A Tale of Two Kings

Micah 5:2–5 NRSV

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace. If the Assyrians come into our land and tread upon our soil, we will raise against them seven shepherds and eight installed as rulers.

The story that we come together to celebrate tonight is a story that began long before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. For over 1000 years, the arc of Israel’s narrative was bending towards the coming of a King who would wear the crown and rule over Israel with righteousness and justice.

In a small town called Bethlehem a young shepherd boy named David was found and anointed to be king of Israel. David was the epitome of what the people desired from their king — he united the people, secured Israel’s borders, and built a kingdom that fostered political, social, and religious flourishing.

There would never be another King quite like him. His descendants continued to fail in one way or another, leading the nation into perilous situations until finally they were conquered and absorbed into a series of world empires. In the midst of their struggles they looked to the hope that a King like David could restore Israel.

Although they were subjects of empires like Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then Rome — these empires allowed the monarchy of Israel to continue to “rule.” This kept the hope alive for the people that someday a king would break their bond to Empire and Emperor.

But each king was corrupt, ruling on behalf of their own comfort and wealth — ignoring the plight of the people. And so the people clung to promises — like the promise made through the prophet Micah — that a king would come from the line of David, be born in Bethlehem, and rule over the people with the strength and will of God and bring peace to Israel and the whole world.

And that is the set-up for a story of a baby boy, born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem which was ruled over by a wicked king named Herod. Herod’s legacy was one stained by greed, jealousy, and pride. He learned from some traveling Wise Men that a new king had been born and his immediate response was to issue a decree to kill the child via the mass execution of newborns in the land.

This was the king that Israel had. This was who they hoped would protect them from the iron fist of the Roman Government. A man driven so mad by power that he would commit atrocities just to thwart the idea that a child might someday take his crown.

I think that its really telling that the Christ Child, God embodied within a human, would come to our world under these circumstances. A baby, born in a barn, under the shadow of a bloodthirsty government was promised to be one who was strong, exalted above all names, and a bringer of peace to the entire world. It’s far fetched and preposterous. It’s not the way that anyone wanted it to go. This was not the king the people wanted, and yet this is the story that our God wrote.

Have you ever gotten a gift that you didn’t ask for, that completely surprises you? Maybe you weren’t even sure what to do with it at first, but it ended up being something that you loved or was useful to you for a long long time?

Those are the best gifts, the unexpected gifts.

No one expected Jesus. No one expected the king of Israel — the king of the world — to come in the way that Jesus came. No one expected the king of Israel to live the way that Jesus did. Not in a palace surrounded by the comfort of power and wealth but rather as a traveling teacher surrounded only by the comfort of his closest friends. Everyone expected the king to wear royal garb and a jeweled crown. But Jesus wore a crown of thorns.

And yet this humble man was also clothed by the full power of God. This humble baby, born in a manger would defy the odds, escape death as an infant, and claim the throne in the most unexpected way as he defeated death once again at the end of his earthly story.

This is the reality of the story that we celebrate. It is a story that shows us that God is very highly interested in the success of the unwanted, unimagined, underdogs of society. And I don’t mean the odds for the College Football Playoff ok. I mean that God is highly interested in people like you and like me.

God is highly interested in shaping and molding people — despite the adversities of our lives. Every one of us sitting here tonight has had to face some kind of adversity. Maybe not the adversity of a king trying to kill you while you are a newborn, but we all have faced some kind of King Herod situation in our lives. Maybe it’s the situation you were born into, maybe it’s a socioeconomic reality, maybe it’s very real political adversity, maybe it’s just a really complicated relationship with family, or a really complicated situation with your mental health or substance abuse. Maybe it is a really complicated relationship between you and God because of the way that you’ve experienced the human condition.

Well tonight the story of a baby born into adversity who grew up to be the king of peace is a reminder that his crown was the greatest gift that all of us have ever received. It’s a gift that says all of this mess that you have lived in or are currently living in doesn’t define you. It doesn’t get to master you and hold you captive. It’s a gift that breaks chains and renames you and rewrites stories. The gift of Jesus is God’s promise that the struggles of this world will not get the final word in our lives. There is a love so great that it would come to us in the form of a child king who truly did finally rescue us from the seat of a lowly manger in the no name town of Bethlehem. This is the story. And what a gift it is that this story is our story as well.