Christ the King
Christ the King
by Stephen R. Lawhead
A brutal scene, I know, but not entirely fiction. The scene I have described is historical. The shocking event was enacted countless times through the earliest ages of human civilization in all corners of the world. Virtually every culture had a similar, if not identical, ritual.

The young man sacrificed was not a criminal or a slave. He was not a victim plucked from his bed by enemy raiders or a prisoner of war. He was, in fact, the most exalted member of the tribe. He was the king. And the youth who ate the king's heart became the new king who would himself be sacrificed when his reign was finished.

The king's death was necessary if the tribe was to endure and succeed in the coming year. For the king's blood poured out upon the ground ensured a bountiful harvest; his flesh consumed by his kinsmen, guaranteed life and fertility, the increase of the tribe. The sacrifice of the king was not an act of desperation, or the final resort of a frightened, ignorant people. It was the culmination of the king's mystical career and, as such, the king suffered it gladly.

. . . This primitive portrait is far removed from our modern ideas of who a king is and what he does. Like most people, I suppose the word king always conjured up an image of a bearded and bulgy Henry VIII in his silken hose, or a lionhearted Richard leading a crusade, or a merry old King Cole, calling for his pipe and bowl. Whenever anyone said the word king, I thought of a medieval monarch sitting on a silver throne in a high castle, with his lords and ladies in attendance, and hot and cold running servants at his beck and bidding.

Yet, there was a time when the man who wore the title of king was both leader and servant, when the words king and sacrifice were synonymous. In that far-off time, no one would have had to explain the bizarre early morning ritual of the king's death. Every man, woman, and child of the tribe would have known exactly what it meant, for each of their lives was tightly entwined with the life of the king, as his life was bound to theirs. The king was the life of his people; he was the incarnate spirit of the tribe.

...Today, a king is a character in a fairytale or a figure out of history....Devalued as it is, though, the word "king" retains a certain currency for the Church. Christians enlist a number of royal epithets to describe something of the divine authority that Christ holds: King of kings, King of Israel, High King of Heaven, the Great King, King of the Ages, Priest King, and Ruler of the Kingdom of God. We call Jesus king; we call him Lord.

...The whole point of a Jewish nation was to demonstrate to the world a unique new spiritual and political entity: a nation holding God as its king, a people obedient to no earthly sovereign, wholly devoted to God the Creator as Lord. And it might have worked. But Israel, being Israel, was never really keen on the idea.

...Samuel, faithful servant, returned to the people with a grim but realistic picture of what establishing an earthly monarchy would mean. In Samuel's view, it boiled down to virtual slavery for the nation forced to support a military dictatorship....God acquiesced to his stubborn children and allowed them a king...God, however, clearly had something else in mind. Nevertheless, God gave them the king they asked for and settled back to wait.

A thousand years pass; the fortunes of Israel rise and fall, mostly fall. And the nation of Israel is once again yearning for a king: a king of military might and political power, a sword-wielding deliverer who will restore the much-faded glory of the past and exact revenge on the nation's enemies. Once again, God hears the prayer of his stiff-necked people, and he gives them a king. But this time he gives them the king he has prepared for them from the beginning. This king, however, is of the older, more primitive variety. Not the man with the swagger and the sword, but the youth who goes silently to his death, willingly laying down his life for his people.

In the fullness of time, God gave to Israel, and to the world, the king who is the sacrifice, whose body and blood is food and drink to his people, and whose death guarantees new life. To a world bedazzled by kings of vast and fearful consequence, God gave the king obedient to the death. In the fullness of time, God gave the world its only True King. He gave himself. This is the underlying meaning of kingship, and it is the kingship of Jesus, how it is and was always meant to be. And this is why, two thousand years later, we still call him "Lord."