In Our Place: Lenten Devotions From Time of GraceSample

Blessed is the King

No country does the pageantry of royalty better than Britain. Elizabeth II has reigned so long that only the elderly can remember the last coronation in 1953, but soon the world will see another. The new monarch will arrive in regal procession, following the Lord’s High Steward with St. Edward’s solid gold crown, and later be invested with the Golden Spurs (dating from A.D. 1189), the royal glove, golden orb, and golden scepter.

How different was Jesus’ royal ride around the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem. His mount was a donkey colt, a small animal that would barely have lifted his head above the crowd. And yet so many people in that crowd recognized him as royalty that they got a chant started: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38). The royal robe awaiting him was an old Roman army cloak; the scepter he was given was a puny reed; the crown put on his head was made not of gold but of thorns.

The blood that came down his face from the thorns was both the blood of a man and the blood of God. As such it has the power to purchase and redeem. As a man Christ can represent us in God’s court; as God he can represent the whole world of needy sinners. By his wounds we are healed.

The Mount of Olives served as another important royal coronation procession. It was from that very place that the resurrected Christ ascended into heaven. His humility is now replaced with glory; his attendants are now ten thousand times ten thousand angels; his presence and Spirit fill the universe; he rules all things for the benefit of his brothers and sisters. Through faith, we are royalty too. Heavenly royalty.