A KING WITHOUT BORDERS - First Presbyterian Church of ...

A KING
                      WITHOUT BORDERS
                                                ◼

D      octors Without Borders (known as “MSF,” reflecting its origin
       as Médecins Sans Frontières) was founded in France a half-
century ago and is headquartered now in Geneva, Switzerland. It has
been a uniquely effective force in a world where civil wars, epidem-
ics and natural disasters seem to be continually erupting and causing
great human misery. Though Doctors Without Borders is not a faith-
based organization, I have respect for its work. Employing a team of
paid medical personnel that is regularly augmented by short-term
volunteers from around the globe, they enter into situations of vital
need. Refusing government money (with all the “strings” that are
attached), they operate on a tight budget of charitable contributions.
Their name has spawned copy-cats, including “Engineers Without
Borders” (volunteers who drill water wells for arid communities)
and “Dentists Without Borders” and others. In a world divided by
lines on maps, and a world of governments that zealously guard
their own boundaries, it is inspiring to see people who are willing to
go with compassion wherever the needs are.

Today, on what is traditionally called Palm Sunday, we will reflect
on the great “King Without Borders” and the invisible worldwide
kingdom of people who swear allegiance to that King. A dramatic
moment in the creation of this borderless kingdom occurred nearly
2,000 years ago in the event we are remembering.

The Entry of the King
If you have attended a church on a previous Palm Sunday you have
doubtless heard the story: Jesus and His 12 closest aides (the disciples)
entered into the Jewish capital city of Jerusalem (the historic center of
their homeland, located on a high hill called Mount Zion). He had
intentionally selected a donkey to ride on. Word spread like a raging
brushfire through the city that morning that the Man from Nazareth
whom everyone had been talking about was arriving. Forming an
impromptu parade, they lined the highway leading to the city (and
the narrow streets and alleyways leading all the way to the Temple
in the middle of town), and welcomed him in their traditional way:
waving branches in the air and throwing their clothes on the road—
the ancient world’s equivalents of a ticker tape parade down Broad-
way or the red carpet rolled out to the stairway of Air Force One.

What those devout and biblically-literate Jews all knew was that a
prophecy written over 300 years earlier had predicted exactly what
would happen. Let’s read those ancient words for ourselves.
       Rejoice, O people of Zion!
            Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem!
       Look, your king is coming to you.
            He is righteous and victorious,
       yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—
            riding on a donkey’s colt.
       10I will remove the battle chariots from Israel

            and the warhorses from Jerusalem.
       I will destroy all the weapons used in battle,
            and your king will bring peace to the nations.
       His realm will stretch from sea to sea
            and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. …
        On that day the Lord their God will rescue his people,
       16

          just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.
       They will sparkle in his land
          like jewels in a crown.
                                     Zechariah 9:9-10, 16 (NLT)

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Some notable components of Zechariah’s surprising prophecy:
      One day a great King would arrive in Jerusalem, the long-
       anticipated and predicted Messiah.
      This King would win a great victory and be righteous or holy.
      Yet, unlike all the other kings of the world, He would pur-
       posely be humble and lowly—not just personally humble
       and unassuming, but utilizing methods to achieve his victory
       that were the opposite of violence, force and bloodshed: the
       triumph would come precisely through the King’s humility.
For the ancient world, the thought of a triumphant king arriving to
claim adulation from his conquered subjects by riding a donkey was
incomprehensible. Around the time of Zechariah, Alexander the
Great won his most dramatic victory. His outnumbered army of
Greeks and Macedonians defeated a much larger Persian army un-
der King Darius II at the bloody battle of Gaugamela, which took
place on a vast plain near the city of Mosul in Iraq. With courage,
tactical brilliance, and brutal force he crushed his foes and slaugh-
tered them with no quarter. Then his army marched on to the great
city of Babylon. Alexander entered the city’s gates riding in a gold-
embossed chariot pulled by four strong white warhorses, his army
marching in step behind him. That is how a king’s procession was
supposed to look.
But Zechariah foresaw that God would do something dramatically
different. No king would ever perch on a young donkey, the most
humble of the beasts of burden. But this King Without Borders, with
his scruffy band of disciples (hardly an impressive army), entered
Jerusalem in that way.

The Rule of the King
A few more components of Zechariah’s vision of the Messiah:
      He would not rule with military power or force; His rule
       would bring peace—peace between people, and even peace
       within each person.

                                                                  3

   His rule over this unique Kingdom would be across the
         world, leapfrogging all man-made boundaries and separa-
         tions, “to the ends of the earth.”
        Verse 16 tells us that this King would not exercise cruel au-
         thority, but would rather care for His subjects tenderly and
         gently, like a shepherd caring for his sheep.
We will return to exploring the characteristics of this borderless
kingdom, but first we will look at what the human experience has
been like. The default mode of government has always been a one-
person rule. Nearly every country through history has been gov-
erned from the top down by a king (or queen), emperor, czar, phar-
aoh, führer, chairman, shah, chief, or whatever title they choose.

That’s our sinful human nature: People lust to gain power over oth-
ers, and when they get it, they use it for their own purposes—and
they won’t willingly give it up. Until the modern era, nearly every
country was ruled by a king. Here are the basic flaws of all monarchs
(even the best of them). Most crucially, they are all sinners—
imperfect people. Therefore, they all are selfish and self-centered by
nature, caring instinctively more for their own power, pleasure and
perks than for their people. All human kings are limited in their
knowledge, and unable to foresee the future; thus they make mis-
takes and poor choices. All kings and other human leaders are lim-
ited in their strength and their health, and all of them eventually
die—so that their time in power (however noble or effective it might
have been) ends quickly. Some of the best human leaders have died
prematurely. (American historians speculate about how our country
would have been different over the past century and a half if Abra-
ham Lincoln had lived and been able to guide us through reconcilia-
tion and the end of racism.)

So the history of the world is a succession of powerful people using
their power in flawed and temporary ways. The sad history of monar-
chy is what led our founders nearly 250 years ago to want to try a dif-
ferent way. But democratic republics—while they avoid some of the
pitfalls of monarchies—aren’t perfect either. The limited democracy of

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Athens didn’t last long, nor did the Roman republic (after Caesar
seized power and instituted one-man rule). Modern republics like ours
are fragile and prone to imperfections—including the flaws of our
elected leaders and the risk of the tyranny of the majority. The greatest
danger lies in the sinfulness of the human heart. Our nation’s founders
(e.g., Adams, Madison, Washington and Franklin) knew well that if a
strong moral consensus from people of faith, committed to living vir-
tuously, were to ever erode, we would be in jeopardy of lapsing into
either anarchy or tyranny. We are right to be praying earnestly for our
country right now, as it teeters on a moral and spiritual cliff edge.

That’s a topic worthy of more consideration at another time. But to-
day we are not here to talk about governments or politics. We are
here to lift our eyes to a higher level, to see a spiritual Kingdom
without borders that towers over the ever-changing and turbulent
landscape of human events. This is a time to renew our commitment
to being willing subjects of the great King who will never die, who is
perfect, and who rules us with the tenderness of a Shepherd. This is
a time to imagine that we are part of that welcoming parade, cele-
brating that our Messiah has come to save us.

Our Spiritual Kingdom
When we pray what is known as “The Lord’s Prayer” (although it is
more properly titled “The Disciples’ Prayer” because it is we who
need to say it), we are consciously pledging our allegiance to our
King. Just as we may face the flag with hand over heart to pledge
allegiance to the republic for which it stands, when we pray this
prayer we are saying, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” In
other words, we are saying that His Kingdom is our highest loyalty,
and promising that our actions will be in keeping with His will and
purpose for us.

What is our spiritual Kingdom like?
      It is worldwide, with no man-made borders. That means that
       every believer, no matter their race or nationality or lan-
       guage, is actually equal to us—and we are all one.

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   It is a voluntary Kingdom, not one we are forced to be citi-
       zens of because we were born in a certain place or moved to a
       certain location. We each have the power to choose to freely
       and willingly submit to the sovereignty and rule of this King,
       or to resist Him.
      While our natural pride and independence may stand in the
       way of taking our oath of allegiance, the reasons for doing so
       are powerful. In an honest cost-benefit analysis, the ad-
       vantages and gains to us of placing our faith and confidence
       in Christ rather than in ourselves alone are tremendous.
      The care, the love, the forgiveness, the protection and the
       guidance that the “Lord our Shepherd” gives His people—as
       celebrated in the 23rd Psalm in the Old Testament—is exactly
       how Jesus our Messiah and King treats us. He is our tender,
       caring shepherd. Nothing can take us from His secure flock.
       We belong to Him, and that security is not just for this life-
       time but forever.
      We are motivated to love and follow this King Without Bor-
       ders because He, unlike any other king or queen or ruler, is
       perfect and eternal. The ancient Greek philosophers spoke
       wistfully of what it would be like for a nation if a completely
       wise and caring “Philosopher-King” could be found. How
       the people of that king would prosper and be happy! But,
       alas, no such earthly king could be found. We have a perfect
       eternal King. He rules our hearts. He is worthy of our total
       trust and obedience.

That’s the real message of Palm Sunday. It’s not just a day to remem-
ber a surprising event from long ago. It’s an invitation to welcome
and embrace Jesus Christ as our King, our Messiah. As the gates of
Jerusalem opened to Him 2,000 years ago, so can the door of your
heart and mine swing wide to let Him in today! 

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