Kings and Queens

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. (Rev. 5: 9-10)

True confessions: I read bedtime stories to Evelyn just before we go to sleep at night. Right now we’re working through one of C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books, the series in which British school children become kings and queens in the land of Narnia. It’s the perfect February read. When it seems like the whole world is screaming out words like “darkness,” “never-ending cold,” “weariness,” and climaxing with, “give it up, you can’t make a difference,” C. S. Lewis gently and playfully declares, “Syd, you are a king and Evelyn, you are a queen.”

And of course, he is simply re-phrasing a deep and rich biblical truth. God created us as kings and queens, and one of the major results of Christ’s redemptive work is that he equips us to reign with him over the entire earth.

I know that often this sounds very grandiose in a “spiritually-out-of-touch” kind of way, but actually feels like it means very little when we wake up on a February morning. Bear with me.

Pastor John Ortberg once took fifteen minutes to describe how Christians changed the world during the first centuries after Pentecost. He described how providing universal learning, creating hospitals, and caring for the poor became normal in societies that made room for gospel salt and light. He described how every pre-Christian culture divided people into those who were “more human,” “less human,” and “not really human,” and how the declaration that Jesus restores the Image of God in us explodes all attempts to categorize people to justify social injustice.

I’ll never forget the day when our youngest child (who now has a history degree, and always has loved history, and was born with some physical handicaps) cheerfully announced at the family dinner table (at the age of 8), “If I had been born in ancient Sparta, I would have been left out on the rocks to die.” He lived because he was born in a country in which kings and queens like you and me had spread their salt and light throughout the entire culture.

Jesus declares to us, “You are a king or queen. Follow me, and I’ll equip you and lead you as you rule in my name.” That’s worth getting out of bed for, even in February.