I know precious little about royalty.
The closest I ever got to a monarch happened years ago in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, during a conference for judges.
Word spread that the king of a certain country would exit at the basement where we had our sessions.
We stationed ourselves within view of the elevator, and true enough the king appeared with his retinue.
But he went by us unrecognized — he walked with a group of men who appeared and were garbed no differently from him.
In the past, in Christian Europe, kings had absolute power, claiming to possess it “by the grace of God,” in other words, as a divine right.
This was in consonance with the tradition in the Judaean world, which began with Saul, whom the prophet Samuel anointed with holy oil as king of Israel, and later David, Saul’s successor.
Thereafter the Jews waited for the coming of a king in the line of David, a Messiah, a liberator, the Christ.
I believe that the Messiah arrived in the person of Jesus, not as a human leader, but as the Son of God.
David and his successors ruled over a kingdom consisting of Judea and Israel.
Israel was conquered by the Assyrians, and Judea by the Romans, who turned it into their province, putting it under the rule of Herod, to whom they gave the title, “King of Judea,” and who worked under Pontius Pilate, the prefect or administrator of that Roman province.
It was before Pontius Pilate that the chief priests and the pharisees brought Jesus whom they accused as a criminal and wanted executed.
In his Gospel, John writes that at the praetorium Pilate directly asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” This Jesus admitted with a qualification, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.”
Pilate was quick to pounce on this, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
We always say that the truth is what is factual, but the factual is dependent on and changes with space and time.
That I am now happy is true of me only at this moment and in my present condition and may not be true at another day or hour or under different circumstances.
What we seek is transcendent truth, that which remains true no matter where, no matter when. And for me that truth is God.
And on this Jesus grounded his rule and mission — to lead everyone into the kingdom of the knowledge and love of God.
Oh, by the way, Jesus could not have pleaded a better defense of himself than truth.
As St. Augustine said, “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.”
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