Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
Matt 21:7-9
And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.
This post I'm going to talk a little bit about the Christ as King. The two kings that are found anointed in the Old Testament are first Saul and then David. They were anointed for the purpose of ruling over God's people, which at the time was the undivided kingdom of Israel. The promise was given that God gives great deliverance to His king and mercy to His anointed, and that it would be to David and to his seed forever more.
Throughout the Old Testament, even though Israel had a king to rule over them, it was always God who was their true King, and it was by God's authority that the king ruled. This is why even after David had been anointed as king and Saul was still alive, David would not rise up against Saul. It was not until after Saul had died in battle that David took the throne. The Psalms are full of verses proclaiming that God is king over all the earth, His throne is forever, and that His dominion endures throughtout all generations.
Jesus, being the Seed of David as traced through Matthew's geneology, and being the Word made flesh who was with God in the beginning and was God, is heir to the kingdom and ruler over all. He fulfills the prophecy of Zechariah in His entrance into Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday, and of all the accusations that were made against Him, It was only for being "King of the Jews" that was written on the cross as his reason for being crucified.
He is King over God's people and over all of creation. Psalm 2 says that He would receive the heathen for an inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, Psalm 22 says that He is Governor among all nations, and Zechariah says that He will be king over all the earth. This is fulfilled in Jesus being the name to which every knee shall bow, and also in the grafting of the gentiles into the Church as His kingdom. Ephesians says that it is in Him, through the cross, that we are fellow citizens with the saints and of the houshold of God. It is because of this all encompassing authority of God that we are commanded to make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching to observe what we have been commanded to keep.
So how do we become citizens of God's kingdom? We become citizens of His kingdom here on earth by being baptized into Christ by the power of His death and resurrection identifying us as believers and disciples. Being given the promise of citizenship in His eternal kingdom, we are to persevere in faith in order to attain to the resurrection.
There are a number of instructions given as guidance on how to do this. Jesus says that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter the kingdom but those who do the will of His Father. We are to humble ourselves as little children. We are to take care how we hear, to have our hearts be like the good soil into which the seed of the message of the Gospel takes root and grows producing much fruit in us. We are to trade in all that we have in order to receive it as the pearl of great price. We are to forgive others knowing the depths of which God's forgiveness has been extended to us. We are to receive the invitation given to us and to come prepared like in the parable of the wedding feast. We are to recognize and honor the image and likeness of God in human beings just as the sheep on christ's right hand. We are to cut off our hand and pluck out our eye, that means severing attachments to things of the world that come between us and God and to prefer God above all things. We are to wisely invest the talents given to us by God in order to produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
And as Christ said that the violent take the kingdom by force, we must actively seek God and press toward Him and be conformed to Christ. This means we have to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, which requires every bit of effort that we are capable of putting forward in the struggle to walk by faith. There will come times when we will fail and fall in our struggles, but we are not to despair. We are to trust in God and, as Peter did when he started sinking in the water, reach our hand out and yell "save me" when we find ourselves placing our focus on the storm around us instead of on Christ in Whom we are saved.
May god give me the strength to walk according to His kingdom in which He reigns and is clothed with majesty.
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