On Palm Sunday (the day Jesus came to Jerusalem for the week of Passover) I preached on the word Christ.

If you were with us, I said that we might have lost the plotline because this word remained untranslated in our English language Bibles. Why would translators translate every other word and not “Christ”?

The word translates to “anointed one.” But anointed for what? All four gospel writers (and portions of Old Testament prophecy) all agree that Jesus is anointed to be a king.

But not just a king but the King of kings. Jesus descended from the ancestry of King David but more than that, Jesus is God. He was eternally destined to be our King.

All of this comes into focus for us after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

If Jesus was only human, any thoughts of being a king would have ended when he died.

That was not the end of the story! Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morning and showed the world that he is stronger than death and his Kingship and Kingdom are eternal!

At the very end of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus appears to his disciples and some couldn’t believe their eyes! They thought Jesus was dead and gone and yet they were looking right at him!

Matthew writes, When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Any reasonable person would wonder what they were truly seeing! A hallucination? A ghost? The risen King?

Yet Jesus didn’t shoo anyone away. Grace ruled the day and it is the primary rule in His Kingdom.

Instead, Jesus gathered them around and said this…

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

All authority… not some… not a little bit… but all authority has been given to Jesus. Only a King has ultimate authority and Jesus rightfully claims it.

Jesus instructs us to go teach others about him and his grace. Go and make other students (disciples). Go and be a teacher. Go and show others how God loves them.  And if they believe it, have them baptized into God’s family.

Are you under the authority of this great King?

Do you have students (disciples) that you teach about Jesus (even if informally)?

Are you showing others the love Jesus showed the disciples when “some doubted”?

This is the life Jesus set out for us.

If that sounds too hard, let me boil it down for you.

Are you loving others the way Jesus loves you? Are you loving others in such a way that they stop and notice you are not like everyone else?

If you are ever asked why you are so kind, grace filled and loving… your answer is this, “My King told me to love.”

God bless,
Pr. Ben