What Kind of King?
Ad Te Levavi – 12/1/2024
Matthew 21:1-9
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion from God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Gospel lesson from the twenty-first chapter of St. Matthew with special emphasis on verses four and five which read as follows:
“This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’””[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There has been a lot of talk of Christians and politics these days. There are those who are loudly crying warnings of Christian Nationalism, which is a phrase that gets thrown around so much that I am not quite sure what anyone means exactly by it anymore. That being said, it has become something of cultural moment to discuss the intersection between Christ and politics.
Now before we get into this, I think that it is a good idea for us to set up some guard rails to help guide this discussion. That is to say, there are a couple of extremes that I think we ought to avoid. On the one hand we should not advocate for an Ecclesiarcracy, that is, a nation ruled by a Christian church or churches. This may sound well and good so long as it was our church that took over the government, but what would happen if the Baptists or Roman Catholics did? Would we be free to practice our faith without hardship? On the other hand, we must also reject the idea of a fully secular government, that is to say, we reject the notion that a Christian must operate in a manner foreign to his or her Christian conviction to operate in the government. Besides this, what often goes by the name “secular” in this time of ours is not a neutral thing that inhabits the space between religion and atheism. Instead, secularism is a hostile thing made from an alliance between non-religion and the indifference of the “spiritual and not religious.” As different as a militant atheism and a crystal-wearing spiritualist might be, they are united together in their disdain for religious institutions, claims of objective religious truth, and teachings of objective morality. In other words, secularism is not neutral and certainly is not harmless. It is the spirit of unbelief writ large on our culture and society and as Christians we cannot support this.
Francis Pieper, the great Lutheran professor of theology and author of the primary theology text book used by our seminaries even today, notes that Christ rules both church and the state, but He does so in distinct ways.[2] The Christian Church is ruled by the revealed Word of God, that is, the contents of the Holy Bible. Our rules and practices are built on what we read there and all that we do as Christians is accountable to the Scriptures. The state, however, is ruled not by the text of the Bible, but through the natural Law, that is, common sense. Now this is a difficult thing as, so the old saying goes, common sense is not very common. Even less so in a society that is rapidly losing its generally Christian understanding and ethos as knowing the Scriptures helps us understand the mind and design of God.
So, here we are as Christians. We cannot give up our Christian faith and convictions when we step into the public square, and we cannot put the church under the rule of the government or the government under the rule of the church as these confuse the distinct ways our God has established to rule us. They can and should cooperate wherever and whenever possible, but they cannot rule over each other.
But this is not a new problem either. Not only have our theologians been dealing with this for centuries, but this discussion is to simply rehash one that was going on even at the time of our Lord Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Those in the crowd had certain expectations of what kind of King Jesus should be for them. One of these was the party of the Zealots, a Jewish independence movement at the time of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem. These rightly expected the Messiah to come, but they wrongly expected that He would come to set up an earthly Kingdom.
This expectation of an earthly kingdom set up by the Messiah has resurfaced again and again in the history of the people of God. Besides the expectation of the Zealots, there have been numerous attempts to either find or force God’s Kingdom to be in the here and now. There have been a number of sects that have arisen to try and make this happen. Theologically, we call these sort of attempts to bring about an earthly Kingdom of God here and now postmillennialism. The basic idea is that we can force Jesus to rule by establishing His Kingdom for Him through our own efforts and works. This, of course, is foolish since the Kingdom is not only present already through the Church where His Word is rightly preached but will also be fully known and revealed when He returns at that hour no one knows.
Great harm has come from looking for the wrong kind of King and the wrong kind of Kingdom. People who work for utopias, for perfect earthly kingdoms tend to eliminate those who stand in the way of their so-called righteous work. To use a couple of infamous examples: the communists thought they were establishing a perfect kingdom in Russia. And they stacked millions of bodies up in mass graves to try and get it done. The Nazis did the same in Germany. But these are secular attempts at bringing about a perfect Kingdom, not religious ones trying to bring the Kingdom of God. However, the end is the same. Christ rules in His Church by grace and mercy through His Word. He rules in the state by natural reason and common sense. And when we combine or confuse these we end up with problems.
Besides the simple fact that all of our attempts to bring perfect kingdoms on earth have failed and will fail, we have seen again and again the evils that come when we confuse these two estates. A state that dominates the church will force Christians to violate their consciences and to hear or teach falsely. A church that dominates the state will attempt to force Christian faith by violence. But this never works. The Church must be free to speak the truth of God’s Word, especially to the government and those who are in it. The state must be free to enforce the laws and must have some ability to tolerate those outside of the Christian religion. As much as we might want to, we cannot force conversions or make people come to faith in Christ.
The real solution to these political woes is not greater effort on the part of us human beings; we need the humble King who comes to save us by the cost of His blood and who gave up His life to redeem us. Political kingdoms do not give eternal treasures or everlasting salvation. They can only provide peace for a time and, perhaps, some degree of stability. This is certainly good and worthwhile, but it is not eternal. While we should, even must, be involved in political realities as members of our nation, we must not invest ourselves into politics and having good rule as if it were God. We must not see our earthly kingdoms as heaven and our earthly rulers as saviors. They are not.
But, dear Christian, we do not have the King we necessarily want, but we do have the King we need. He gives us a Kingdom, this is true, one that we do live in and must act according to. But this Kingdom is far greater than any earthly political reality, it is eternal. It is broader than any nation; it is greater than any language or ethnic group. It lasts forever. It stands on the solid foundation that is Christ the Lord and His saving death. And we have been brought into it by the power of the Word of God and are held there through faith. So, do not fret about our political problems, we already have a perfect, forever King. And yes, we should participate in the political order, but we must do so as Christians who recognize the place our ultimate allegiance should reside: Christ the King.
In the holy Name of +Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Matthew 21:4-5 English Standard Version
[2] Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics Vol. 3 (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House,1953), 418.
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