The Days of Kings are Gone
The days of kings are gone. Or should be.
When we think of kings today, we picture authoritarian resurgences in my country and across the globe—would-be rulers desperately holding onto power.
In archetypes and legends, there are positive aspects associated with kings—the king archetype is centered and knows how to rule with compassionate authority throughout the realm. But today, the abuses of kings loom large. When wed with state power, patriarchal masculinity projects invulnerability as strength, and delivers justice as violent threat and punishment—especially by scapegoating the vulnerable or marginalized.
We know better than this today—and the “No Kings” protests that many of us joined are a demonstration of a better way.
Vulnerability is strength and justice is not justice if is not justice for all.
Modified from photo by Khyta on Unsplash
Many of us have been harmed by would-be kings. Some of us have the king’s stern force inflicted upon us because we are immigrants, transgender, activists for Palestinian liberation, or just because we get in the way of the king’s plan. Many of us have also been wounded by toxic patriarchy. An unhealed man hurt us, and we hurt someone else in our anger.
When we read “kingly” language in the Bible, it can be confusing or triggering. It’s an understandable reaction to ignore or do away with it. On the one hand, it’s everywhere. “Messiah” is a royal title, and the Hebrew Bible is filled with the chronicles of kings rising and falling. Jesus preaches and enacts “the kingdom of heaven.” Revelation opens with a vision of divine majesty from a throne room (1:4). Jesus is heralded as “King of Kings,” or ruler of all other rulers (1:5). The difference, though, is that this isn’t an oppressive monarchy. It is a subversive political and spiritual reality in which we are all invited to share. That’s why proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” was so politically dangerous to early Christians—because in the same breath, they were saying the emperor was not their ruler. Faithfulness to Jesus entailed a refusal to bow down to kings.
The biblical vision dramatically reframes kingship. The Hebrew prophets anticipated a ruler who would inaugurate the “year of Jubilee” (Luke 4:19), when the enslaved would be released, debts would be forgiven, and the land would lie fallow. Jesus references this vision in his first sermon. In Jesus’s kingdom, domination and power over others is repudiated. As Jesus puts it to his close followers, “the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. . . and it shall not be this way with you” (Matthew 20:25). The leadership and realm Jesus embodies does not punish outsiders or unbelievers but loves enemies. It’s a “No Kings” kingdom.
Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, I saw one like a Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.
—Revelation 1:12–13
This scene in the book of Revelation is set within the biblical context of a vision from a throne room, similar to Daniel 7 and Isaiah 6 (“I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple”). It also dovetails with images of priestly function and intimacy with divine presence: inside ancient Israel’s “Tent of Meeting,” the priest met with God, prayed on behalf of the wandering people, and was surrounded by a few select, sacred objects such as the ark and seven lamps (Exodus 25:37).
In Revelation, the human-divine figure known as the Son of Man walks amidst the lampstands. This image isn’t as esoteric as it might seem. In Revelation 1:20, John of Patmos refers to the lampstands as a metaphor for the churches. The Son of Man amid lampstands is not a picture of a petty king watching the people from an isolated tower. The Son of Man is instead a divine-human king and priest figure walking among and in solidarity with the people. For more on the "Son of Man” as a stand-in for all of us, see this post:
With this human-divine figure, the people are welcomed to stroll freely in the throne room. Those who join the divine movement of justice and love are the lampstands lit with divine presence. The king does not “lord it over” people or punish them, but walks with them in suffering and struggle. We can call it kingship or come up with new metaphors—it’s the refusal to bow down to would-be kings that counts.
P.S., I want to give a special thanks to the new paid subscribers. I know I have my thank you message as a footer each week, but your support truly is an encouragement for me to keep at this week in and week out. I am grateful for you!
What strikes me most in your reflection is the subtle violence of absence, the kind we’ve suffered not only from the iron-fisted kings of history, but from the spiritual distortions that linger long after their crowns have rusted. Power that parades as invulnerability, masculinity stripped of mercy, holiness severed from humanity. These are not just failures of politics, but fractures of incarnation.
The mystery of the Gospel is not that God came as a King, but that he came as a body. And not even a radiant one, but a pierced one. In Christ, kingship is not abolished, but crucified and raised anew in the shape of a lamb. The throne becomes a tree. The crown, a braid of thorns. And the scepter, a nail driven through the wrist of God.
This is the most intimate of solidarities: the King who does not merely walk among the lampstands, but bleeds beside them. The Incarnate One stands not above us but within the muck and silence of our wounds. And from this shattered place, divine authority emerges not as coercion, but as communion. Not as decree, but as descent.
You are right Mark: the true scandal is not kingship, but the kind of kingship that still dares to carry the name of Christ without ever bending low enough to wash feet.
What if the final judgment is not a reckoning of power but of presence? Not how many knelt before us, but whether we ever knelt before the least. If Jesus is King, it is because He became least. That is the kingdom no tyrant can counterfeit. That is the reign that still burns behind the veil.
The work you are doing to unscramble the conceptual language of the Bible is very, very important. Christianity has to evolve or it will die. At this moment, it is faltering, leaving room for the newest strangulation, Christian Nationalism. Please don't attach paid subscriptions to your work as raison d'etre for continuing to grind through the weariness. Not everyone can pay for everything Substack offers. But this is currently where we woke-folk come to know, learn, and move it forward. Thank you for your work.