The King's Wisdom
Lenten Season: Ash Wednesday, 5 March 2014.
Rev. Bruce Skelton, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado
His throne was made of ivory and was overlaid with the finest gold. The six steps leading up to his great throne had carved lions on both sides. At the back of the throne was a calf’s head, a symbol of kingly might. The armrests were elaborate and his footstool was made of gold. Wise King Solomon truly built himself a glorious throne.
But as magnificent as his throne was, the one who sat on it was even more impressive. This king of the Jews was truly a glorious king, but nothing was more golden than what came from his lips. When God told him as a young man to ask Him for anything, Solomon didn’t ask for riches, or a long life, or victory over his enemies. He asked for wisdom, wisdom so that he could rule over God’s people wisely and God was pleased with his answer, so he made him wise and he opened his lips and spoke 3,000 Proverbs.
So wise was he that people came from all over the world to hear his wisdom. The Queen of Sheba came 1,200 miles a huge distance in those days to test his wisdom with hard questions, and the answers that came from Solomon’s lips left her breathless. Yet, in spite of all his wisdom and glory, Solomon’s life came to an inglorious end, because all his glory and wisdom still came from an inglorious heart, a sinful human heart like ours.
So he became a tyrant and while his lips still poured forth wisdom, the way he lived made him no more than a hypocrite. “Rejoice in the wife of your youth,” is what he taught (Proverbs 5:18), yet he ended up rejoicing in 700 of them. “How much better to get wisdom than gold,” He taught (16:16), while his greedy royal hands grasped for as much gold as they could gather. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” he taught (Psalm 111:10), but when we read about how he lived it was as if he feared everything but the Lord. He was a royal hypocrite, indeed.
But instead of merely pointing fingers at Solomon, as we come before the Lord this Ash Wednesday it would be good for us to consider what royal hypocrites we have been. Did you recognize yourself in today’s Gospel as Jesus spoke against the way of those famous religious show-offs, the Pharisees? Lest we cluck our tongues too loudly at what they did, if the truth be told we’ve done our own share of posing for the camera too. Sure, maybe we’ve never sounded a trumpet while giving to the needy like they did, but we’ve been known to toot our own horns to others, lest our “sacrificial” giving go unnoticed and un acknowledged.
Maybe we’ve never stood on the street corners and prayed to be seen like the Pharisees did, but how often have we prayed at all or lied, telling people that you were praying for them when we weren’t? And when we fast, we certainly don’t disfigure our faces to be seen as pious like the Pharisees did, but we’re also never be content to keep our fasting between ourselves and our heavenly Father alone are we?
Yes, King Solomon and the Pharisees weren’t the only hypocrites, we are pretty good actors ourselves, which is why we must all repent. Yes, there is a reason for this mark of mortality on our foreheads. There’s a reason those words first spoken to Adam were spoken into our ears this night: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). The reason is that inglorious, show-off Adam that lives inside our heads and hearts, who is always seeking a religious “Atta-boy.” That part of us that believes that if we are just good enough, humble enough, or suffer enough, then God will have to let us into heaven, because we deserve it.
Yes, with glory-seeking hearts like ours, we’ll never be content with being seen by the only eyes that matter namely the eyes of our Father in heaven. So let me ask an uncomfortable question, why would the Father—seeing what hypocrites we are —ever forgive us all our sins and allow us into heaven?
One might think he never would, and yet he does. Why? Because even though He sees what sin comes forth from our inglorious hearts, He has eyes of mercy. He is gracious and merciful and is abounding in steadfast love. And He loves to pour out his grace on those who know and confess their unworthiness. He made us, he knows that we are dust and to dust we shall return, but above all He remembers His mercy and His promise to rescue sinners. He saw and still sees this wretched state of ours, which is why he sent us a King wiser and more glorious than Solomon could ever hope to be, a greater Solomon, if you will, a King of kings and Lord of Lords, whose throne in heaven would have made Solomon’s throne look like a weathered old deck chair; a merciful king who laid aside his divine heavenly glory in order to take on our flesh and blood and rescue us.
It is that King, named Jesus, who sat on that mountainside that he made, teaching in today’s Gospel reading. His proper place would have been a golden throne, but there sat in the grass teaching with divine authority, pouring out golden words of salvation and life for the multitudes to take for free. There He sat with no earthly splendor at all, His arms pointing to the open air and His feet resting in the dirt. He was surrounded not by twelve carved lions, but by twelve flesh-and-blood sinners whom He had chosen to instruct about a Kingdom that can’t be seen or earned, but can only be received by faith in Him.
And this King not only talked the talk, He walked the walk for us. Yes, for miserable sinners like us. He not only talked on that mount, but He also walked up another mount, an ugly one outside of Jerusalem called “Golgotha” to die the death that we deserved. He had to you see, because he was driven by an unspeakable love for you and me and for His Father above. On the way there, He blew no trumpet, His generous left hand and His generous right hand were always ready to heal and to help the needy in body and soul, until those hands were stretched out and nailed to a cross in order to save us all.
Even though He was God in the flesh, He never stood on street corners and tried to impress people with His prayers; He was content to leave the crowds to pray alone to His Father in heaven, that His faithful prayer life might be credited to us. This was a King who was willing to be driven out to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. It was he who fasted forty days and forty nights with no one knowing, but the God the Father and the devil who tempted Him. But He triumphed for us, His emaciated face earning for us a radiance that can never be darkened.
This King is different from all other earthly kings. While wise King Solomon built a throne for himself and his own glory, this King did no such thing. He was content with the One that His Father prepared for Him. It wasn’t a throne made of ivory and overlaid with the finest gold. It was made of wood, to be covered with the finest blood—his blood, the very blood of God. It didn’t have an impressive backrest, or armrest or a golden footrest. His throne was an ugly, rugged old wooden cross, for He came to die an inglorious death for inglorious sinners.
To that ugly throne He dragged all our phoniness, unbelief, and sin so that He might triumph over them and then show us his victory with an empty tomb. And he is just the king we needed: a crucified king, God’s Wisdom in the flesh, His love incarnate. He is the King with the perfect heart and by whose precious blood atonement has been made for all our sins and the gates to his eternal Kingdom have been opened, which we could never earn or merit. The King, whose glory is not found in power, or gold, or many wives, but in being a faithful husband to one wife, to us, His beloved bride, the Church whom He has absolved and adorned with his own magnificence.
Just ponder those golden words of the King that were spoken to us in the Holy Absolution: “I forgive you all your sins.” Or in Baptism, where He has adorned us with His own righteous splendor and crowned us glory and honor. It is this King of heaven who calls sinners like us to his altar to eat his very body and drink His very blood from the royal goblet, which imparts to us the forgiveness of sins, and enlivens us with the strength and courage to be His kingdom of priests for the sake of our neighbors.
Indeed, beloved remember this day that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, but also remember that from that same dust you shall one day arise, all because of the love of our crucified and risen King, Jesus. To Him be all glory honor, power and might, now and forever.
Amen. 