King of kings

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped,
To subdue nations before him
and to loose the belts of kings,
To open doors before him
that gates may not be closed; (Isa 45:1)

Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
and your disgrace shall be seen.
I will take vengeance,
and I will spare no one
Our Redeemer – the Lord of hosts is his name –
is the Holy one of Israel. (Isa 47:3-4)

I remember Joe Montana.  He was a great quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.  He did not appear to be most athletic quarterback, but he seemed to have this winning quality.  He could meet the pressure filled moment and come away with the win.  He could make the play when it needed to be made.  For a long time, if a team wanted to win the Super Bowl, they had to beat Joe Montana.  No one talks much about him anymore.  His amazing feats have been upstaged by another quarterback, Tom Brady.  Also, Joe retired 30 years ago…gone is his greatness.

Such is everything in this world.  The one who seems to dominate and be powerful will eventually be forgotten or relegated to the dust bin of history.  Kingdoms and nations will rise and fall, but time ticks on.  Time beats everything and everyone, eventually death wins.

In the passage above from Isaiah 45, we read about Cyrus.  A foreign, pagan king of Persia anointed by God to bring the Hebrew people back to Israel.  In the Isaiah 47 passage we see the downfall of the empire of Babylon.  Of course, Cyrus and his empire eventually fall (or at least lose much of their power) to the rising Greek Empire (Alexander) and also to the encroachment of the Genghis Kahn.  The Greeks eventually gave way to the Roman Empire, which eventually gave way to the Ottoman Empire which lasted until about 100 years ago.  What do all those great empires have in common?  They are gone.

One can make a claim to be great or to be the king of kings, but when you are gone, you are gone.  You become an historical oddity to be studied.  Isaiah reminds us of this phenomenon.  He told us, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the world of our God will stand forever” (Isa 40:8).  What truly lasts, what truly endures.  Time always wins, but it could never defeat the One who created time.  Death was the weapon of rebellion, but it lost its power 2000 years ago and is defeated.  So what lasts, what never fades?

“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war…On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev 19:11&16).

Jesus is permanent, he will never be relegated to the dust bin of history.  He is the God who was, is, and is to come.

How can we begin to have a larger more universal view of life?  If we were to see life in this bigger sense, how would our actions change?

For extra credit, read the sonnet below by Percy Shelley.  Everyone has seen throughout history how the greatness of the present will always lose to the slow drip of time.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias", 1819 edition