We Serve a Different Kind of King

Kings tend to take, not give; Kings are served more than they serve; Kings don’t make sacrifices, they take them; Kings have more pride than grace.

But not our King.

If you take just one thing away from last night’s message from the Gospel of Mark, it should be this: We serve a different kind of king.

Turn back the clock 2,000 years. For many, even some of Christ’s disciples, the idea that the long-awaited Messiah would come to serve, and not to be served, did not fit their preconceived notion of what a savior would look like. He would, one might think, more closely resemble King David, the giant slayer and conquering King of Israel who, like Christ, was not born into royalty.

The Messiah would be King David 2.0, a militant man who lived by the sword but, by virtue of his divinity, could never die by it. They wanted an imposing, all-powerful king riding a white horse to restore the promise of the promised land, at the ready to vanquish their enemies just as King David had 1,000 years before Christ. Then came the humble king, riding a donkey, who said “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

While the kings of Christ’s day lorded everything over their subjects, and often resorted to hellish violence in order to consolidate their power, our king laid hands on the sick, sought out the castaways, welcomed the foreigner, affirmed women as disciples and gave a voice to the voiceless.

When two of the Disciples were brown-nosing with Christ for the best seat in the House of God, Christ gently rebuked them with words that they almost certainly did not want to hear:

Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.

Mark 10: 43-44

The life of Christ provides an open window into the character of our God. Let’s always look to serve, rather than to be served; let’s always choose love over hate; let’s always offer grace as freely as we receive it and love our neighbors as ourselves.

When we do these things, we no longer need to pine for a far-off kingdom in the sky. We can live in his Kingdom today and every day.