Christ the King

Jeremiah 23: 1-6. Jeremiah prophesies a future King of Israel called "The Lord is our righteousness". Christians (the new Israel) identify this as Jesus Christ of course.

Colossians 1: 11-20. Paul tells us that the Father has "delivered us from darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son". He then tells us what qualifies Jesus for this role as king of this kingdom that is very close to reading John 1: 1-18. In Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and all things will be reconciled to Jesus in the end

Luke 23: 33-43. Jesus' kingship is mocked and his reign is misunderstood. He is tempted to avoid the cross (his very mission) and save both himself and his taunters. His kingship (kingdom) is misunderstood as essentially of this world only and with consequences for Palestine alone, rather than being eternal and universal.   

Who do you look to for leadership, moral guidance, direction or inspiration. A political figure (less and less common), a celebrity (very common nowadays), some spiritual guru perhaps?

But for a Christian that question should be absolutely simple.

We look to our king, Jesus. That term might be problematic if you are a republican perhaps but we are not talking about political systems here, we are making clear to whom we owe our loyalty, who we follow and who inspires us so ”King” fits the Bill more than any other description. “Christ the President” doesn’t really cut it and actually the kind of king that the Bible yearned for and often described was more like a shepherd who looked after his sheep.

Jeremiah rails against the imperfect shepherds that had beset Israel and looked forward to a future perfect king of Israel and his name will be “The Lord is our righteousness”.

The Christian church is the new Israel and Jesus is that perfect shepherd, our righteous king. Unlike the failed shepherds, Jesus is also divine and so is perfectly just, perfectly loving and also sees through all our pretence. He can’t be fooled and will also rebuke us when we go astray.

His power though at his crucifixion is mocked and misunderstood. In Luke he is tempted to misuse his power for his own ends, to save himself from the cross, but he refuses. He has bigger fish to fry. His mission is to serve and die for the whole world. He proves his steadfastness and trustworthiness in looking past his own needs and fulfilling God’s will. We have a sacrificial king, the suffering servant prophesied in Isaiah, who was willing to die for us.

In a strange irony, the reason Jesus was killed was nailed to his cross and the charge against him read “The King of the Jews”. But the scope of Jesus’ kingdom had been misjudged. They thought his kingdom was a worldly one and his aim was to simply remove the Romans from power.

In fact his kingdom was universal and everlasting and the kingdoms he challenged went far beyond the Roman empire and included all the temporal powers of this world, past, present and future.  

And although it is only Christians in this world that recognise his divine rule, actually Christ is king over all creation. As Paul writes “for in him all things in heaven and earth were created” We are the lucky ones, we are blessed because we have seen and recognised his rule. One day everyone will bow the knee regardless when the truth is revealed to them. Paul says that one day, everything in all creation will be reconciled to this fact, both on earth and in heaven – so every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and King.

So we have privileged knowledge. We already have been transferred to the kingdom of God. We are already children of God because we are privy to the truth. We are presented holy and blameless and above reproach to the Father through Jesus.

We need a new boldness and a new confidence in this fact. We need to let that fact empower us.

Our kingdom is forever. Our king is forever.

We have God himself on our side, so we have nothing to fear. In God’s grace we have the ultimate assurance, comfort and safety net. We have a freedom to be bold and try new things. Even if we fail we still have God’s blessing. If we sometimes trip and fall God will still pick us up again.

Our shepherd king will always hold us in his grasp and never let us go. He went so far as to die for us – why do we think he’d let us down now?

Christ is our leader, our moral guide, our inspiration, our servant, brother, shepherd and KING.