If Jesus is King . . .: Singing in Hope While We Wait (Advent Series, No. 1)

¹Endow the king with your justice, O God,
    the royal son with your righteousness. ² May he judge your people in righteousness,
    your afflicted ones with justice.

³ May the mountains bring prosperity to the people,
    the hills the fruit of righteousness. ⁴ May he defend the afflicted among the people
    and save the children of the needy;
    may he crush the oppressor. ⁵ May he endure as long as the sun,
    as long as the moon, through all generations. ⁶ May he be like rain falling on a mown field,
    like showers watering the earth. ⁷ In his days may the righteous flourish
    and prosperity abound till the moon is no more.

⁸ May he rule from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth. ⁹ May the desert tribes bow before him
    and his enemies lick the dust. ¹⁰ May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores
    bring tribute to him.
May the kings of Sheba and Seba
    present him gifts. ¹¹ May all kings bow down to him
    and all nations serve him.

¹² For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
    the afflicted who have no one to help. ¹³ He will take pity on the weak and the needy
    and save the needy from death. ¹⁴ He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
    for precious is their blood in his sight.

¹⁵ Long may he live!
    May gold from Sheba be given him.
May people ever pray for him
    and bless him all day long. ¹⁶ May grain abound throughout the land;
    on the tops of the hills may it sway.
May the crops flourish like Lebanon
    and thrive like the grass of the field. ¹⁷ May his name endure forever;
    may it continue as long as the sun.

Then all nations will be blessed through him,
    and they will call him blessed.

¹⁸ Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel,
    who alone does marvelous deeds. ¹⁹ Praise be to his glorious name forever;
    may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen.

Advent is an interesting season. It names realities that don’t always go together in our minds. It’s a both . . . and type of season. It’s celebratory AND sorrowful because we acknowledge that Jesus is our Savior and also remember that we still must wait for salvation. So it’s hopeful AND tragic. It’s historical AND future. It’s now AND not yet. It’s a cute baby AND a coming terrible death. It’s humble savior and King of the Universe. And let’s be real honest – this is the point where you might be getting a bit antsy, or feeling a pit in your stomach not because Jesus was a baby or even because of his death on the cross. What bothers us is the deep, unwavering political declaration throughout the Old Testament, and particularly Psalm 72, that a King is coming and “the government will be on his shoulders” (Isaiah 9:6). Advent reminds us therefore that the gospel is spiritual and political and that Jesus is King. And . . .

         1.    If Jesus is King, then you and I don’t get a vote.

Friends, in the name of Jesus, I’m not here to tell you how to vote. In the name of Jesus, my job as a pastor is to tell you that you don’t get to – Jesus is King. So you don’t get to set the agenda, say who’s worthy, or declare who’s in or out. Last week I briefly acknowledged that we don’t deal with kings so well in the modern world, except for the occasional royal wedding or scandal. We’re a bit like the peasant in Monty Python’s the Holy Grail who is ordered by King Arthur to be quiet. His wife exclaims, “Order, eh -- who does he think he is?” “I am your king!,” Arthur retorts. “Well, I didn't vote for you,” she responds.

But if Jesus is King it means that we can have hope because this whole project doesn’t rest solely on my efforts. If Jesus is King then sometimes prayer may be

more appropriate, more helpful than jumping in and doing something, especially when you don’t know what to do or you can’t tell what’s right. If Jesus is King then you can pray and you can hope because Psalm 72 repeatedly declares “He will.” Do you want hope today? Read back over this Psalm and pay careful attention to the word “will”. Where does it occur? What is it saying? It acknowledges what will happen – it hasn’t yet fully but its absence is only temporary. “He will.” He will deliver (vs. 12), He will take pity (vs. 13), He will rescue (vs. 14), nations will be blessed and will call him blessed (vs. 17).

If Jesus is King, if “He will”, we can hope even when it’s hard. We can name with Psalm 72 all the realities that currently plague our world –the oppressor, the needy, our fear of death, and the threat of violence. We can wait with hope and not because we’re clever, or our candidate won, or because the stock market is doing well but because he is King. We don’t have to go along with the glitz of Christmas marketing that aims to distract us or make us buy in order to believe things are okay. We can talk about the hard things because Jesus is King and will come and make all things right. That’s why we light our candle of hope today. In Jewish households when they light

candles, they close their eyes and beckon the light toward themselves three times with their hands, almost like drawing water from a basin to their faces. We lit our candle of hope today because Jesus is King. And this candle shines on all that is still broken, hurtful, shameful, and harmful in our world – we can see it and name it – but as we do so, we also beckon, and bathe in, the light of hope. We pray, even so, Lord Jesus, come. And friends, he will.

So if Jesus is King then you don’t get a vote and it doesn’t all rest on you. But if Jesus is King, Psalm 72 also reminds us “how” this King conquers.

          2.    If Jesus is King, according to Psalm 72, then we know how he wins - compassionately.

 

One of the oddest features of Psalm 72 is how the king will gain power from “sea to sea” (vs. 8) as well as over kings and kingdoms great and small, even the siyim a perplexing word in the Hebrew which could just as well be translated “scary creatures” or “monsters” who will “lick the dusts,” which is just another way of saying “lie prostrate.” Vs. 11 is adamant: “So all kings will bow low to him, all nations serve him.” Vss. 8-11 both pray for and acknowledge that this King will rule over all from shore to shore. But it’s not until vs. 12 that we are told how. Is it some military campaign, some new weapon like the long bow or chariot, or some new kind of soldier, which allows for such domination? Is this king like the Bond villains of old who dream of taking over the world with mutant sharks with lasers on their head. Nope, there’s no new space laser or mind control or maniacal laugh. Vss. 12-14 tells us how it is that Jesus will conquer and be King of Kings. “Because he rescues the needy when they cry for help and the weak who have no helper. He pities the poor and needy and delivers the lives of the needy. From viciousness, from violence he restores their lives; their blood is important in his eyes.”

Friends, if this is true of your King. Shouldn’t this be true of you? If you don’t get to vote for this king you also don’t get to vote on the agenda. And the agenda is waged compassionately. What compassionate things are you doing which show you are a follower of this King?

Why do we celebrate Advent – which some people think of as a gloomier and much less fun version of Christmas? Because it’s a time that allows to look and see those whom Jesus will deliver and gives us something to do. Because if Jesus is a King who delivers the poor and oppressed – well, we better do that as well. Maybe it’s that you take one of the Giving Tree tags, or give money to the Gospel Mission, or maybe you take a harder look at where your Christmas gifts come from and how the people who make them are treated. Do you think these questions matter to Jesus? Do you think he’ll notice? He will because he is their king too.

          3.    Finally, if Jesus is King then it can’t simply be about U.S.

Psalm 72 declares that when the king comes, in vs. 17, “all nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.” And thank God for that – otherwise we would need to brush up on our Hebrew and learn how to cook kugel and kreplach. We are, in other words, an answer to this prayer of Psalm 72. Take hope in that! The Psalmist didn’t even know that this land mass existed when he wrote this and yet here we are. And in vs. 19 it speaks of the “whole earth” as the

theater for God’s glory reminding us that God’s mission and the king’s reign involves all of creation, and not simply people, which is just another way of saying that God will take back and restore all that God has made and that the King counts as his subjects not simply nations but also spotted owls, giant redwoods and rushing rivers. This is often why ancient paintings of Jesus have him holding an orb.  So we are challenged by Psalm 72 to understand this king’s dominion as “world deeming” rather than merely “nation building.” Friends, this means that we can never focus solely on what’s merely good for us as Americans nor what’s only helpful for people, as if God only created and cares for human beings. I’m not suggesting that you can’t be proud about where you come from, hold a special place in your heart for the language and culture to which you speak and belong. I am saying, however, that your loyalty is not to a land or even a people but to a king and this king is king over all nations – lands you may have never seen, languages you don’t understand, even cultures that you may find bizarre.

As I was preparing this message I thought of this odd image whereby God is like our type A college roommate who irritates us a bit because when we open the refrigerator everything is labeled “God’s” – the milk, the bread, the cheese, everything is tagged. Friends, in the great refrigerator that is planet earth everyone we meet and everything we touch is God’s. So as we celebrate Advent let us remember and celebrate in hope that Psalm 72 is a song that was sung by people who would’ve considered us foreigners, strangers, and immigrants.

As we move into a time for reflection we are going to sing the song What a Beautiful Name it is” in which we acknowledge that Jesus is the King. Psalm 72 ends with a powerful, double “amen.” Of course, “amen” is a word of covenantal love that means “yes” or “it will be so” but it’s also a word that can mean “truth” and in Revelation 3:14, we are told, it is a name for Jesus himself. That’s why we can have hope today and why you can pray with hope even if things are not alright. So hear the final verses of Psalm 72 as words of hope: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may his glory fill the whole earth. Yes, Jesus, Yes. The prayers of David son of Jesse are finished.

We can wait and we can sing because we have been given the hope of the double Amen – the beautiful name of Jesus Christ our King.