Son of Man King

Today I reflect on the nature of kingship, contrasting the British monarchy, particularly King Charles, with Jesus Christ as the “Son of Man” and the “crucified Messiah.” I share personal anecdotes, including my experience during Princess Diana’s death, to highlight changing attitudes towards monarchy. I delve into biblical themes, explaining how Jesus’s kingship differs from political power, emphasising his humility and suffering. I encourage listeners to bring their own pain to Jesus, finding healing and transformation through his example of love and solidarity. This reflection invites a deeper understanding of true kingship and faith.

00:00:00 Well as Australians and members of the Commonwealth, we have a king, right? So when King Charles came to visit, did anyone go to to see him, to pay him homage or anything? No royalists here?! Oh, dear. We’re obviously very 21st century Australians. It’s a little bit different, I suspect, to when Queen Elizabeth first came or on her numerous visits to come to Australia. I’ve only been to England and to London once, and it happened to be just after the World Youth Day in 1997. And so we were outside Buckingham Palace on the morning that Lady Diana died. Just seeing all of that, the swell of the love and affection and whatnot, all the pomp and ceremony that the Brits are certainly really good at. But, you know, if we think of that and perhaps you at least watched the coverage of Charles’s coronation last year. Remember the wonder of the ceremony, the whole sense of what was happening with the anointing and and all of those experiences.

00:01:31 But one of the things is that when we think of a king, if we think of King Charles, we think of the British monarchy. We can get the wrong kind of idea about what a king it is all about. Because when we describe Jesus the Christ as the King, it’s a very different model of kingship to what we get under the British system. It’s a wholly different kind of category. It’s almost that it seems completely inappropriate to use this word for those two realities. They’re so different when we think of Jesus. What is the most common title that we might give to him? What’s the the most common word that we might use to describe Jesus? Saviour? Christ? Yes. Christ is the most common word that we get in the New Testament. It’s the word that most of the authors, particularly Paul and the other letter writers, talk about Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. But what about Jesus himself? What’s the most common way that he talks about himself? Does he like people calling him the Christ of the Messiah? No.

00:03:00 When people use that title to talk about him, he generally told them to be quiet. That’s because so many people had this wrong idea of what a messiah, what a Christ was meant to be, a political figure, a person that would raise up an army, someone that would overthrow the anybody that happened to be oppressing the Jewish people at that time and at the time of Jesus, that was the Romans. Now he had another description that was used over 180 different times in the New Testament, most of those in the gospel, most of those by Jesus himself. He said, I am the Son of Man, which can simply just be a phrase that means a human being, one like us, sharing in all things that that we share in. But when you read Son of Man, in the light of our first reading today from the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel, you get a very different idea, because when we were created in the image and likeness of God back in Genesis one and two, we were given that responsibility, we were invited into that friendship to be partners with the Lord, to share in his very dignity and to be with him.

00:04:28 Co-workers in creation, being image bearers of God’s goodness into the world and allowing creation to experience the wonder of the worship of God. But most of the time when you continue reading the story, whenever someone else comes on the scene, a new character is presented. You think, is he the one? Is he the one that’s going to to be this true son of man? But of course, every single one of them stuff it up and fail and and don’t continue with that promise of being the Son of Man. Even Daniel, who is one of those rare characters in Scripture where there’s really nothing negative that is spoken about Daniel. But Daniel himself says this isn’t about him. It’s about somebody else, this son of man that he sees in the vision a human one. But every part of creation is bowing down in reverence before him. So it’s an unusual Son of Man that we see in his vision. This exalted and high figure, much like the British pomp and ceremony, applied to this Son of Man figure seated on the the throne next to the father himself, the King of Glory, there in creation.

00:05:49 And so Jesus uses this image of the Son of Man to remind us that he is like us. He shares in everything that we have experienced. And yet the way that he will come into his glory, the way that he will experience this exaltation, is not seated on a throne. He is no direct and immediate threat to Pilate, but he is because he’s saying, no, my kingdom is not of this kind. My kingdom is a different Reality. And where do we see Jesus first? Exalted. It’s when he’s been beaten. That’s when he’s been bruised. That’s when he’s been whipped. When he has not a crown of glory, but a crown of thorns on his head. He’s not there in all of the splendour of a king’s robes. But he’s been stripped naked. Then he’s there in all of his vulnerability and humiliation on the cross. That’s where we see him come into his glory. Yes. The king. And if we are to be his followers on this feast of the King, if we are to serve him, then the only way that we can do that is by following him as the crucified Messiah.

00:07:13 That the one who has experienced all of this destruction, all of this terrorism, all of this horror, that he is the one who deserves our honor, that he is the one who calls us to follow. But we can find our identity when we’ve experienced any of those moments of being humiliated, of being downtrodden, of being oppressed, of being marginalized. The Jesus is there because he’s experienced it all, and he’s not there because he’s above it and different and separated from our suffering, but because he’s entered into it, because he’s embraced it, because he’s taken our sin upon himself, he can save us, and he can bring this life and this goodness to us. So on this final Sunday of the year, let’s indeed bring all of our brokenness, bring all of the ways that we suffer, that we sorrow, all of our wounds, all of our pains. Bring them to the King, crucified on a cross, and allow him to transform those sufferings into the glory that he’s inviting us into.

00:08:23 Allow the Son of Man to be the one who invites us more deeply into union with the father in heaven.