There was also an inscription over him, “This is the
King of the Jews.” (Luke
23:38)
Did
you have to read Shakespeare in high school? Most American high school students
are required to attain at least a passing familiarity with the Bard, and
legions of English teachers have heroically campaigned through the years to
cram the poetic verbiage of the most accomplished playwright in our common
language into the skulls of youngsters weaned on Instagram, addicted to Tic
Toc, and possessing the attention span of a squirrel with a concussion.
It
must’ve been a little easier back in my high school days. You know—in those
bleak, prehistoric times before the internet and the cell phone, back when we
actually read books. Having been a survivor of a Missouri Synod Lutheran
Sunday school where our only Bible was the King James Version, I took to
Shakespeare like Travis took to Taylor. For a guy who lived 400 years ago,
William Shakespeare really understood what made people tick, and that’s why
we’re still fascinated by the characters he created. He could get under the
skin of real people while giving them some pretty fancy words to say.
I
think of Shakespeare on the Feast of Christ the King as so many of his plays
involved kings and kingly ambition—an ambition which Shakespeare almost always
paints with a very dark brush. Throughout his history plays and even in some of
the great tragedies like Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear.
he shows us men (and sometimes women) who have an unconquerable thirst for
power, position, and control. They all seem to be asking the same questions:
Who do I have to eliminate in order to be king? Who do I have to eliminate in
order to keep being king? The ruthless quest for dominance always leads
to copious bloodletting and paranoia.
My
particular favorite of Shakespeare’s kings is Richard II. Here’s a guy wallowing
in the medieval assumption that he’s king because God wants him to be king. He
says,
“Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord…”
The
trouble is, this particular deputy sucks at his job, and there’s another guy
just itching to knock him off his throne and take over the operation himself. Not
long after proclaiming his divine right to rule the kingdom, Richard gets a
kick in the pants on the battlefield and has to come to terms with the idea he’s
not so divine after all. Changing his tune to a minor key, he declares,
“…within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king[i]?
How
can we say to Jesus he is a king? Our gospel lesson[ii] for this feast depicts
Jesus in a scene more dramatic and tragic than even Shakespeare could’ve
imagined. The so-called king is less than a peasant. He’s a condemned criminal,
executed for a crime—wanting to be king—which he didn’t even commit. He is
beaten, abandoned, alone, reviled, ridiculed by the highest and the lowest in
his society alike. He’s become a nothing, and, impaled on a piece of wood as an
object of scorn and horror, he can’t even wipe the blood from his own eyes.
What
kind of king is this?
There
is no triumphant majesty in this king. No gorgeous palace lined with gold, no army
to command, no household cavalry or legion of courtiers. This king is not in
regal robes. He’s naked, in pain, helpless, and dying. That’s what makes Christ
the King different from all others who would wear the crown and place
themselves above their fellow mortals. This king, with all the glory and power
of the Heavenly Father, has chosen to forsake it all. He doesn’t fear the loss
of power—he willingly relinquishes it. He does not rise above us. He comes down
to be with us, to know us in our worst, most brittle, fragile, lost, and
lonely moments. This king loves us so much that, with his dying breath, he
bestows grace and forgiveness on those who would be his enemies and reaches out
in comfort to the lowest of the low.
What
kind of king is this? The kind we should follow, because all others are just mortals
with no divine right to their authority. Their victories and achievements are
and have always been temporary. Yet the king who died on the cross lives within
us, teaches us compassion, mercy, and humility. He teaches us—or at least, has tried
to teach us—gratitude for our shared humanity, a humanity he loved enough to
embrace himself. For this we offer him our respect, tradition, form and
ceremonious duty.
May
we all be worthy subjects of this king. God bless you, and thank you for
reading my blog this week.
[i] William
Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard II (Act 3, Sc 2), courtesy of
OpenSourceShakespeare.org.
[ii]
Luke 23:33-43
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