Only Jesus is the true king.

And Pilate again said to them, “Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” And they cried out again, “Crucify him.”

Mark 15:12-13

Political expediency was one of many complicated factors that led Jesus to His death. Of course it would be wrong to blame either Pilate’s fickle politics, or the Jewish leadership’s hatred of Jesus for what Jesus came to willingly do. In the sovereign plan of God, the Lamb of God had come to be slain in order to carry away the sin of the world. The politics and the hate among human institutions were just more sins for which Jesus would die.

Between the hard-nosed right wing politics of the Jewish Sanhedrin and the fickle power politics of oppressive Rome, Jesus hung on the cross. And there the true King became Lord of lords and King of kings. By dying to defeat death, atoning for all sin, and three days later rising from death the victor over all, Jesus now reigns over every human institution. He is in control. Jesus rules and reigns, and one day He shall return to set aside all the mess that human beings have made in our self-governing failures. And every knee shall bow to the rule of Jesus. And every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

I do not wonder why our present politics worldwide are such an insane mess. They always have been. Yet no supreme leader, no dictator, no king, no president, no scientific bureaucracy, no business genius, no gifted artist, no congress or parliament can fix the world’s problems. Only Jesus transforms lives on a global scale. Only His rule in His body, the Church, makes people one in Him to the glory of God. Only the gospel can be the good news this world needs most to hear and believe. And only Jesus is the King!