Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight through all the earth;
heralds of creation's story now proclaim Messiah's birth!
Come and worship Christ, the new-born King,
come and worship, worship Christ the new-born King.
(J. Montgomery 1772-1854)
On Friday our Advent Calendar took us into Matthew’s gospel which tells us about men who travelled from the far East. Yesterday our Calendar told us that these men were looking for a new-born king and today we’re are told that they have seen his star which will lead them to him. Let’s read what the bible tells us about these visitors Matthew 2: 1-6
Many of our favourite Christmas Carols refer to Jesus as the new-born King and these men from the East (so unlikely to be Jews) recognise a sign which tells them to come to worship the new-born king. Now the title ‘king’ is understood in a number of different ways today, but 2,000 years ago there was a more united understanding of the word - the men who arrived from the East and king Herod and even the people of Israel all had a similar idea about what a king was. The king was the one who made the rules by and everyone in his kingdom obeyed them.
We know that Jesus never had a physical kingdom but the people who listened to Jesus preaching and teaching and saw him perform miracles, knew what it would cost to call Jesus their king - their Lord – master – boss. We have little idea and no actual experience of what it means to have a Lord - a master. We may complain about a boss or member of the family ‘lording’ it over us but that doesn’t really give us experience of the New Testament understanding of King or Lord. Shutdown regulations begin to show us what it might me like to live under the rule of someone who had complete power and authority over our lives, which is what these titles implied to those who wrote our scriptures.
We do have one advantage over those people of 2,000 years ago when it comes to understanding Jesus as king – as Lord. We have grown up with the idea that laws are introduced for our benefit – i.e. car seat belts / clunk-click every trip. For many people today and certainly people 2,000 years ago in Israel that would not be their assumption, instead they would expect that any new law had major benefits for the one who was imposing it. The people living at the time of Jesus’ birth would assume that King Herod or Caesar Augustus - their lord, would simply be doing what is best for himself with whatever law they introduced.
So, we do have a huge advantage in that we have an assumption that rules are made for our benefit and so should understand that King Jesus’ rules are for our benefit – our Lord wants to enable us to live our lives in the best way possible. People 2,000 years ago would have been surprised about that, and about the fact that King Jesus doesn’t impose his rules, but says: If you love me you will follow my commands, if you want to experience life in my Kingdom – obey my commands. We then say ‘yes we will’ recognising that they are for our benefit, but we then still struggle to obey them.
We treat some of King Jesus’ rules in the same way some people treat speed limit rules and decide it is simply for advice - and take no notice of it, or we treat some of what Jesus instructed us to do in the same way as some people treat the Covid regulations and decide the while it would be good if other people obeyed them, we have circumstances which mean they would prefer not to fully implement them. And then once we have mis-shaped our King’s instructions, we then say living by Jesus’ rules doesn’t work - the rules don’t do what he says they will do!
What rules do we need to follow to live the life king Jesus wants us to live?
Jesus was happy to use this summary:
‘Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, soul, strength and mind.’
King Jesus explained that if we are doing this then it will affect how we interact with others – we will love one another – but that’s not just those who are similar to us – because King Jesus also said: Love your neighbour, anyone you encounter, and just to make sure that everyone was included in the command King Jesus specifically said: Love our enemy.
It is as we fully embrace these commands that we will discover the benefits of living in the kingdom of King Jesus. If we decide to pick and choose which bits of Jesus instructions we are going to obey, not only does it call into question whether he is our king but it also means we miss out by doing this. Through not living fully by the rules of God’s kingdom we don’t gain all the benefits God wants us to experience through making Jesus our King. We miss out on living our life in the best way possible because all of God’s rules are given to help us. They will help us to live life the way God intended to be lived - the way we were created to live life
Hark! the herald-angels sing 'Glory to the new-born King!'
Spend a few moments considering what it will mean for you to be fully committed to letting King Jesus make the rules by which you live your life.