We stand on the edge of Advent
where we look forward to Christ’s coming, but today, we celebrate with
thanksgiving that Christ has already come, that He is here, and that He is
reigning, not that we don’t eagerly await His return. I know that I hope Christ returns soon, but
even with the world crazy out of control, we can take comfort in knowing that
Jesus is King and is on the throne. There’s
so much bad leadership in our world and in our country that many people
struggle with Christ the King Sunday. We do see a lot of corruption. Our own government is full of it, and it
isn’t just in the executive branch, though it’s there as well. We have seen “No Kings” protests around the country. People don’t like the idea of being ruled by
a king or dictator or an oligarchy, which is what is really is. As I travel the “conspiracy theory” road,
reading books like this one, The Pentegon's Brain by Annie Jacobson, I realize it’s not democrats versus republicans,
it’s a handful of interconnected people who have gained power and kept it for
decades and aren’t willingly going to give it up any time soon. Just because your person is in power doesn’t
mean things will get a lot better or change all that much. We don’t get to elect those with the real
power, which makes us not so different from the people in Isaiah’s day who
didn’t get to choose their leaders. We
are ruled by “foolish nobles,” as our text describes this morning. Billionaires toss a few dollars our way or to
some seemingly good cause, but only to disguise their roguery. When the poor go hungry and thirsty, fools
are in power. Proverbs 29:2 says, “When
the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule,
the people groan.” There’s a lot of
groaning going on.
This isn’t unique to our day. Jean Calvin noted it as well. As pastor Dennis Davidson said in a sermon on
this text, “Calvin points out that
in bad government the covetous are honored because possessions are everything.
In every society those who have managed to gain power are treated as great,
deserving persons regardless of their true character, because others are afraid
of their power.” Pastor Dennis
Davidson also notes, “Fool is one
of the strongest negative words in the OT because it depicts the person who has
consciously rejected the ways of God, which are the road to life, and has
chosen the ways of death. His folly is disastrous because its short-term
results may make God’s way and God’s word appear wrong.” We are surrounded by so many negative
examples of people in power, noble fools, that some of my colleagues want to avoid Christ
the King Sunday, but I think it’s more important than ever to lift up the true
King of Kings and Lord and Lords.
Without it, we can get cynical or we can despair. There have always been and always will be
corrupt and foolish leaders until Christ returns, so we need to be reminded and
to know that we have a Righteous Ruler.
This is the promise that we have in Isaiah 32. The people of Isaiah’s day had lots of
experience with unrighteous kings as well. But
God told them through Isaiah a righteous king is coming! We know that righteous king has come. What does a righteous King look like? A righteous king is one who administers true
justice. A righteous King is
generous. A righteous King defends those
who cannot defend themselves. A
righteous King exposes corruption and gets rid of it. A righteous King is not corrupted, bribed, or
compromised. We can trust in Jesus to do
what is right. Jesus already sees what’s
going on. Jesus cares about it, and
Jesus will do what is right. We might
not see it happen in this life, but every single human being will stand before
the judgment seat of Christ.
Many of you know the hymn, “A Shelter in a Time of
Storm.” That hymn is based on Isaiah
32:2. The correct translation of this
verse is “A man will be like a refuge from the wind, and a shelter from the
storm.” It’s not each prince who will be
like this, but the Righteous King. Oh, Jesus
is the Rock in a weary land, a shelter in the time of storm. Even the princes take refuge in Him. When we see all the craziness in our world
and how corrupt it is, and people suffering under unrighteous leadership around
the world, we can go to Jesus as our Refuge.
We can trust He has the real power, and we can find refreshment in His
word and spirit. He protects us, He
provides for us, He gives us strength. Jesus
stands as a refreshing contrast to the powers of this world. He rules by love.
As we look to Advent, we know we still await the day that
the princes under Jesus rule justly. We
await the end to the foolish nobility. That
isn’t to say it has never happened.
History tells us that there have been some pretty good leaders. They haven’t ruled perfectly, but there are
some who have understood that their position and authority have been granted to
them by God. They have tried to rule
according to God’s principles. I
mentioned King Wenceslas last week. Some
of these hold lesser offices like sheriff, or judge, or mayor, or town
councilmember, or boss. There are many
leaders who have dedicated their lives to Jesus who have exercised authority
with great care and responsibility. But
power has a tendency to further corrupt corrupt people. And so, we await the day that all leaders
will carry out Jesus’s righteous commands.
But since we have been enlightened by Jesus, since we do know Him as the
righteous king, we must use the authority we have been granted by Him to carry
out noble plans. And we have been given
authority by Jesus. He said in Luke
10:19, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to
overcome all the power of the enemy.” We’ve
been given the command to be truth-tellers in our world. We have been commanded to act justly. We may have been given authority only over
little things, but if we steward those little things rightly, Jesus will grant
us greater authority, not to “lord it over people,” but so that others will
thrive.
Friends we have to stop expecting that the government
will save us. It can’t and it won’t. And
when it tries, it fails miserably. It’s
clumsy and inefficient and creates more problems than it solves. But we can trust Jesus to save us, and we
must. Psalm 118:8-9 says, “It is better to take
refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”
Trusting in the Lord not only means letting Him be our shelter in the
time of storm, but it also means taking seriously what He says, not just His
promises but also His commands, so we must live out His
commission. We need to be noble workers
for justice. We need to be able to
bridge divides of right and left and work for the flourishing all people by
loving our neighbors and building healthy communities. I was at the Small Church Gathering a couple
of Saturdays ago. The pastor at the
church in Manteo reminded us that the government wasn’t the one who originally
took care of the poor, the homeless, the widows and orphans. It wasn’t the government that started schools
and educated children and built hospitals and took care of the sick. All of that was done by the Church. And
little by little, we outsourced our Christ-given responsibility to an
institution that cannot possibly do it well.
We need to reclaim our mission. The
Righteous King is already ruling. We can
help others to see it. We carry the
Kingdom of God in us wherever we go, and we build up the kingdom of God among us,
even as we await the fullness of the Kingdom to be revealed. So even while noble fools govern the world,
we can rejoice that the Righteous King is sitting over them all. They will answer to Him, but so do we. So let us happily claim Him as our King and
strive to the live as He commanded us.
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