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The following meditation was written by Doug Hood's son, Nathanael Hood, a seminary student at Princeton Theological Seminary.
“Yet
whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:7, 8(NRSV)
There once was a man from Denmark who told
a story about a mighty king. The king, said the Dane, was the mightiest in the
world. No other prince or leader, knight or peasant dared oppose his will. He
clothed his body with rich jewels and lavish robes, and whenever he toured his
kingdom he rode in a royal carriage with an armed escort. The king wanted for
nothing—no earthly good or luxury escaped him. Yet the king, the Dane
explained, was lonely. Then one day, he fell in love. But not with a queen or
princess of a faraway kingdom. Not a rich merchant or skilled artist. The king
fell in love with a poor maiden from an even poorer village.
Now, the king knew he could have anything
he wanted. There were none with his wealth, none with his power, none with his
strength in battle or conflict. Yet his love left him paralyzed with
uncertainty. If he arrived in her village with his rich jewels, his lavish
robes, his royal carriage and armed escort, the maiden would surely accept his
hand. But would it be for love or fear? Would she spend her life resenting or
hating him for giving her no choice? What if she only agreed to marry him
because she wanted his wealth, his power, his palace? Yes, the Dane sighed, he
could never truly know her love if he came to her as a king. So this threw off
his finery and abandoned his entourage. He clothed himself in rags and went to
her village alone. It was there, as a powerless, penniless beggar, that he
managed to woo the maiden and win her heart.
 |
| Cherish Christ |
This story was told hundreds of years ago
by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, a man whose name tends to glaze over
the eyes of laypeople who know nothing about him other than his notoriety as a
Philosopher with a capital “P.” But Kierkegaard was one of the oddest
philosophers of his age, a gloomy, death-obsessed man who juxtaposed the
increasing secularization of Europe’s intelligentsia with a fervent yet unusual
faith. He passionately loved Jesus yet passionately detested organized
religion, particularly the Danish church of his day and age. In the above
parable of “The King and the Maiden” he provides a bold explanation for one of
the central scandals of Christianity: God’s choosing to be born human and live
and die as one. For Kierkegaard, it was only by approaching humanity as a
“beggar” that God could truly win its love and devotion. If God had demanded
fealty of all creation—not just God’s covenant people the Jews—as a conquering
king, it would require fearful surrender instead of joyful acceptance. Only by
exercising free will could humanity establish a relationship with God that
truly mattered.
But there’s a different reading to this
story, one that Kierkegaard perhaps didn’t intend. What if humanity—with all
its egotism and excess, selfishness and pride—is the king and Christ the
maiden? We certainly see this idea reflected in the story of Paul, a dogmatic
Pharisee who abandoned his fundamentalist insistence on rules and regulations
after an encounter with Jesus. After finding Christ, he cast off all his wealth
and love of legalism for a closer, truer relationship with God. Everything he
once held dear in his life he “regarded as rubbish” after his conversion,
casting them off as Kierkegaard’s king did his wealth and finery to court his
beloved maiden. So too must we all reassess and reevaluate what we cherish in
our own lives. Is our quest for wealth and power keeping us from loving our
neighbors as we do ourselves? Is our desire for material luxuries or sex
preventing us from living the kind of simple, righteous lives Jesus called us
to? Are we too busy living as kings to remember that we’ve been called to live
as beloved children of the Almighty?
Joy,
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