Did you participate in a No Kings demonstration today? I watched people—young and old, black, white and brown, some carrying protest signs and banners, young parents pushing strollers, caregivers guiding wheelchairs. People en masse advocating for their political and personal beliefs.
And then I was struck by the irony of the date. Tomorrow morning hundreds of thousands of us, those who call ourselves followers of Jesus, will gather to remember another parade, another demonstration that happened almost 2,000 years ago. Most of those people hungered for political change. Others wondered if this unlikely “king” would be the promised savior, the Messiah they had heard about, hungered for.
Americans in the United States don’t do well with kings. It’s in our inherited, national DNA, our remembered history that this country was formed to distance ourselves from kings. But there’s another anti-kings concept that seems embedded in our souls. We’re simply accustomed to stubborn insistence on having our own way. Our own way the best way. Why else did we demonstrate this morning?!
The King who entered Jerusalem that long ago date didn’t look like a king. He didn’t wear the trappings of royalty. He didn’t demand obeisance. He had warned his followers of his coming suffering and death. He spoke of himself as in relationship with the One who had sent him.
Am I willing to discard any robes that indicate my position as a follower of The King? What will it cost me to say, and my life show, “not I, but Christ”?
We have the privilege of freely participating in peaceful demonstrations here in the U.S. We also have the privilege—and mission—to live in the Kingdom that demands our first loyalty. Do I look like, live like, the King I follow? Am I willing to follow Him after the parade?
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