Today’s Scripture
Reading (November 27, 2017): Luke 23
Ancient peoples believed that it was the fates or the direct hand of God
that made a king. We might prefer to say it was the luck of the draw. The
British Commonwealth’s longest reigning sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II, arrived
at her throne in a somewhat
unconventional manner. When she was born, she was far down the list of possible
heirs, and no one expected that she would
ever become queen. Her father was never supposed
to become king. And then her uncle, Edward VIII, abdicated; walking away from
his throne for love, making all the romantic people extremely happy. And all of a sudden, Elizabeth becoming Queen
became a distinct possibility. Her father was now King, and she was the oldest of his children. He had no sons, which
was significant in that day; a son of any age would have automatically placed
him in front of Elizabeth in the line of succession. And so Elizabeth became
the heir presumptive to the throne. Today, she would have been heir apparent,
because the ancient rule placing the oldest son on the throne has been overturned
in favor of the oldest child, regardless of sex.
If that change had been made a
thousand years ago, I wonder how that would have shaped history. How many of
our historical kings would have never ascended to the throne because they had
an older sister? The line of succession would have changed drastically, and our
current royal family would have been far down the list of possible heirs to the
throne.
In a week, the Christmas Season for the church officially begins. It is
called Advent, which merely indicates it
is a time of waiting. During Advent, we are all waiting for the coming of the
king. So Pilate’s question maybe becomes even more interesting. Was Jesus the
King of the Jews in any political way? And there is a disagreement among the
Gospel writers as to the answer to that
question. Matthew leans toward yes. He declares that Jesus is the son of David,
following the line of the kings. Even after the Babylonian Captivity, Jesus
continues to claim direct lineage from the ones who would have occupied the
throne had there been a Jewish throne to hold
until history blurs our sight to the point where we lose sight of who the rightful
heir should have been. But this also comes with a problem. The Prophet Jeremiah
had cursed this main line declaring that no son of ‘Coniah (Jeconiah) would
ever take the throne of Judah.
Luke takes a more circumspect route to Jesus’s lineage. He still
maintains that Jesus was a descendant of David, but avoids much of the kingly
line. (Interestingly, Luke rejoins the kingly line for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel
before diverging once again.) This is
sometimes considered to be the lineage of Mary, even though her name, or the
name of any other woman, does not appear in it. But the convergence at the
point of Shealtiel and Zerubbabel means that Luke has not entirely avoided the curse of Jeconiah since Shealtiel and Zerubbabel were
both descendants of ‘Coniah.
Politically, Caesar had placed the Herod’s on the throne, bypassing the
sons of Israel altogether. The Herod’s descended from Esau and not Jacob.
So Pilate asks the question – Are you the King of the Jews? But maybe the
real answer was that there were no kings of the Jews who were acceptable to
God. Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God, two positions that surpassed
that of being merely a king. After all, maybe being king is just about luck,
but Messiah and the privilege of being the Son of God are all about God.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: John 18
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