Lo, your king comes to you; … and he shall command peace to the nations
Today my tradition celebrates as the first Sunday in Advent. There will be three more Sundays of Advent, and then comes Christmas. Advent is a season to prepare, to really think about what Emmanuel means – God with us.
It’s wholly fitting that this is the section of Scripture I came to today. The King comes to you, and he shall command peace to the nations. Here in the US, we don’t have much positive experience with Kings. Our revolt against King George III is what founded this nation. The notion of being ruled by one monarch seems antiquated, and sometimes dangerous. So to read that our king is coming is a foreign abstract notion.
Kings rule. They govern. They manage nations. They set policies, set priorities, and carry out what’s needed for the people they govern. To use the term “King” implies a civil leader, a mundane leader, similar to a city manager or governor, perhaps with a crown.
To use the term “King” probably suggested just another ruler, to a people who’d had a history of good and horrible kings. To me, however, who has no experience with a civil leader king, King takes on a sacred note, because it’s mostly only in scripture that I encounter the concept of a coming king. But maybe I’m confusing my scriptural reading with the original notion of a coming king. All of this is made easier to mix up because of my inexperience with monarchs.
Maybe if we think of the coming king as a civil govern-er, the coming of Christ the King is all the more exciting. Christ the King is a govern-er, but Christ governs from a place of peace and mercy, rather than power and fear.
Christ the King is coming. Christ the King will rule the nations with peace. Christ the King is Emmanuel.
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