1. Today, as we talk, sing and pray about how Jesus is KING, take a close look at Him on our beautiful cross. Look at how that instrument of death and punishment has a Kings crown that sits at top. The goal today is for us to understand how the ‘CROSS’ we bear, like Jesus did, is also our instrument of dying to self and pathway that ultimately LEADS to our CROWN of glory.
The mystery of Cross & Kingship in Salvation History stems from the hope of God’s Chosen people to have a KING to lead them and a KINGDOM to live in. It must be noted that what the people wanted and what God meant by King and Kingdom were two different things.
2. The story gets it start with the Covenant between God & Abraham. About 1800 B.C., God tells Abraham, because of an act of Trust, He will make an agreement with him: He will become the father to many. His descendents will be as numerous as the stars. Then God proceeds to make 3 promises to Abraham who was a nomadic/childless man.
1) To give Abraham and his descendants their own LAND.
2) To make his descendants a GREAT and BLESSED NATION.
3) To make the children of Abraham the source of a DIVINE BLESSING for all families of the earth.
3. Early accounts of Israel show while they were not lead by a King, the concept of a King for Israel, gets its’ birth around 1300 BC, where Moses, their next major leader, reluctantly predicts the people, who had now grown into a nation, will desire a king. Moses even wrote legislation to govern the future king’s conduct and policies (Dt 17:14 20). Yet there was also a strong sense in the Old Testament that an EARTHLY monarch would contradict God’s sovereignty over Israel (see Deuteronomy 33:5; Judges 8:22-23)
These tensions come to a head in the people’s request in the time of Samuel (About 1000 BC) to be given a king “as the other nations have”, (see 1 Samuel 8:7). It must be noted that the desires of the Hebrew people was for an earthly king to FIGHT battles and CONQUER territories for them. God does consent to their request and “uses” it to fulfill His own covenant plan for Israel and His kingship of the world.
The establishment of Israel’s monarchy as ORDAINED by God was articulated in our Scripture today. While Saul was the first King, he was ‘Chosen by the people’. God showed his displeasure in him. So then God chose and Anointed David to be king. In this way, God’s ‘chosen king’ and all subsequent heirs, would be an earthly manifestation of God’s rule over the world. As Gods’ chosen, the King would be the one to lead the people to obey God’s commands and to worship Him alone.
4. As God established the Kingdom with David, God also made promises to his people in themes of a more ‘Royal Nature’. He promises them DIVINE SONSHIP, TEMPLE BUILDING, and an EVERLASTING DYNASTY.
The Israelite people now had their first taste of God’s Kingdom with David. And it continued after King David’s Anointing, reign and death, when his son Solomon was anointed King. Under Solomon those promises of God, as the Israelites perceived them, all seemed to be falling in place. They were living in the Promised Land. Under Solomon they became a pinnacle Nation to the world and he also built the Temple, where for the first time the ‘Arc of the Covenant’ or ‘GLORY’ of God had it’s home. The ISRAELITE people HAD IT ALL right here on earth.
With Israel’s history of unfaithfulness, things went down hill from there. In 716 BC, the Assyrians exiled the northern kingdom. In 586 BC the Babylonians Crushed the temple, killed the last King and took the Judaic kingdom to exile in Babylon. The Israelite people who just a few hundred years earlier HAD IT ALL, now had LOST IT ALL.
So then for the next 500 years, the Israelites pinned their lives on the hope that God would again send them a Messiah…a new King. Again, the anointed one of God, would come to reestablish them in their LAND, give them back the worldly GREATNESS and rebuild the Temple and bring Gods’ presence back. Time passed slowly, but in the fullness of time, God’s plan brought Jesus into the world. And as the infancy stories tell us, that promise, that hope was being fulfilled. And for the next 30 years, the New Testament scriptures are full of stories of people who either DO believe or DON’T believe, right up to the moment of our Gospel today, that this Jesus, who you see hanging on the cross …IS or IS NOT the MESSIAH…the anointed one or promised King.
5. All four Evangelists tell us that when Jesus was crucified on Calvary Pilate had this inscription written on the upper arm of the cross which said that he was “King of the Jews.” It was one and at the same time a ‘Dig’ against the Jews, because they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and a ‘Proclamation of Truth’ to the world, that Jesus was the King of Kings. But the sad truth is and we must use him as a check against our depth of faith: he chose to take care of himself. Pilate thought more of his job than of his justice. So he condemned Jesus, while admitting that he was innocent.
6. It would be wise for us to consider the good thief in our Gospel today – St. Dismas. He was a condemned criminal and the first person to formally recognize and believe Jesus Christ as king. He captured the Lord’s Heart with that humble request: ‘Jesus remember me when you come in your kingly power’. The faith of Dismas deepened as Christ’s divinity and kingship became increasingly obscured. This man was able to grasp the real meaning of Christ’s kingship even though it was the object of merciless ridicule.
7. Know that the Lord always grants us more than what we ask for. That thief, our brother Dismas merely asked to be remembered, but the Lord said, ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’ The essence of life is to live with Jesus Christ. To know that the promise are all about living in the Heavenly Kingdom. Jesus our King is also there with us to lead us into His reign. Don’t allow the LURE of the things of the earth, or the obscurity of His Kingship here on earth today, cause you to go falter.
Maybe today in your own way, as your receive Him under the forms of Bread and Wine, place yourself, with your sins and sufferings, on your own cross at his right. Feel Him in your heart and look at Him on His cross and formally recognize Him as your king and say, “Jesus remember me in your Kingdom”.
The Inscription written by Pilate for the sentence of death of Jesus Christ.
Latin was the official language of Rome. The inscription written in this Language represents the human government, power and conquest.
Greek was the language of the international culture. The inscription written in Greek represents the wisdom, art and commerce.
Hebrew was the Language of the Jews. The inscription in Hebrew represented the Covenant race, the Law of God and the means by which God made himself known to man.
Recent Comments