A Different Kind of King

Not many kings are born to peasants. Not many kings are born in poverty. Not many kings find that their first bed is a feeding trough for farm animals. Not many kings grow up in obscurity. Not many kings live on the road. Not many kings volunteer for a shameful death.

But then not many kings are like Jesus. Not any in fact.

He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the supreme King over everything and everyone. All things are under his reign.

But why? How come he’s the greatest King?

Because Jesus is God, God the Son, creator of all. And that makes him King over everything, King over me, King over you.

Yet not many people see that that’s who he is.

Not many recognised it when he was born.

The inn keeper didn’t recognise it. The animals didn’t recognise it. None of the people living in Bethlehem recognised it.

The only ones who did seem to know were Mary and Joseph (because angels had told them), the shepherds (because angels had told them), and the wise men (because a star placed in the heavens by God had guided them).

He was born in stable, not in a palace. On the margins, not at the centre. Hidden away, not displayed for all to see.

So in one sense it’s no wonder other people didn’t figure it out – to them he wasn’t born like a king.

But he was a king, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Yet he didn’t seem to live a king either.

As he entered adulthood, did he fit the mould of a king?

His adoptive dad was a carpenter plying his trade in the obscurity of Nazareth. Until the age of thirty Jesus did the same.

But it was around that age that he did hit the limelight. Not as a joiner, but as a teacher, and as a man of extraordinary powers.

Still, his lifestyle didn’t exactly seem kingly, he didn’t live in a luxurious citadel surrounded by servants scuttling around to serve his every need.

But he taught with an authority that left people amazed. He did the impossible as he healed the sick, calmed the storm, cast out demons, raised the dead.

Some started to think he should be a king. Indeed many people in Galilee, where he lived and travelled and taught, tried to make him king … in a political sense. But he shunned that and went elsewhere.

They didn’t understand what kind of King he was – and ultimately, to them, he didn’t live like king.

But he was a king, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Yet he didn’t seem to die like a king.

Eventually he leaves Galilee and heads south to Jerusalem – the capital city of his homeland. The home of the king. As he enters the city he’s acclaimed like a king, hailed as the Son of David, Israel’s greatest king.

But he hadn’t come to take over the palace in Jerusalem. To steal King Herod’s crown.

He had gone to Jerusalem for a reason very different.

He’d gone there to give life. He’d gone there to die.

He’d gone there to voluntarily breathe his last on a cross – the most shameful, painful death imaginable, hardly one that you’d link with a king.

Hardly a death that seemed to fit with angel fanfare at his birth.

The sign over his head as he died read, “King of the Jews”. But it was mocking, not acclaiming.

As most people looked on they didn’t see a king – to them he didn’t die like a king.

Yet stop and think for a moment about what sort of king you would actually want.

Would you want a king that lords it over you from afar, that has no empathy with you, no actual interest in you, and would give up nothing for you?

A king who was born in to privilege?

A king who knows nothing of life’s hardships?

A king who only takes, but never gives?

Or the sort of King who has breathed the air you breathe, who has faced the struggles you face, and who would give his very life to save yours?

That’s what this King did, that’s what God the Son did.

For the glory of God, for the love of his people.

He left the splendour of heaven for a birth into squalor.

He left the praise of angels for years of suffering.

He left life in unbroken loving communion with his Father, for a shameful death of abandonment on the cross.

The King of kings and the Lord of lords did that for his people to save them from their sin. To pay for their freedom. To bring them to God.

What a King!

Now he’s risen to life again, now he’s in glory again, now he rules at his Father’s right hand with his people’s best interests at heart.

And if you come to trust and follow him as your King, he’ll watch over you as your King for the rest of your life, until he takes you to live with him and reign with him forever.

The King of kings, the Lord of lords.

He’s a different kind of King.