the King, the King of Love, and may our lives reflect that He is not only our Savior, but also our Lord., our King, the One we follow…and may our lives reflect His Lordship, may our loyalty be to Him above all else…and may our lives show that we worship a different kind of King…may our lives be marked by His love…humility rather than pride, giving rather than taking, serving  rather than demanding, forgiving rather than getting-even, loving over hating…

Christ the King has come to reign as the King of Love in our lives…long live the King.

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…Amen.