It has hardly felt like a merry Christmas if I’m being honest. Sexual abusers keep getting outed in our government. Abusive pastors find their way to spew hate from the pulpit and in private rooms. An election year reminded us how deep our divisions go. Mothers betrayed grandsons with false promises. Wars broke out and belabored while Christians asked for more bombs to be dropped or less aid to be sent. This year, the song that’s defined the holiday season for me has been Joel Ansett’s version of Christmas Bells. Particularly, the third verse:
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said. ‘For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.’
Principally, it feels as though we keep getting leaders – in our countries, in our churches, in our workplaces and families, who are tyrannical, abusive, vindictive. Leaders who deepen our divisions and do little to help alleviate the pain around us. As I prayed about this year’s Christmas post, and have been praying on how to participate in communities led by ill and deranged bigots, I’ve been continually overwhelmed with the hard truth that, despite everything I can see, God is in control. On Christmas, we celebrate peace, joy, and glad tidings. But we also celebrate the arrival of the King of Kings, the shoulders on which all governments stand. I believe in kings, this year more than any other so far. But despite it all, despite how much I don’t want to, I still believe in the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the God who is with us, embodied with our suffering and stuck with us under our oppressive systems.
Today, we’ll briefly cover three authorities from the Bible and what THE KING of kings might have to say in answer to our current human experience.
#1 the king DAVID
David is lauded throughout the Bible as a great king. Indeed, his bloodline eventually produces Jesus of Nazareth who hails from the “line of David” (e.g., Matthew 15:22; Mark 12:35, etc.). The Psalms, one of the Church’s greatest and most popular traditions, were at least largely written by David (73 by name).
David is far from an innocent man, though. In 2 Samuel 11, David sees a married woman bathing in what she likely assumed was a private part of her and her husband’s residence. Overcome by lust, David initiates sex with the woman named Bathsheba. Scholars disagree to the extent of Bathsheba’s excitement about the encounter. Some of rightly point out the difficulty (if not downright impossibility) of denying sex from the most powerful man in your society. Others have mentioned that Bathsheba may have been excited at the encounter. Sex can be fun, David was likely an attractive man, and none of that is to mention the rush and honor of someone important seeing value in you.
Regardless of how Bathsheba felt about the encounter, two things are abundantly clear.
First, even good, godly authority is not without grievous mistakes. Imagine, then, how much darker ungodly authority is. After David commits adultery with Bathsheba, overcome by his guilt and lust, David has her husband Uriah killed. We are right to be naturally weary of authority and it is good to call evil by its name, no matter how godly we think the source is. Even godly leaders make decisions that cost people their lives and irrevocably harm their well-being.
Secondly, God both drowns the guilty with justice and ultimately repurposes evil for good. Oftentimes, pastors will point towards the latter and forget the former. It is true that despite David’s lust, objectification of women, abuse of power, and murder, God ultimately redeems David. David does remain the ancestor of the prophesized Emmanuel. He continues to lead his people. He is forgiven of his sins. This is a nice story… for David anyway. And when we as the Church focus too hard on the nicety, we accidently align ourselves with abusive, if redeemed, authority, instead of the innocent victims of Uriah and (likely) Bathsheba. Yes, God does ultimately redeem evil for good. I believe that. I believe that is appropriate to call out the depravity of warfare and sexual violence and abuse of power in faithful and patient hope that the king will relent. But I also believe that even if evil does not bend its knee, evil stands no chance but to eventually be repurposed to testify to the glory and the goodness of God.
Yet, I also believe justice comes for those who harm God’s children. I believe that justice comes for me. The prophet Nathaniel confronts David with such justice in chapter 12:
This is what the Lord God of Israel says: I anointed you king over Israel and rescued you from Saul. I gave you your master Saul’s house and his wives. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if this weren’t enough, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise my word by doing what I considered evil? You had Uriah the Hittite killed in battle. You took his wife as your wife. You used the Ammonites to kill him. So warfare will never leave your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
This is what the Lord says: I will stir up trouble against you within your own household, and before your own eyes I will take your wives and give them to someone close to you. He will go to bed with your wives in broad daylight. You did this secretly, but I will make this happen in broad daylight in front of all Israel. (NRSVue)
Yes, God redeems evil. But he also holds it accountable. And the evil that is done in secret, God always brings to the light.
The king David reminds us that all authority is liable to corruption and all corruption is held accountable to both mercy and justice.
#2: the king HEROD
Earthly kings have no real power. They lack a lasting, genuine authority. Think of the greatest leaders – Ceaser, Alexander the Great, George Washington, Queen Liliʻuokalani – no matter how great or how poorly they ruled, no matter their righteousness or their commitment to atrocity, their kingdoms fell and their influence was ceded to others. Issues arise when kings think they have power. Think of the tyrants of the 20th century or the dictators of the current age. These leaders feel untouchable. They rule with iron fists. Then, one day, like all of us, they turn to dust. Their people rebel. They are defeated by a stronger force. They are assassinated. They fade into the oblivion that comes for all of us, no matter how important or grandiose we reckon ourselves to be.
King Herod was one such king, convinced that if he quelled enough rebellion, his authority on earth would never dissipate. Not to spoil the ending, but Herod is no longer king. His kingdom, Judea no longer exists. The larger nation Judea was housed within, Rome, is no longer a nation. His authority was fickle and feeble. Nevertheless, the inescapability of Herod’s finitude failed to divert him from having every infant boy killed in and around Bethlehem. In a desperate attempt to preserve his power against the proclaimed “King of the Jews” recently born in Bethlehem, Herod commands a mass murder. God is one step ahead, however, directing the Holy Family to escape to Egypt before Herod and his men can kill the baby Jesus. Decades later, Jesus is executed by the government for the same crime of ruling the Jews. However, this act is ultimately carried out on the authority of God the Father who allows Jesus to sacrificially die. Whereas Herod’s authority is constricted to his short life, God’s authority exists outside of time.
I don’t want to move too quickly on from this story without mentioning that it evokes for many of us as many questions as it does guidance. On the one hand, we learn that God holds ultimate authority. God’s plans are established. God cannot be outwitted or manipulated by human hands, no matter how many armies those hands direct. On the other hand, we learn that God, at best, turns a blind eye to the injustice of authorities and allows real people to suffer at the behest of a king, and, at worst, requires the suffering and death of infants in order to fulfill God’s plans.
This, the problem of evil, has captivated Christians for as long as we’ve been around. If God is all powerful and all good as scriptures claim God is, an obvious impossibility erupts when evil occurs. When something bad happens, God was either powerless to stop it (thus, God is not all powerful) or God allowed the bad thing to happen (and is thus not all good). How you solve this problem is a matter of personal prayer and petition (see my prior post from the Threads series for some ideas). However, what is not debatable is that human rulers, no matter the atrocities to which they are determined to commit, last. The “weeping and great mourning (Matthew 2:18)” lasts for a lifetime maybe, but eventually joy wrestles the dark down to emerge in the morning. In Judea, a mother wept for her murdered son. In Bethany, Lazarus rises from the dead. Nothing is final except the joy that comes from knowing and loving Jesus.
No matter how turbulent and horrific the journey is, the story ends with God’s redemption and love overpowering even the darkest death. This is the Gospel, plain and simple. Kings can and, oftentimes do, their very worst in order to preserve and demonstrate their power. And their carcasses are tossed into the mouth of earth anyway while the children of God dance again across the new earth.
The king Herod reminds us that all earthly authority is temporary and subservient to God’s ultimate purpose and plan.
#3: the king CHRIST
In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life, one of his first (and most famous) sermons is preached. Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with a series of beatitudes, or blessings for various characteristics. Jesus describes a kingdom that is upside down when gazed upon with human eyes. Whereas our culture extols the most powerful, Jesus’ kingdom rewards the powerless. Whereas our culture advocates for revenge and vengeance, Jesus’ kingdom elevates those who make mercy a habit. Whereas our culture strives to build the biggest bomb, Jesus’ kingdom is built on the backs of those who harbor peace.
Indeed, Jesus’ very arrival signals a very different kind of kingdom. Whereas earthly authority is established in grandeur and gold, Jesus arrives to an unmarried woman and spends his first days surrounded by the smell of manure and lying in a feeding trough.
In our modern context, we need to fight against the definitions of success we are fed. We should be skeptical of the people who talk to us about how to live and how to find and make meaning in life. When an authority – in our government, church, home, or workplace – describes their assent to the throne, we should ensure their actions match the kingdom Jesus describes. If an authority brags about being the best, the strongest, the most powerful, we should question if they are worthy of the allegiance of our heart. Too many Christians today struggle to endorse a humble and meek faith that is characterized by more loss and suffering than it is by wins and domineering. And yet, we should not be surprised by this. The King whose birth we celebrate today taught us, in both his arrival and his ministry, that the lowly rise to the top. The last become the first.
Let these kings assert whatever temporary power they want to dominate the lowly. The lowly will laugh as they climb over the bones of the haughty on their way to heaven.
The king Christ demonstrates to us that true power looks like losing. The more we lose, the more we gain.
There are so many people and institutions desperate for the resources and the power of the Body of Christ. This is why leaders align themselves with “Christian values” they do not exhibit in their personal life. This is why pastors should continually be monitored for instances of spiritual and emotional abuse. We must decide as a Body to commit to being a kingdom of lowliness, where suffering is the goal and poverty is the American Dream. We have to actively undo our culturally engrained definitions of success and build Church communities in which the goals of the Kingdom of God are prioritized.
In summary, this Christmas, I hope you internalize the message of Christmas Bells:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor does He sleep. The wrong shall fail and the good prevail.’
The story of Christmas is about one baby entering into a meager manger to permanently and irrevocably crush Death’s head. It’s the story about true and lasting authority. It’s a story about the greatest victory ever won, not with atomic bombs, but with self-sacrificing bloodshed. I pray that the long-expected Jesus comes to establish his authority on this earth. I pray that rulers fall into the midst of the sea. I pray that in our long suffering under tyrants and abusers, we remember that there is no throne tall enough to escape the justice and the mercy of God.
My God is not dead, friends. My God is about to be born in a barn in the middle east. And I for one plan to tell every ruler whose shoulders it is their authority rests upon. His shoulders are the shoulders of peace, not war. His shoulders source wise wisdom from his own head, not advisors. He is forever in a world of endings.
All hail, King Jesus. All hail, this baby who makes me not afraid. All hail, King Jesus, my savior who allows me to suffer so that I may revel in the highest of glories.
To all the tyrants and abusive authorities out there: Merry Christmas. Christ is here and he’s coming for you.
Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He also hosts the podcast Death in Dakota, sells poetry art here, and masquerades as the spoken word artist Liihey. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).
Living Beyond 
Leave a comment