Strangest Throne Ever

Hey everyone! This week is quickly winding down! And today as we enter into a conversation with God through his Word, we've arrived at the darkest part of the story of the Bible, the point at which everything seems lost. Let's step into the story as onlookers in John 19:16-22. It won't take you but a minute to read. Ask God to impress on your heart what he wants you to see and hear. It could change your life.

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. (v. 19)

The implication of the notice was to say that this is what happens to men who would challenge Caesar's right to rule. "This is what we do with 'kings' other than the emporer around here." Jesus didn't look very kingly stripped and hanging from nails in his wrists, bloodied and bruised. In the minds of his enemies and those who had no regard for him, this was the ultimate humiliation of someone who dared insinuate that he was greater than they.

Pilate wrote the notice the way he did, rather than saying that Jesus "claimed" to be king, out of spite for the Jews that had manipulated him into crucifying him. It was a little humiliating for them, too, for Rome to rub in their face the fact that they were an occupied nation under foreign domination.

I think John saw a different significance to the notice, though. He recorded the conversation because he wanted you and me to see the irony of the truth. Jesus transformed the instrument of his death into his throne. What was meant to shame him ended up bringing him the glory of a thousand kings. And why? Because he went there out of ultimate love for the world, for people like me, willingly, to turn the tables on evil and sin and human depravity, defeating them with pure goodness and grace. He suffered and died for others. He laid down his rights to free the enslaved.

In that was his glory. And it was a glory that could not and cannot ever be taken from him. When they tried to get Pilate to change the inscription, he declared:

"What I have written, I have written." (v. 22)

Jesus is King. And he will show himself to be King. Nothing can change that. No one can stop him from claiming his Kingdom. He is the King whose throne was a brutal cross. It took his life but, in doing so, gave Life to everyone who puts their trust and hope in him.

What I hear him saying to me is, "Am I really your King? Keep showing me your allegience by your choices. Carry out my will. Be devoted to the mission I've given you. Obey my commands. Have I not proven that your well-being is my first and foremost concern?" Yes, you have, Jesus. And I will, by your help and grace. You are my King.