Joy to the world! The Lord is come:
Let earth receive her king!
Our current political system obscures the fact that our faith in Jesus is innately political—that is, in the sense that it intersects with worldly power and authority. To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that he is supreme over every worldly power and authority.
Of course this does not sit well with worldly powers and authorities. They resent the idea that they would be under some other thing that would limit their scope. History is littered with examples of worldly power that sought to become supreme. We use the term “totalitarian” to describe the most egregious examples of that.
But even the most lightly held and beneficent worldly authority is still authority. Daniel Webster, a famous American man of letters, once said,
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Luke quotes Jesus as saying something similar in Luke 22:25:
And he said to them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors.
In our environment we use the term “public service” to describe those who seek power over their neighbors. We are instilled with the polite fiction that “we are the government,” yet it is clear who gets to tell whom what to do.
The point of this is not to disparage government as such. It is naive to think that we could do without government. The result would not be a utopian anarchy but an anarchy of chaos, banditry, rule of the strong over the weak and so on: “Every man’s hand will be against his neighbor.” At least this is what history records.
But if we fear worldly rule and authority, and fear the lack of it, what hope is there? What ruler would be worthy to rule the earth? Is it not a king who would die for his people?
And they sang a new song, saying,
Worthy are you to take the scroll
And to open its seals,
For you were slain, and by your blood
You ransomed people for God
From every tribe and language and people and nation,
And you have made them a kingdom
And priests to our God,
And they shall reign on the earth.– Revelation 5:9-10
“Joy to the world, the savior reigns!”