Recognizing A King

 What does it mean to be in the presence of a king?  What does it mean to be in the presence of a queen?  I personally never had that experience, but I can imagine what it might be like.  For a moment, you might become nervous, maybe your palms sweat a little bit.  There may suddenly be a dryness in your throat.  It might be very difficult to form words.  Perhaps you might feel a little weak in the knees.  It certainly would be a moment that you would never forget.

And yet we profess this Sunday that there is a King of the Universe, and that person is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  And yet perhaps when we encounter him, we don’t have quite the same reaction.  For we encounter him in each and every person that we meet.  Most people that we encounter, we are indifferent to.  If we are honest, our hope is that those whom we meet don’t expect anything from us.  In fact, we sadly have come to expect the opposite.  We have become sure that the other person is going to try to take advantage of us in some way.  Whether it’s the mechanic fixing our car, whom we expect to charge us unfairly or the person in need on the street, whom we have already decided is just trying to deceive us and probably has a load of money in the bank.  We have come to be a society that lives in mutual suspicion of one another.  

This depravity of mutual suspicion simply feeds on itself and it leads to an epidemic of lack of respect.  We no longer even consider the possibility of seeing Christ in others, and so, we cut off each other on the highway.  We go home and lock our doors and don’t bother to check on our elderly neighbors.  For some, we see the other as a political opponent.  We make characterizations that the other person must be one of them - them being the opposite of who we are. 

And yet to feel good about ourselves in the midst of this, we carve out a little bit of our resources, whether it be time or money or talent, and perform some type of service.  Don’t get me wrong, volunteer service is very admirable, but if we do it so others will see Christ in us, rather than we seeing Christ in those whom we serve, then we have it all wrong.

If Jesus, the King of the Universe, is present in every human being, then why aren’t we in wonder and awe of each other?  Why don’t we get those feelings of being in the presence of royalty when we see especially those in need?  The King will ask us, “When I was hungry, did you give me something to eat?  When I was thirsty, did you give me something to drink?”

Perhaps we no longer react to being in the presence of the true King, because our goal is to have others see us as royalty.  The King of the Universe wants us to live in the Truth, which we experience when we love and serve one another.  In that we will discover the true joy of the kingdom, both in the present and for all eternity.

- The Servant