Mark 6:12-13 “If any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave as a testimony against them.’ They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”

There are two things we learn about the message Jesus sends his disciples to preach. First, The message includes a word of warning. When the disciples were rejected, Jesus did not want them to quietly leave town. They were to go through this ritual of shaking the dust off their feet. It was a vivid way of saying, “You are due for God’s judgment, and there is nothing in common between you and the people of God, not even the dust we are shaking from our feet.”

That doesn’t sound like a sure-fire way to win friends and influence people. But Jesus didn’t tell them to say this to be mean. Loving people means telling them the truth, especially when their lives are in danger. Telling people that they are headed for hell is not the same thing as wanting them to go there, any more than telling people that they are sick is the same thing as wanting them to be unhealthy. People need to know for their own good.

We still deliver that warning as a part of our witness for Jesus. The threat of hell is an indispensable tool in our evangelism toolbox. It may go against every advertising rule and publicity principle in the book. “The customer is always right,” we are told. People don’t want to be told that they are bad. People want to hear something positive that can help them right now. But you can be sure that on Judgment Day people won’t want to be on Jesus’ bad side, either. Jesus gives us a word of warning, a message of law, as part of what we need to be his witnesses.

Secondly, the disciples “went out and preached that people should repent.” Mark sums up their message in that one word, “repent.” That is not merely a repeat of what we have just said. To repent is to have a change of mind. To repent is to make a 180 degree turn. It includes the turn away from sin, but it also includes the alternative: the turn to Jesus and his free forgiveness. I don’t believe that the disciples’ message was all doom and gloom, fire and brimstone. They also preached the sweet love of Jesus. They didn’t preach despair and hopelessness. They preached faith and new life in the mercy of God that loved them so much he sent them a Savior.

In other words, we have something positive to say. To call the message about Jesus the “gospel,” the “good news,” is almost an understatement. Though people may be naturally inclined to reject it, we are offering to those to whom we witness the greatest alternative, the greatest opportunity, of all time: complete freedom from all responsibility for every sin–no exceptions; instant access to the most powerful being in the universe; 24/7 service and support for every earthly need, problem, or danger; the cure for death; the title and deed to a piece of prime real-estate in heaven–all for free, all at no cost to the customer. You don’t even have to pay sales tax. In the gospel, Jesus has given us everything we need to make the message sound appealing. When we are speaking the gospel, we have something worth saying, and hearing.

1 Corinthians 15:51-53 – “Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Talking about his stories of fantasy worlds, J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which “Escape” is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jails and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.”

We are like people in prison living in a world corrupted by our own sin and that of others. We fight with “this body of sin” in which we live. We conduct a never-ending battle to bring our thoughts and passions under control. We struggle to purify our motives and love others unconditionally—even those who irritate us to no end. Isn’t that like living in a jail of sorts? We are the prisoners of frustrated labors. We are trapped in weakening and failing bodies. We are captives in an ever more hateful world around us. Is it wrong to long for the escape that Jesus died to procure for us, the paradise he promised the penitent thief on the cross next to him? This is not some Tolkienesque fantasy world. It is a heavenly country, no less real just because we prisoners can’t see it.

Even now we find relief in the forgiveness of our sins. By faith we find a foretaste of heavenly peace and joy in knowing God’s grace and love. But Jesus has always intended to give us something more. Paul promises real change in these words from 1 Corinthians. Whether we have gone to feed the flowers long ago, or whether we are still on our way to the grave when Jesus returns, we will be instantly changed.

Paul calls us “imperishable.” The compost pile behind my garage reminds me what it means to be perishable. The moldy oranges, brown bananas, wilted lettuce and fermenting grass clippings may be perishing much faster than this body of mine, but our bodies are in the same process. They just don’t decay so fast. Graying and thinning hair, weakening eyes, dislocated or arthritic joints remind us that we are perishing, too.

The perishable will clothe itself with the imperishable. Jesus’ resurrection promises health and strength unaffected by age. Pain will disappear because it no longer serves a purpose. Terms like weary, fatigued, exhausted won’t have any use. Our resurrected and transformed bodies will be the perpetual motion machine, 100% efficient, incapable of suffering wear and tear.

The mortal will clothe itself with immortality. Death will follow its mother, Sin, into oblivion. And it will take its right hand man Fear along with it. We will finally know the settled security we so desire, but which always manages to escape our grasp in this place. Never again will we feel the emptiness of separation because someone we love has been permanently removed beyond all reach or contact. We will live, and life will be pure joy. That life will be all there is.

Jesus’ resurrection promises the great escape: a real change from what we know now. That promise helps make it possible to cope with the present life we live. We, too, are “longing for a better country, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Our citizenship is in heaven. And we need not be ashamed to find our hope and comfort there.

Luke 24:27 “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

I have often wished that Luke preserved this sermon Jesus preached to a couple of depressed disciples Easter evening. I wish he had written it down for us to read.

But then, Luke didn’t have to. It is already written across the pages of the Old Testament. Jesus was simply taking these men on a tour through the words recorded there. He expected that they were clear enough for any honest disciple to understand them, if he just bothered to read them.

Jesus began with Moses. No doubt that means he began with the very first gospel promise in Genesis 3:15. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heal.” The words were directed against Satan on the day the human race fell. Jesus is the offspring of the woman who would suffer when Satan struck him. It would be painful–heal pain can be crippling. But Jesus is the one who would do the crushing.

From there he likely went on to the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Moses’ promise of a future prophet like himself; the many Psalms of David that describe Jesus’ person and work; the suffering servant in Isaiah 53; the many descriptions of Holy Week in the Prophet Zechariah.

Isaiah’s 53rd chapter probably deserves special mention. Did you know that this chapter is no longer read in Jewish synagogues today? Some people call it “The Forbidden Chapter.” How can you miss the references to Jesus’ suffering, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering;” his willing death, “he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth;” the substitutionary purpose of his death, paying the penalty for our own sins, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;” and finally, his resurrection to life, “though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied”?

So Jesus opened the eyes of these men. In doing so he turned their lives upside down. All their old hopes and dreams were crushed. But in their place they found a God and Savior who loved them beyond imagination. Every sin was forgiven. Every demand and requirement of God was fulfilled. Their relationship with God was fully reconciled. The journey back to God’s good graces was complete. Life would never end. Heaven was guaranteed. No wonder they asked each other after they recognized Jesus at the end of the evening and he disappeared, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Do you know what happens when God opens our eyes and we see our risen Lord in his word? We trade the garbage we have created with our lives, and the garbage we have planned for our lives, for real treasure. Then we see that the impressive education, and perfect family, and successful career, and healthy life and happy retirement aren’t all that important. Whether I travel the world, or develop a stellar reputation, or build great wealth doesn’t really matter. To borrow a phrase from Paul, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:8-9). To borrow a picture from C.S. Lewis, we stop acting like the little children at the beach playing in the trash, fascinated by the broken pieces of glass, when God has placed before us the golden sands and magnificent ocean of his grace in the kingdom of the Son he loves. Open our eyes, Risen Lord! Let us see you in your word.

Luke 24:25-26 “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

Foolish, slow–these are not compliments or terms of endearment. The Greek behind “foolish” suggests mostly empty space between their ears. “Hello! Any brain cells in there?” Jesus is suggesting that they suffer from a lack of knowledge, even though they don’t suffer from a lack of instruction, or a lack of experience. “Why don’t you guys get it?”

Is Jesus’ being unreasonable in expecting these men to know better? Is the way he addresses them mean? No, sometimes you have to let a person see his fault in plain words. It is not the time to worry about wounding a fragile self-esteem. Admittedly, sometimes people don’t understand because they just haven’t been taught. For some a concept may be too difficult to grasp. That’s not the case here. These two were underachieving. They were grasping less than they were capable of.

As exhibit A, Jesus points out that they turned a blind eye to all the prophets had written about his sufferings and his resurrection. Jesus often referred to these prophecies during his ministry. Why hadn’t they listened and paid attention? As exhibit B he could have referred to the many times he himself told them, “I am going to suffer, die, and rise.” After all, his enemies got it. They asked for a guard at his tomb because they remembered Jesus saying he would rise in three days. Was it asking too much for the men who loved and trusted him to take his words seriously?

Sometimes we don’t see, because we don’t want to. During my college years I tutored high school students in Algebra and Latin. Sometimes I believe they didn’t understand because they didn’t want to. Algebra and Latin can be hard, I know. But not everything is hard to get. With some of these students, if they were to “get” the concepts they claimed were confusing, then they would have to do the work themselves going forward. They would have to do the assignments without someone walking them through it. So long as they could say, “I don’t get it,” they could lean on someone else to do the thinking for them.

Jesus’ disciples didn’t get that the Christ first had to suffer, and then enter his glory, in part, because they didn’t want to. If they understood it and believed it, that meant big changes to their plans and behavior. It meant Jesus wouldn’t be the deliverer to set their country free and make it great again. More than that, it meant that the grand future of success, riches, and power they were planning for themselves wasn’t going to happen. To follow Jesus means to go where he goes: first suffering, then glory. I am sorry if that is a disappointing conclusion. But it is why we need the risen Lord to open our eyes and overcome our foolish hearts, so slow to believe.

This has application to every time we approach the word of God. We come to a passage in the Bible, and we say that it is hard to understand because we don’t want to believe it. The words are simple. A five-year-old could tell you what they are saying. But if we believe them, then we are going to have to change. We are going to have to admit something about ourselves, or about our God. It may say wonderful things about him, but not so much about you and me. The world will hate us and reject us for believing it. So we say these words don’t make sense to us. Or we say that it is just someone’s interpretation.

Don’t let the gospel become one of those things. People have been denying the plain meaning of Jesus’ cross and empty tomb since the time of the apostles. But Isaiah could explain Jesus’ cross seven hundred years before it happened. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (53:5-6).

People who say Jesus’ body didn’t literally leave the tomb (because people don’t rise from the dead) think they are “modern” and “smart.” They are neither. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

The truth is so much better, and it isn’t hard to understand. “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Jesus’ return to life is “firstfruits.” It is the promise that other resurrections will follow his—our resurrections. That is the smart thing to believe.

God give us wisdom to do so.

Revelation 1:17-18 “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.’”

Does anything about these words strike you as ironic? Jesus tells John not to be afraid. We understand the reason for this from so many other encounters between men and heavenly beings in Scripture. John has glimpsed Jesus’ heavenly majesty. Its light unavoidably fixes his attention on his own sinful inadequacies and shortcomings. A heart-pounding terror seizes him as the contrast between him and Christ reminds him of the hell he deserves.

So Jesus tells John not to be afraid, and then he lists the reasons why. That is what strikes me as ironic. Reason One: “I am the First and the Last.” Doesn’t that highlight the magnificence, the unboundedness, the limitless greatness of Jesus even more? Doesn’t that emphasize how small and insignificant John is by comparison? Doesn’t that inspire the small, shrinking feeling you get when you look into the expanse of a star-filled sky, only magnified a thousand times over?

Reason Two: “I was dead, and now look, I am alive.” How many scary books and movies are about the dead coming back to life! We have ghosts, and mummies, and Frankenstein, and Jason, and Freddy Krueger.

Reason Three: “I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Jesus is more than an ancient being unlimited by the passage of time who has come back from the dead. He also has the power to open or close hell to you. Doesn’t that sound scary? As Jesus’ reasons not to be afraid progress, to an outsider it might be difficult to see the progress.

Only in Jesus’ mouth could these words make it better for John…or for us. Only in Jesus’ mouth are these concepts tinged with love and loaded with peace. Jesus is the First and the Last, the eternal God who does not change, without beginning or end. He will not go away. That applies to his grace as much as to his power. Jesus may look awesome, even foreboding, in John’s vision, but he is still who he has always been. He is still, and always will be, the one who came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. He is still, and always will be, the one who takes pleasure in the death of no one, but that they would repent and live. In addition to all the other ways in which he is magnificent, there is this magnificent monotony of being a God who saves–from Eden to Judgment Day, from First to Last.

Jesus was dead and is alive again because he died our death for sin. He doesn’t live as some freak of nature or undead zombie. He lives as proof that sin has been stripped of its power to tear our bodies and souls apart, only to allow them back together later for an eternity of corruption and misery. He lives as proof that no matter what your best life now might look like, it isn’t worth comparing to the one that waits on the other side of death.

Jesus holds the key. This ancient being, unlimited by the passage of time, has come back from the dead to close hell for you and me. By the forgiveness of sins he has opened heaven. The keys to eternal life are safe in his hands.

Jesus’ resurrection means that we don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be afraid of him. We don’t have to be afraid of the present. We don’t have to be afraid of the future. We don’t have to be afraid if he is eternal, alive, or holding the key to our future. And he is.

Philippians 3:10 “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection…”

Jesus’ resurrection involves power. Of course, there must be immeasurable power, indescribable power, unearthly power to bring a man back to life after he has been dead for three days. But the power of Jesus’ resurrection does not work only on Jesus. It works on us, too. It’s why Paul wanted to know Christ.

The power of Jesus’ resurrection is the power that makes us spiritually alive. A dead Christ inspires no faith. It can inspire fear. That’s the effect it had on Jesus’ disciples. They locked themselves behind closed doors because they were afraid they would be the next to go, the next to be arrested and executed. It can inspire grief, depression, hopelessness. Poor Mary Magdalene weeps alone at Jesus’ tomb. She is beside herself because not only is her Friend and Master dead. Now they have desecrated his tomb and taken his body away, and she has no proper place to mourn her loss.

At most, maybe a dead Christ can inspire curiosity. I once visited Rome, and I visited the Vatican. There you can see the mummified remains of four popes on display, each one kept under a glass case inviting the stares and the photographs of millions of visitors every year. I was curious to see the centuries-old bodies, too. But my interest was like the interest a person takes in the sideshow at the circus. It is true that during their lives these were some of the wealthiest, most influential, most powerful people on earth. But their dried and shriveled remains inspired no desire to know them, to trust them, or to follow them anymore.

Without a living Christ, this is what we are left with in this world: Fear of our own death and the sin for which we have to answer ourselves; grief, depression, and hopelessness; a life filled with losses beyond our understanding or control; and the occasional curious sideshow to distract us from the misery we live today, and the misery we fear will follow.

A Christ who takes my place under God’s judgment, dies on a cross for my crimes, and then walks out of his grave alive three days later with all the power and promise of heaven–that invades my soul and takes over my heart! Here is someone who invites more than my admiration or imitation. This is a man who deserves my complete trust and utter dedication. More than deserves it, he creates it. With his gospel the living Christ inserts faith right through my ears and eyes. He plants it deep inside my mind and heart. I want to know Christ because his resurrection has the power to make me spiritually alive. It fills me with faith, and from that faith flows a new life full of love, and hope, and joy.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. (Luke 23:34 NIV)

First things first. What is Good Friday about? It is not a day for us to well up in self-righteous anger at the horrible Jewish leaders who plotted Jesus’ death or the cowardly Roman governor who would not prevent it or the cruel Roman soldiers who enjoyed executing Jesus far too much. It is not a day for us to take in a tear-jerker story and find relief in the cleansing properties of a good cry. It is not a day for us to suffer for our sins alongside Jesus, as though we could share the burden by acting unusually somber and dwelling on our guilt for a long time.

Jesus first words from the cross set the tone for this day. They unveil the meaning of this gruesome execution outside the walls of Jerusalem. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The pain, the cross, the death are all about one thing: forgiveness. It is the main theme of Christianity–not goodness, or success, or sacrifice, but forgiveness. Here, Jesus applies to his executioners the very thing that he was dying to give them: forgiveness.

Not that they were asking for it. What do they do just before Christ’s gracious prayer for them? To what is Jesus responding? Certainly not an apology. They have just fastened his body to two pieces of lumber in a grotesque and exaggerated version of the procedure we use to pin a calendar to the wall. They have pierced his hands and his feet, not with the sharp and precise cuts of a surgeon’s knife, nor the sterilized needle used for body piercings, nor the 10 penny nails a carpenter uses to join two-by-fours. They have taken dirty, rusty iron spikes large enough to keep an adult human being fastened to upright pieces of lumber without his flesh tearing through the nails and his body falling to the ground. They have driven them through his hands and feet with a hammer. This inspires Jesus to say, “Father, forgive them.”

And what do Jesus’ gracious words produce in them? Repentance? Regret? No, as Jesus is forgiving them, they are adding insult to injury. They take his last earthly possessions, his clothing, and use them as the prize in a game of chance. They cast lots for his clothing. Still, Jesus’ forgiveness stands. It’s what this day is about. It’s why he let them nail him to this cross in the first place.

First things first. Good Friday, the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, is about forgiveness. Our sins crucified Jesus, just as surely as the hands of those soldiers. We cannot always, or even usually, plead ignorance. Still, Jesus pleads for our forgiveness. On the cross he pays for our forgiveness. And though we may add insult to injury by sinning again, Jesus’ prayer remains the same. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

1 Corinthians 11:26 “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus says. There are many things to remember about his thirty three years of life. It takes four books of the Bible to tell the story. But Paul makes clear the thing to remember here: “You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

On the west side of Goodhue County Road 6, in the cemetery of St. John’s Lutheran Church, there is a tombstone with the name “Vieths” on it. My grandparents are buried there. My grandfather delayed buying his lot in that cemetery until that one became available, because it was on top of the hill. Down the hill it is somewhat swampy, and he didn’t think he wanted to lay in that swamp until Jesus returns. I had a hand in laying both of these dear people to rest. The funeral services were comforting. But the stone that marks their resting place proclaims just one thing. “Marvin and Mildred Vieths are dead. This is the year they were born. This is the year they died.”

Jesus’ Supper is a memorial that proclaims so much more. It proclaims his death, yes, but not the sad departure of someone we have lost, someone whose body will decay until the end of time. His was not the death of another mortal whose death is all the evidence we need that he was a sinner, because the wages of sin is death.

His was the body given “for you,” – in your place and in mine. He died for sins, it is true, but the sins were ours. Peter says in his first letter, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” The death this supper proclaims is the death that satisfies God’s justice for all sins for all time. It’s the death that righteous Jesus died in the place of unrighteous humanity. Because Jesus’ death fully and finally deals with all the penalty for sin, it brings us to God. There is nothing standing between us anymore. All past issues, even all future issues, have been settled. This supper helps us remember, and promises it is true.

Isn’t this message also preached by the real presence, instead of the real absence, of Jesus’ body and blood with this bread and wine? Why is sin such a big problem? It is because it separates. It turns person against person, and God against people, and people against God. Why do marriages come apart, and friendships collapse, and families blow up? The specific causes form a list that would take me all night to recite. But they all have this in common–by their behavior, someone is sinning against someone else. So it goes with God. Through the prophet Isaiah he warned, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”

What if there were a way to remove those sins and repair the relationship? There is, by the Lord’s death remembered in this Supper. And what better way for Jesus to express that the separation is over, and every offense has been removed, and the relationship has been completely restored, than by taking a few moments to come to us really, personally, with the body and blood that fixed it all? For these few moments at his altar, in a taste and a sip, he is here assuring us that no matter what we have done, he isn’t holding it against us. It doesn’t come between us, because he himself is actually here to love us. That is the message if we will taste the gifts, and see the miracle, and listen with hearts of faith.

“If you ever need to get away for a few days, you can always stay at our place on the lake,” some friends offered us many years ago. A couple years later I called them and asked them if the offer were still good. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” Well, some time had passed, and I didn’t know if things had changed. I hadn’t forgotten the offer. I just hadn’t heard it for a while.

Some time has passed since Jesus died for our sins and rose to life. Some time has passed since he gave us this supper. Free forgiveness for our sins–is the offer still good? Of course, why wouldn’t it be? Take and eat, take and drink, and refresh your memory.

Psalm 2:1-2 “Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One.”

Think of the futility. What the Jewish leaders, Herod, and Pilate conspired to do to Jesus was futile. How can you oppose an almighty God? Even if he has become a human being, opposing him is futile. Even if he chooses not to resist you or fight back, opposing him is futile. Even if he let’s you kill him, what is that to the Lord of life and death? He takes back his life whenever he chooses. A little like the mythological Hydra, which grew its head back as soon as it was cut off, or the mythological Antaeus who regained his strength every time he was knocked to the ground, Jesus may look defeated when he dies. But he comes back to life again. The difference is that Jesus is not merely a mythological creature. And he has no undiscovered weakness that makes his defeat possible.

Kings and Commoners still conspire against the Lord and his Anointed One. Now deceased atheist Jon Murray said of Jesus, “There was no such person in the history of the world as Jesus Christ. There was no historical, living, breathing, sentient human being by that name. Ever. The Bible is a fictional, non historical narrative. The myth is good for business.” He conspires and plots in vain. Closing your eyes and pretending he doesn’t exist cannot defeat Christ. When fanatical governments or terror organizations support the murder of Christians, they conspire and plot in vain. Mistreating Jesus’ followers will not erase his memory or his name. Killing them only sends them to glory sooner. Their death often serves as a powerful testimony and seeds of faith for more believers. When people like you and me decide that we are going to become “the master of our fate” and the “captain of our souls,” we conspire and plot in vain. If we presume to set our own standards of right and wrong, or adopt those of our decadent society, we conspire and plot in vain. When we consider ourselves such shining moral examples that we hardly need a Savior, we conspire and plot in vain. Neither our self-deceptions nor our self-flattery will enable us to usurp Christ’s rightful place.

Why would Pilate and Herod and heathen religions and disobedient disciples of Jesus embark on a doomed assault against the Lord and against his Anointed? Jesus constantly confronts us with what God is really like. He threatens to overturn the comfortable little world in which people convince themselves they have all the answers to pleasing God, that their system for saving yourself works. Christ’s call to repentance, humbling self under God’s offer of forgiveness, confines us. The sooner Jesus is out of the way, the sooner people believe they can get control of their fate again; the sooner we can be pleased with ourselves just the way we are.

Thank God that all such plots are in vain, because this King is still the Savior King. The goal of his rule and reign is not to destroy the rebels. It is to win them as allies and citizens by his self-sacrificing love and his forgiving grace. The very death these kings conspired to impose against Christ has become our means for being reconciled to him. It has become the power by which he conquered our hearts and continues to rule in our lives. Jesus’ death for our sins is the reason we no longer want to be free of him. Let me “be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.”