It’s Good to be King
04.16.23
Running around in the annals of 90’s pop/rock music is a memorable line from my college days…
“Yeah, the world would swing if I were king.”
Tom Petty recorded those words on his “Wildflowers” album in 1994. In the song, “It’s Good To Be King,” Petty elaborates on the privileges experienced when the world bends toward you. It’s not the first time I heard that line. I heard it from a not so appropriate scene from a Mel Brooks movie. But the sentiment remained the same. When you’re king, life can be pretty good.
When you are king, you determine the patterns of life. You determine what happens and what doesn’t. You can bend things to your direction for any reason you can come up with. For example, if I were king, tacos would be the primary food source of the Doering Kingdom. It just makes sense.
All kidding aside, if there is anything we can discern when people are given unbridled, unchecked power with little accountability, it’s that things go south pretty quick. Martin Luther, the great reformer, once quipped, “We are all born bent in on ourselves.” Nothing reveals that truth more than when we are given full access to all our desires, wishes and wants.
In Luke 4:1-2 we read, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”
Gratification, power, and recognition. The three temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness aren’t much different than the same temptations we face when we seek to live as the kings of our own little worlds. I know we would not want to admit it and there’s probably a part of us that would say we’d like to be somewhat benevolent with any power we get. But again, it’s good to be king.
Jesus offers another model of what it means to be king. A towel and a basin. A crown not of gold, but of thorns. A Kingdom of peace and plenty not just for the king, but for all. It’s a different kingdom and He’s a different king. Of all the kings in all of history, of all the people of power and influence, there has never been one who modeled this like Jesus. Jesus as King isn’t Jesus as King at the expense of others. He is King for others. Spend some time in the Gospels and take note at how Jesus uses his authority and power, and let it transform your image of king.
Maybe instead of “It’s good to be king,” our song should be…
“It’s good when He’s King.”