Seize The King?
Over the past two weeks, our country has experienced some culturally seismic events. There have been several high-profile shootings carried out by evil people who hate all that is good. Just this week, there was an anti-ICE shooting in Dallas. Of course, the shooting that has received the most attention is the assassination of Charlie Kirk. While sad and tragic, some of the aftershocks have been astounding. I never thought I would see, in my lifetime, the President’s Cabinet members proclaiming the gospel that Jesus is King before a watching world. In the words of C. S. Lewis, “Aslan is on the move.” I’m praying great things will happen.
The danger in these sorts of awakenings, where Jesus makes himself known and popular, is that people begin to use Jesus for their own agendas instead of submitting to his. We get a glimpse of this in John’s record of the feeding of the five thousand in John 6:1-15.
Though the feeding of the five thousand was an act of mercy, there was much more going on. This is the fourth sign that John records, and this fourth sign corresponds to the fourth day of creation when God put rulers in the firmament-heaven (cf. Gen 1:14-19). At the end of the episode, the crowds want to come and “seize” Jesus to make him king (Jn 6:15). He arrived in this region by crossing the Sea of Tiberias (an alternate spelling of Tiberius, the Emperor of Rome). This is the Sea that he will show he masters in the next scene when he walks upon it in a storm. The feeding of the five thousand is a battle of kingships. It is a battle over how true kingship operates as well as who is the rightful king.
When the Son of David comes, among the many blessings that will come with his reign will be “an abundance of grain in the earth” (Ps 72:16). Jesus takes barley loaves (“grain”) and fish and multiplies them. He must be the Son of David for whom the Jews have been looking. It looks as if it is time to make him king.
Earlier, Jesus told the Jews that he doesn’t receive glory from men (Jn 5:41); that is, he doesn’t receive his kingly authority from the authority of men. Men can’t “make” him king. He must wait on his Father for the proper time after he has fulfilled his Father’s mission.
We know the end of the story. Jesus fulfills his mission through death and is resurrected by the Father. He ascends, is coronated, and continues to reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He did not receive his glory from men but from the Father.
In our cultural moment, it will be tempting for conservatives who have little to no relationship with Jesus at all to try to “seize him” for their political purposes. They can join in the Jesus talk without a firm commitment to Jesus’ agenda. Jesus shows us that he can’t be seized. He demands submission. Any talk in our government about “Christ is King” without stopping the evils of abortion, overturning Obergefell, sending the LGBTQ+ crowd back into the closets, punishing instead of praising immorality, and dealing with the source of violence in our land—the hearts and not the implements–is not submitting to Jesus’ kingship. Sure, we must be strategic, but we must also make it plain that this is Jesus’ agenda, and we won’t stop until it is accomplished.
Jesus won’t be handled by the right or the left. He is not a political pawn. He is the King, and that calls for total surrender to his agenda.
The post Seize The King? appeared first on Kuyperian Commentary.