I Met The King

Alone I sit on a wobbly stool in a dimly lit pub. I am the quintessential modern man. Alone. These are not the good old days when the warm yet unassuming bartender would ask to hear you vent. The bartender is also a modern man. When he is not serving drinks he stares aimlessly into his phone. But if I had a friend or someone to lend an ear, I would rant about all the things that led me to this bar.

It would go something like this…

In the land of the “free,” there are no kings. Therefore no kingdoms either. There are rumors of a king. A “King of kings” they say. But as of now, that’s all they are. Rumors.

When you’re young they teach you kingdoms were a thing of the past never to return, and to say good riddance to those who ruled. So what do we have instead? Who will give us meaning?

We have Presidents, Prime Ministers and Statesmen alike. They matter very little. Those actually in charge go unseen but not unnoticed. Here, it is the gods who matter.

These gods are ancient. Long ago they were much bolder. We knew them by their names. Yet we have been enlightened. These days, we have no mind or time for gods. So we give them aliases, pretend they are just ideas or concepts and worship them in private. They care not about these changes, so long as they are worshiped nonetheless.

Venus by Pierre Paul Prud’hon c 1810-1812

Aphrodite to some, Venus¹ to others, had many fans and famous lovers. She was honored with sculptures and temples. Her services required the blood of doves, and prostitution. In return, she obliged desire, sex, beauty and fertility. Today, in our sophistication, we simply call her Porn or more plainly, Sex. She is the underlying feature of even the most seemingly innocuous television shows. And the main attraction on the World Wide Web. With just a screen and your undivided attention, you too can worship this goddess!

I met this goddess. She was fair. At first…But what she does not tell you is, she rarely makes good on her offers. And if she does, the returns are not only diminishing, they eat away at your soul. You give and give and give your attention and your body only to realize you are now empty and impotent. I met this goddess. She left me barren.

Thankfully here, we treat our gods and goddesses the way we treat everything and everybody else. When sacrifices and worship have been tried and found wanting, we throw out our rituals and beliefs like yesterday’s smartphone and pick a new god to manipulate. And still in the absence of a supposed “One True King” my search for meaning continued.

This time would be different. I had found the god who, if pleased with your worship, could give you the fortunes of the world. He could also afford you all of the benefits of the other gods without risk of their shortcomings. He must be THE god! So I set off to serve Mammon². You’ve probably served him too. You just call him money.

Thao Wessuwan giant Thai Temple beautiful faith Free Photo

What I like best about Mammon is how straightforward he has always been. There is no mystery with him and no mucking about. You have to earn what you get. A few inherit wealth but for the most part, if you want more money, you must be willing to work. Lucky for him, we live in a society that is willing to work to the point of neglecting their own families to obtain a few of his almighty dollars. Better yet, he has convinced us that constant growth is the best way to ensure those dollars keep rolling in. You doubled your profits this year? Wonderful! Now next year you must quadruple them! But why wait for year to be over? What about this quarter? Add another product? By all means! Another service to offer? Perfect. All of this in only 50 hours a week. Wow…just think about how much more you could make in 60, 70 or 80 hours a week! Don’t worry your family won’t mind. In fact your children will love you even more for it! You can keep buying them the latest gadgets and games!

Money Cash Finance and Thinking Muscular Man Statue Free Photo

Just think of what else you can do with all this hard earned money. With the help of Mammon you can now afford the worship and service of Adephagia³! Why not ensure your waist grows along with your income. Worried all that excess fat will be bad for your health? Have no fear! You can also afford to worship Asclepius⁴. Any ailment which comes from too much work or too much food, he can cure with a pill. This all seems too good to be true!

And herein lies the problem. After a while you learn all that Mammon is doing for you is not good, and not necessarily true. You work all those hours week after week and year after year and eventually you realize, no matter how much you try to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing, you miss your family. You miss them so much while at the same time you feel like you don’t know them anymore. You come home every now and then to see your children only to find them attached to the machines you bought them and reluctant to part with them even momentarily. When they do decide to talk to you, you grimace at the moment they express concern about your health. You know they’re only worried because they love you and you best to convince your them that everything will be fine. If the doctor finds another problem, you’ll just take another pill. Another damn pill… How much will that cost? I’m still working and working and making money but I see less and less all the time.

Gas is up and down and up and down but mostly just up. Groceries are about as expensive as I can ever remember. Mammon told me the new car would be worth it but now my car payment is higher than my mortgage! If things keep progressing as they are, by the time I am old enough to retire I will have made no progress whatsoever. If things keep going like this, I’ll have to work till I drop dead. Then my family can spend what small fortune I have left to bury me. And what should Mammon do if I do drop dead? He’ll just convince the next poor sap he finds to pick up where I left off and the cycle of work and decay of body and soul will continue.

All of these let downs and lies have grown to the point where ignoring them is no longer possible. If there is a “One True God” or “King of Kings” his name is not Mammon and no amount of money could convince me otherwise. After wasting years of time, attention, service and worship after this god of money, was altogether lost. If there was “One True King”, or “God of gods”, even if I met him now, I don’t know that I could serve him. I may just be better off resolved to the fact that life in the end, has no meaning.

This is a tough pill to swallow, but I hear beer helps. And here we meet again at the bar. Yet after a drink or two I grew restless. With all my woes hung round my neck, I did something I hadn’t done in years. I took a walk.

About 30 seconds into my stroll I realized I’d left my phone in the car. Normally this would cause me a certain level of anxiety but something was telling at that moment to forget it. I can’t remember the last time that thing wasn’t in my hand or sight. Maybe a break, even a short one will do me some good. So onward I went. Much to my surprise, I realized this park was quite nice. I’d driven past it at least a thousand times but never really paid much attention. We’ve got one playground for smaller kids, another for the bigger ones. A decent size lake for fishing, if that’s something people still do. And we have four or five hiking trails. Nothing too strenuous it seems, but for anyone like me who doesn’t get out often enough, these will definitely get your heart rate up.

I found myself on one of these trails, taking in scenery and allowing my mind to wander freely from what my life had become. Suddenly, about a mile into my walk, on my right, I could make out a path that obviously deviated from the marked trail. It was clear this path had been walked before but based on some overgrowth, it was not a path many frequented. From what I could gather, it stayed straight and appeared to be only wide enough for maybe two people to walk together side by side. This may sound a little ominous, but to me in that moment, it seemed quite inviting. After a little contemplation I decided to see where it might lead.

Something about this path was clearly different from marked trails. While in the same patch of woods, I felt more at ease. I was finally alone. Away from my job, away from the mess I had allowed my family to become, away, momentarily, from all the gadgets, devices and silent signals always clamoring for my attention. Soaking in this long awaited but always avoided silence, I began to weep. And in the midst of my good long cry, a man began to speak.

“Peace be with you⁵” he said. With my silence broken and serenity jarred I stepped back in a panic to see who this could be. Blinded by a light so radiant I could hardly think, much less see, I called out saying “who is there?” and thought to myself “in all my worship of these false gods I’ve never seen anything like this. Are they trying to pull me back in?” As if hearing my thoughts, again He spoke and said “fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”⁶

My God? The God? If you are God, all powerful, loving and good, why then do these gods of sex, money, greed and all things wicked rule our lives? Why do they grow and govern at the expense of those made in your image? No no no… I do not want another god. I have tried “gods”. They promise the world and everything in it. Being an un-enlightened, hopeful fool, I believed them. But they lied. I gave and gave and gave and they took and took and took and gave nothing back. No, worse than that. They made me believe that all the money and things I could afford would help me become like them. They made me believe I could be my own god. I see now that they had no intention of making me any kind of god. Their only intention was to break my mind, body, soul and spirit, leave me depraved and convince me that everything “God” created and called good was as ugly and awful as I am. So forgive me. I have no more use for any gods and at this point I would be of no use to any of them anyway.

And he said to me”Truly, Truly, I say to you. Before Abraham was, I am.⁷ The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord or lords⁸. The time has been fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent of be believe⁹. I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”¹⁰

At that moment, I fell to the ground. I had come out here a broken, battered man to disavow any and all gods. Ready to accept a meaningless life on a path I found by fate, I met The King.

Stephanie-Leblanc Unsplash

The King, The Christ, Messiah, Creator, Jesus, Lord of lords. Of Him I had heard rumors but never knew for sure. This God, THE God is different. I knew that right away. No amount of work or money could afford what He could give. Life eternal, joy unending and in His Kingdom we will live! He has come into the world to save sinners, and I am the foremost of sinners; but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life.¹¹ To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting?”¹²

After some time, unsure of how long, I left that lowly trail. When I got home and told my family, much to my surprise, they believed everything I told them.“You seem different” they said, “but in the best way”. I feel different I told them. The weight and burdens of the world are still here, but I no longer feel the need to carry them. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”¹³ floods my mind, though I haven’t heard that verse for ages.

This is how things went from then on. Scripture I only now considers Holy took on life. I guess that’s why Christians have a habit of calling the Bible “The Living Word”. At my age and after all my experiences, I knew the initial excitement and emotions would fade. But Christ has a fix for that. You become His bride. You join and become the Church. Of course, because they are filled with humans who sin, joining a church is sometimes easier said than done. It is also true that we, myself included, can over complicate the process of finding, joining and participating in a local church. The trick is here, to not be too picky. If you live the community of congregants, the leadership, evangelistic and missional aspects of the church, but have a hard time enjoying the music because the lead male vocalist in the Worship Band sings through his nose, my advice would be to get over yourself and join that church. This is precisely what my family and I did.

Christ came and found me. Then I joined a church. I was saved, baptized as were my wife and kids and we have never been the same.

I told money, Mammon, and all those other demons I knew who they really were I asked God and my family for their forgiveness for serving them and turned from my evil ways. Money was no longer my number one priority. I slashed so many hours at work that I actually got demoted. Praise be to God! The happiness I thought money could buy for my family pails in comparison to joy we experience spending more time together. We changed from a family whose members were focused only on themselves and the material things we thought we wanted, to one which is centered and building together with Jesus as our foundation.

I met The King. Better yet, he met me. I pray He will meet you too.

1. Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of all aspects of sexuality. Venus was her Roman equivalent.

2. Mammon, in Christian tradition is a demon or god who embodies greed. It was understood that he would corrupt humans and lead them to a life consumed by attaining wealth and material goods.

3. Adeohagia was the ancient Greek god of gluttony.

4. Asclepius was the ancient Greco-Roman god of healing.

5. John 20:21

6. Isaiah 41:10

7. John 8:58

8. Deuteronomy 10:17

9. Mark1:15

10. John 16:23

11. 1 Timothy 1:16

12. 1 Corinthians 15:55

13. Matthew 11:28