What is a king? What does it mean to have a king? Who is a king? In this land of democracy, which was built
throwing off our ties to a king and breaking out on our own without the fetters
of a dieing feudal system and its monarchy, what does it mean to say that
Christ is king? England still has a
queen and will someday in my lifetime have a King. But the monarchy there is
little more than a living parade, a living heirloom of by gone days of England’s
past. But many countries still have kings in far off places of this world.
Every year at District Pastor's Retreat, a
group of us go to eat at a Thai restaurant. They have three pictures of this
very regal looking couple on three of the walls. One year I asked the waitress
who this couple was. She told us that they were the king and queen of Thailand.
From what I understand, the king and queen of Thailand are held in great
affection by the Thai people. The waitress told us quite a bit about how
wonderful this couple is and how much they are revered and respected by Thai
people everywhere. The owners of this restaurant live here in the states, but
they still honor and revere the king of their native land.
A good king is respected and honored by
his people. A good king is kind and just and is loved by all those whom he
rules. But a king does not have to be these things in order to be king. A king
is a king by birth, by having been born in the right family at the right time,
or by coo, by over throwing the current king and taking over his throne and
establishing his line and his lineage as the new succession to the throne. A
king is king by power of the law but ironically in many ways is above the law
and not required to adhere to the very law which makes him king. A king can
still be king due to this power he wields even if he is cruel and tyrannical. A
king can still be king even if he squanders the people’s money and mistreats
them at every turn. As long as he can hold onto his power the king. History
shows us that a king can be good or bad; kind and just, or tyrannical and bent
on nothing but his own gain.
So there are kings who are revered and
honored, kings who deserve to be praised for their kindness, generosity and the
just way they rule their people. When we look to God, we, as Christians would
expect that Jesus, as king, would be the later. This passage presents to us Jesus,
as a king who divides people as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The
sheep he allows into his kingdom and the goats are thrown out, not allowed to
enter.
In every place I have ever heard of there
being a King, the King does not get to choose who his people are. He is born to
be king of a particular kingdom and all the people in the kingdom are his
people. A king just accepts the people he is given. Just as he was born to be
king, everyone else, who was born within the borders of his kingdom, are born
to be his subjects. But Christ the king is picky. He does not simply want
subjects, he wants a certain kind of subjects. He wants subjects who live and
act in ways which he deems worthy, just. He only wants subjects who are
righteous, for it is those whom he calls righteous he decides are the sheep and
accepts, it is those who do not live in righteous ways whom he calls goats and
casts out.
Jesus is not only our king but he is
choosy about those who will be in his kingdom. Jesus, the Son of Man will sit
on the throne of Heaven and divide up those who are in his kingdom and those
who are not. On his left he puts the goats, saying to them that he was hungry,
thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick and in prison and they did not feed him, give
him something to drink, welcome him, cloth him, take care of him or visit him. To
the right he puts the sheep and he says to them, I was hungry, thirsty, a
stranger, naked, sick and in prison and when you saw me you fed me, gave me a
drink, welcomed me, clothed me, took care of me, and visited me. To those on
his right, he praises them and welcomes them into his eternal kingdom, to those
on his left he will cast out of his kingdom where they are punished.
And all the good protestant Christians,
who know that the grace of God and the gift of eternal life are freely given to
those who have believed and have and know that entrance into God’s kingdom cannot
be earned by merit or by good works, scratch their head and begin to wonder,
“when was it that the world turned upside down and how is it that everything we
believed to be true about how these things work can proved to be false?”
What is Jesus saying? It sounds like he is saying that in order to
be accepted into Christ’s kingdom we have to do certain things. Earning our way
into God’s eternal kingdom is done by giving to those who are less fortunate.
That can’t be right, can it? It goes
against everything that I have ever been taught, when it comes to how the
grace, and forgiveness of God works.
But that is what Jesus says there. I just
read it, “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that
are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty
and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was
naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in
prison and you visited me.'. . .‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of
the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he
will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into
the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and
you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a
stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'. . .‘Truly I tell you, just as you
did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these
will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal
life."
It says it right there if you give food
the hungry, water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, cloth the naked, take
care of the sick and visit the imprisoned we will be called righteous and
welcomed into eternal life. Jesus says it, so it must be true.
It is true, in that, those who love Christ
and seek to live as Christ lived and be the people Christ calls them to do
these things do these things. It is not true that these are the things that
gain entrance into Jesus’ kingdom. Yet it is true, in that because faith and
belief came first; faith comes before the actions. In fact faith is the reason
for the actions. Those who live the love of God in their lives, those who
accept the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and have faith in him for
eternal life, will visit the sick,
cloth the naked, welcome the stranger, give water to the thirsty and feed the
hungry. They will do all these things because their faith compels them to,
because the love they have from Jesus will not allow them to not.
Faith is a strange kind of belief. Faith
is a belief that is lived, it is a belief which can only exist in action. You
can believe that a force called gravity keeps us firmly stuck to the ground.
You can believe that the world is made up of tiny electrically charged
particles whose properties dictate how our world works but those kind of
beliefs require nothing of us. We either believe that these unseen forces are
at work in our world or we don’t. There is nothing that believing or not
believing in electrons requires of us, but faith in Jesus Christ, requires
something of us. It moves us, it changes us and spurs us into action.
Once you know the truth of the gospel,
once you come to and understanding of the God of the universe and that God’s
love for each and every one of us, that love, that truth changes who we are, it
changes how we live. It compels us to move in our world in loving ways. The
love of God is a love that requires us to then in turn love those around us. If
we truly understand that God loves us and calls for us to love the world around
us, we cannot see one who is hungry and desire to feed, see one who is thirty
and desire to quench that thirst, we cannot see one whom God loves and
cherishes in pain or in need and not desire to reach out with the love that God
had given to us and share that love by soothing that pain or meeting that need.
If we truly believe that God loves us. If
we truly believe that Jesus Christ showed that love in his life, teachings,
death and resurrection and that love calls us into relationship with the God of
the universe and then we cannot help but be filled with that love, that love
fills us, lives in us and is worked out in our actions and interactions in this
world. The love we have for Christ is manifested in our love for those around
us.
Christ, the king of heaven, knows that if
we truly love him, then that love will be lived out in how we treat those
around us. When we love Jesus we will treat each and everyone we meet as if
that person were Jesus. As Christians we should see Jesus in everyone we meet,
in everyone with whom we interact. We should treat our boss, our siblings, our
parents, the stranger we pass on the street with the love, the dignity and the
respect with which we would treat them if we truly believed them to be Jesus
Christ himself.
Although it might be easy to get the cart
before the horse, so to speak, and think that Jesus is telling us that it is
the doing of these things which gets us into Heaven. But in fact this passage
is not putting forth this kind of works related righteousness. Jesus is not
telling us how to earn our way to heaven, instead he is describing what a life
lived in love with God, a life living out that love will look like. They are
the mark of one who is sanctified. They are the outward signs of Christian
perfection. This is what holy living looks like when lived out by God’s people.
This is not a prescription of how to get
to Heaven, feed three hungry people, take a cup of cold water to one who is
thirsty and call me in the morning. This is a description of what a life lived
completely and totally given over to God will look like; if you love Jesus. This
is what a holy life looks like. When the people of God are living out God’s holiness
in this world then, the hungry will be fed the thirsty will be quenched, the
stranger will be welcomed, the naked will be clothed, the sick will be taken
care of and the prisoner will be visited. Those who are in need around you will
be provided for. You will live a life of compassion. You will love each and
every person as if they themselves were God. You will speak to each person you
meet as if they were Jesus Christ. Everyone you meet will be treated with the
kindness, the respect, the love you would give if they were Jesus. You will
honor everyone as if they were you king. When you love God, you will love your
neighbor. When you love Jesus Christ you will love the outcast and the lonely.
The love of God will be the hallmark of your life. When people encounter you
they will encounter the love of God in you, because you are loving them as if
they are God. This is what it means to be holy, to live out God’s holiness in
your day to day life.
We love because God loves. We love because
we believe. We love because our faith compels us to. We cannot love Jesus
without loving those around us. We cannot be people of faith unless we are
feeding the hungry, quenching the thirst of the thirsty, clothing the naked,
welcoming the stranger, taking care of the sick and visiting those in prison,
because that is what a life of faith will look like to one who is observing it
from the outside. It will be a life marked by action, a life marked by love
moving; a life marked by someone who cannot stand by and to allow those around
them to suffer.
Our faith moves us in ways that will not
allow suffering to continue to go on around us in this world. A true believer
in Jesus Christ will not go unmoved when another is suffering. A true adherent
to the faith cannot but help but be torn apart when someone around them is
hurting. We, as follows of Christ will be forced into action by our faith and
by our love for Jesus to mend the broken, and be balm to those who are hurting.
The love of Christ compels us, moves us and transforms us in ways so that we
are ruled by an over powering, outreaching love that will not stop until we
have loved all those we touch and are moving to right the wrongs that Jesus
himself came to this world to right.
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