…and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever. Amen.”
Revelation 1:5-6 (NAB)
I learned something by watching the coronation of King Charles. I learned that most people love their own country in spite of weak leadership and imperfect laws. Up until the day of coronation, the buzz in all the news outlets was about how unjust it is to lay the burden of the costly and pompous rituals of Coronation day, upon the backs of Britain’s tax payers, yet the faces of the British citizens in the streets said it all. They were proud of their country and happily celebrating the coronation. They were not celebrating faulty tax laws, or a failing economy or even the specific person who was being crowned. They were celebrating a centuries old tradition and an honored ceremony of their nation. Those citizens were simply proud to be British. While the head minister offered up a loud prayer to God, calling upon the “King of kings” and asking for His divine guidance over King Charles’ reign, the camera was focused on Charles’ face. He looked like he was feeling a mixture of emotions, one being a humble sense of unworthiness. I wondered what thoughts ran through his mind during that pre-crowning prayer. Maybe a montage of mistakes that he made in his lifetime, suddenly ran through his consciousness. I thought of the mother of his two sons, Diana, and wondered if they would have had a better marriage, Diana might have been in that room with him, instead of Camilla. There was a brief look of restrained tears in his eyes, and we’ll never know what his thoughts were. Whatever Charles was thinking or feeling, the humbling of that loudly spoken prayer was a touching moment for many. Every king in history likely also felt a transient sense of unworthiness on their coronation day. The scripture tells us that Jesus is the ruler of all the kings of the earth, and where two or more are gathered in His name, He is in the midst. That means that while the minister prayed for Charles, and with any other person in agreement with his prayer, Jesus entered the room, and that is always an awesome moment. I think that would explain the restrained tears in Charles’ eyes. The throne of England is not a position earned by popular demand, it is based on inheritance. Jesus made us all into a kingdom of priests for God, and He is our king. We also cannot earn the title of priesthood based on merit or popularity, it is assigned to us by grace, and based on our adoption into the kingdom of God. Peter wrote, “You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
That is who we are, and it’s spoken by the humbling loud prayer of Peter, a leader in the church that Jesus established. We may not feel worthy to be a royal priesthood, but it’s who we are, simply because we are called out of darkness, and into His wonderful light. Just as the British citizens were not celebrating the problem tax laws or faults of their leaders, but simply the national pride of a British coronation, we also are not celebrating the many failures or shortcomings within the church, but rather our transformation from darkness into light in Christ. As humbling as it was for Charles, we are also humbled that God has called us to be a part of His royal priesthood. We couldn’t earn it, but like Charles, we inherited it. “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:16-17)
Today, we celebrate our King of kings, Jesus, who chose us to become His royal priesthood, and in humble gratefulness, we pray that His light continues to shine through each of us. Amen
GOOD FATHER
“As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut; you were not washed with water or anointed; you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye looked on you with pity or compassion to do any of these things for you. Rather, on the day you were born you were left out in the field, rejected. Then I passed by and saw you struggling in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, “Live!”( Ezekiel 16:4-6)
God uses very harsh language to describe the state of unbelief that His people were in at this time in their history. Centuries after He had called them out as a people for Himself, He intended to make a great nation of believers out of them, who would teach the faith to the world. Instead, they fell into a total apostasy, rejecting the faith and His commandments, so He spoke to them through the prophet Ezekiel. God saw their rejection of Him as rejecting His fatherhood, and leaving themselves as a helpless baby, lying on the ground. They abandoned themselves from their Heavenly Father, and practically aborted themselves by rejecting their God. He passed by and saw them squirming in their blood with an uncut navel, and goes on to say, “Then I bathed you with water, washed away your blood, and anointed you with oil.”(Ezekiel 16:9) God picked up the bleeding baby, anoints him with oil, feeds, nurtures and adopts him as his own, and speaks to the baby saying “Live.”
God is by nature, a good father, and it is His same paternal love today that pursues each of us, picks us up wherever we are lying, and washes us clean through His grace and forgiveness. He is our good and perfect father, who wants to nurture us and watch us grow, constantly saying to us “Live”. If there is any message that everyone needs to hear, it’s that God is a father, who has deep paternal love for us. If someone had a bad earthly father, they might live with a false image of what God is like. Someone once told me that he wanted nothing to do with an ego driven God, who demands to be worshipped. It left me speechless, because I cannot even imagine such a strange perspective of God, yet there are people who really think this way. When people reject God, He is saddened more than He is angered. The heart of a parent wants their child to live healthy, happy and fulfilled. A parent will do all within their power to make it happen, and it is no different with our father in heaven. He said only one word to the baby, “Live.” He says it today to every one who has slidden away from the faith, and anyone who rejects His offer to be a good father to them. He isn’t driven by ego, demanding to be worshipped, He is driven by passionate fatherly love for each one of us. Once we receive His paternal love, our natural response is to worship and love Him in return.
We love you heavenly Father, and we want to live for you, and allow you to have your way in our lives and our families’ lives. Amen