“This hope for the ideal king, the coming king, not just an anointed one but the Anointed One, became particularly pronounced when the land of Israel was ruled by foreign powers, when the people were oppressed, or when the national leaders were turning away from God. Faithful Jews would search the Scriptures for any hint or promise concerning the king that was to come, who would usher in God’s kingdom on earth. Christ or Messiah was a title that meant the King the Jewish people had been waiting for.”

Rev. Adam Hamilton, “Simon Peter: Flawed but Faithful Disciple”

For fifteen years I have celebrated Lent as a minister within the church. The very first year or two was a bit strange as I came to experience Lent differently as a minister. I was halfway through seminary, had served in youth ministry, and had been in a number of ministry settings, but was first beginning to serve as the pastor of a congregation.

We had a more fundamentalistic church down the road from our church and I remember experiencing the first “Cross Walk” with them during Lent. It was interesting to see how they discussed the events, interpreted the stories, and even adapted spiritual practices from other denominations in order to celebrate the season. It was the first time I saw the Stations of the Cross as an evangelistic tool with the end goal of leading to the “ABC” prayer instead of being a tool for reflection and growth. It was weird to see one church appropriate the practices of another and change it so radically.

In and among those first few years I began to realize there was a profound disconnect within the church. I had grown up in ecumenical youth ministries designed to harmonize in a more diverse setting and within the United Methodist Church, which tended to be pretty non-political whenever possible. For the first time, I saw the stirrings of what today is fairly common: connecting the fates of one politician or another to the very will of God. I know that it happened frequently throughout our history, but it was the first time I saw it from a position of leadership instead of from a position where I could put my head in the sand when it became uncomfortable.

Questions became awkward: Didn’t God send one particular leader as the one who should rule over us? Don’t we understand that God wants us to do whatever is possible to get a different politician in place because they are meant to rule over us? Isn’t this one vision for the future God’s vision?

To be honest, it continues to be hard for me to understand. I have been American my entire life and I have never had a king who ruled over me on earth. Overthrowing tyrants was how our history was taught to me as a child because nobody has the right to enforce things like taxation without representation or the quartering of soldiers. It was really disconcerting to see people begin to argue for the Divine Right of a political party while living within a republic that had overthrown the system of the previous kings that had ruled over these lands from across the sea. We seemed to go from a past where we demanded the king’s soldiers stay out of our homes to a system where we glued ourselves to televisions that demanded we believe a certain way or behave a certain way to align ourselves with “right thinking.”

At the same time, I get it. The desire for a King to overcome the frailties of the world is pretty ubiquitous with being a part of the human race. Many of us want someone to set things right when life isn’t fair. God takes time and it can be pretty normal to look out on the world and ask for something more concrete. The Israelites in the scriptures called for a king at the end of the age of the Judges. The Maccabean revolution happened between the Protestant testaments. Rev. Hamilton points out the way that even the early disciples lived among and as a part of people looking for THE king in Jesus’ day. As Rev. Hamilton cheekily puts it:

“They awaited a warrior-priest-king who would raise an army to cast out the Romans, call the Jewish people to repentance, purify themselves before God, and then serve as a light to the nations. To borrow a phrase from our own day, most Jews of the time of Jesus anticipated a Messiah who would ‘“’make Israel great again.’ ”

Rev. Adam Hamilton, “Simon Peter: Flawed but Faithful Disciple”

I’m not going to judge people for wanting another king to set things right when they are scared or insecure. A lot of us don’t understand what’s happening in the world and wish someone would make it better. Even without the politics of economics and power, a lot of us are frightened when we think about how the world can change with the call of a doctor or with a knock on the door by a police officer. It is easy to be frightened and it can seem better to have a big strong authoritarian figure or policy to protect us when the heavens can seem so silent.

All of that being said, as a minister, I can firmly state that in my understanding that Jesus didn’t come to be that kind of King. Jesus took the hard road of faithfulness and asked us to follow. One of the things about God promising to be with us in the Valley of the Shadow of Death is understanding that most of us will likely pass through that valley. No authoritarian power or king can change the fact that the world is frightening. Those powerful people on television and at the rallies cannot protect you and they shouldn’t. There is one King of Righteousness and that King invites us to walk with humility down difficult roads.

The thing is that God promises restoration, but the restoration promised is primarily focused on the future instead of the past. If you’re looking for the restoration of an ideal that has been lost, you won’t find it in your scriptures. The story goes from living in a Garden to living in a Holy City come down from heaven: allow me to cheekily call it divine urbanization. Even the nicest stories from Acts still have hard moments. Even the Garden of Eden had peril and failure. If you’re aiming for a Messiah to set the world right, you need to look forward, not backward.

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