“Swords into Plowshares” Isaiah 36:1-3, 13-20; 37:1-7; then 2:1-4

 There are certain Sundays that just about any preacher is excited to proclaim the word on. Easter Sunday. Christmas Eve. Pentecsot. During the seasons of Advent and Lent. All just to name a few. But there are also some Sundays that are harder to preach on. Days like Trinity Sunday - trying to explain the deep theological truth that God is three in one and one and three. And days like today, Christ the King Sunday. 

If you ask preachers, the struggle with today isn’t the fact that Christ is King - that is so apparent. The struggle with today, at least in American culture, is that we don’t really know what it means to say that Christ is King because we don’t understand kingship.

So we are going back - way back in scripture today to a day and time when people did understand kingship. To the days of the prophet Isaiah. There came a point in the history of Israel when they moved away from looking to God to be their sole protector and provider to wanting the earthly, human kings that saw around them. Kings with flesh on them. 

The problem is that once you put such authority into the hands of a person - well, sometimes you ended up with a good leader and ruler and sometimes you did not. Where we find ourselves in the scripture of Isaiah today is with a good king - Hezekiah. 

Hezekiah bore witness to a horrific attack on the northern Kingdom of Israel. By this point the twelve tribes have been divided into two areas with two different kings. The northern Kingdom and then the southern kingdom, also known as Judah. The northern Kingdom was ravaged by by the Assyrians. 

But even after watching such a brutal attack and knowing that Judah could be next, he wanted to focus his time as King on what it meant to draw close to God. So when he ascended to the throne at the age of 25, he passed reforms that reminded the people that they were to worship Yahweh alone. He repaired the temple. He purged idols from the people. He brought reform to the priesthood so it was once again about serving for the honor and glory of God - and all of this was counted to him as righteousness. 

In today’s scripture the time has come - Judah is under siege by the Assyrians, just like the northern Kingdom was years earlier. And when the Sennacherib king of Assyria thought that he had the upper hand, he sent one of his commanders to essentially taunt the people by telling them that Hezekiah was lying to them. That he would never be able to deliver them. Therefore they shouldn’t put their trust in Hezekiah and his God, but instead come over to the side of the Assyrians. 

And what was Hezekiah’s response? Not to retaliate or to lead the people out into battle. Instead, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth - a sign of deep morning and distress - and went to the temple. 

And he reached out to Isaiah, the prophet. 

Isaiah, who had been the prophet through some tough times before, reminded the king to look not the words of his foe, but instead to the faithfulness of God. God who had redeemed them before and God who would be with them even now. God is going to make the King of Assyria go back home - utterly defeated. 

If you were Hezekiah, how would you respond? Let’s examine that question in our hearts at several points in the story. If you are Hezekiah at the age of 25, a new King, what would you desire to be known for? You look around and the other Kings are known and judged by their conquests. Would you want to start out strong - the one doing the attacking instead of being attacked? Or would you change course and seek to honor God by reforming, not another land, but your own heart and home?

And if you did decide to reform your heart and home, would you be willing to do things differently with pieces of culture and religious practice that people love? Or would you shy away from the hard things. One of the things that Hezekiah addressed was how Moses’s staff had been made into an idol. Something precious to the land of Israel and their history that had become warped in understanding to the point where it was no longer leading people closer to God, but was actually distracting them from him. What would you do?

And if you hear that you are being attacked what would be the first thing you do? Would it be to publicly grieve and then seek the face of God in prayer or would it be to retaliate by your own attack?

What made Hezekiah notable was his focus, which then influenced the choices he made as King. He was a King that wasn’t focusing on his own fortune or fame, but instead wanted to lift high the name of God. 

Christ was similar. He did not come to lift up himself, but to lift up the name of God and to set us, those who were yet far from him free from our bondage to sin by dying a criminal’s death on a cross. Not for his crime. But for us. Our crimes against God. 

Christ the King Sunday is relatively new in the scheme of at the church that has lasted through the ages. It started in 1925 and moved to this Sunday, the last Sunday of our church calendar year in 1970. 

We need this day, friends, to be reminded that Christ is our king, not just in name, but because we give him all authority in our hearts and lives. As righteous of a king as Hezekiah was, Jesus is so much better. Therefore, we adore him in response. 

But here’s the thing - Christ isn’t just our King here on earth, but for all of eternity. From everlasting to everlasting. 

So how are we going to respond to Christ as King of our lives? Are we going to seek to make ourselves known - or by looking into our own hearts and confessing what separates us from him? Are we going to leave sin unaddressed, or are we going to ask God to reveal to us those things we need to repent of? Are we going to try to ignore the sin our lives or are we going to be grieved by it to the point where it leads us to pray?

Let us truly exalt Christ as the Holy King in our lives - and let our lives be changed because of this proclamation. Amen.