Two centuries before Christ, King Ptolemy of Egypt wanted a lighthouse built in Alexandria, Egypt. Ptolemy was a proud king. He wanted his name engraved at the top of the lighthouse. The builder carried out his orders, but first, he carved his own name in the stone. Then he plastered over his name and engraved the name of the king. The salt spray, wind, and rain gradually loosened the plaster, which erased the king's name completely. This left only the real builder's name. The builder had the last laugh, though, of course, neither he nor the king lived to see it.

Power is a subjective thing, isn't it? Like beauty, power is in the eye of the beholder. You can learn a lot about a people by knowing how they view power. What represents power in our culture? Is it physical strength, is it wisdom, is it a beautiful appearance, is it money, is it titles, is it intelligence, is it family ties? What is the difference between power and control? What are legitimate and illegitimate uses of power?

In his book Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank, author Robert Fuller charges that American society is infected with the disease he calls "rankism." We admire and imitate those with rank. We admire and imitate those who have more power in our society, while ignoring or abusing those who have less. Fuller cites the fact that we expect our company to pay for our health insurance, but we don't offer health insurance to those who mow our lawns or clean our houses. We know our doctor's name, but not the name of the doctor's assistant. We assume that those who are healthy, wealthy, beautiful, or powerful somehow earned their success, while those at the opposite end of the scale also earned their misfortune. We allow people in power to abuse their power and to rob their subordinates of the dignity that should be a God-given right of all people. (1) What constitutes an effective use of power? And why is power so easy to abuse?

Imagine asking these same questions a few thousand years ago, in Biblical times. Kings had almost absolute power over their subjects. And absolute power usually results in cruelty and oppression. Power exercised without wisdom, without mercy, without justice . . . this has been the story of the human race since the beginning of time. Survival of the fittest. Might makes right. Power expressed to its logical, and lethal, limits. Is that just the nature of power? Should we accept this as the inevitable pattern of the universe?

Our passage for today, Psalm 72, was written by King Solomon, or by someone in his royal court. Solomon was the son of David, a king who abused his power by committing adultery with Bathsheba, then arranging for the murder of Bathsheba's husband. Surely, Solomon contemplated his father's wicked deeds, and the power that made them possible.

Solomon himself amassed more riches, honor, and power than any other king before him. And yet, he writes in the book of Ecclesiastes, "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure . . . Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, chasing after the wind . . ." (Ecc. 2: 10-11). In the end, Solomon found his power to be meaningless. So it is very interesting to read Psalm 72, Solomon's vision of a future king sent from God.

"Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations. May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more . . .

"May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him, all nations give him service. For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight." (NIV)

What does a Godly king look like? He is a righteous judge. Instead of using his power to oppress others, this king watches out for the afflicted, the needy, children, the oppressed, and the weak. This is what power plus love looks like. This is what Jesus looks like.

Seven hundred years before Jesus' birth, the prophet Isaiah declared that one day a perfect king would set up a kingdom in which the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the lame would walk, and the mute would shout for joy. (Isa. 35: 4-6) And in Matthew 10: 4-6, when Jesus was asked to prove his identity as Messiah, he said simply, "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor."(NIV) Jesus does not prove his identity by a show of force; he proves it by his love for the powerless in his society.

In his book Violence Unveiled, French scholar Gil Bailie writes that, for centuries, cultures sanctioned violence of the majority class against the minority class. Humans lived by the classic, Darwinian theory of "might makes right." But all that changed, he claims, the day that Jesus was crucified, the day that "God took the side of the victim." Author Philip Yancey, commenting on Bailie's book, writes, "The gospel may not make societies less violent, but it makes them less sure of their violence. Before Jesus, nations didn't worry about the distinction between "˜just' and "˜unjust' wars . . . Today the victim occupies the moral high ground everywhere in the Western world." It is only the belief in a God that values individuals as unique beings made in God's image that makes the idea of individual rights possible. (2)

But Jesus did not set up his kingdom on earth when he was here. He had all the power in the universe available to him, and he gave it all up to die in our place on the cross. He laid down his power to identify with the least powerful of us, to show us the way out of rankism, and elitism, and "might makes right," and all the other power ploys that divide and torture us.

After the Nazis invaded Holland during World War II, they established ghettos for the Jews in Amsterdam. Many of the wealthy, aristocratic Dutch citizens responded by moving into the ghettos with the Jews to share their humiliation. And in Denmark, King Christian the 10th of Denmark established, by word and by example, that Jews were equal citizens in his country. He and other government officials began secret negotiations with Sweden. Eventually, thousands of Danish Jews were deported to Sweden, safely out of the clutches of the encroaching Nazi forces. In the face of evil and injustice, the king chose to identify himself with the oppressed. Why? Because he served a King who did the same. King Christian of Denmark knew where the real power lay. The real power was not found in the soldiers and guns and tanks. Real power comes from a love that is willing to die for what is right. * *

Pastor Gordon MacDonald, in his book Forging a Real World Faith, tells of a senior vice president of a New York bank who was accosted by a drunk man on a commuter train. The bank vice president tried to ignore the drunk man, which only made things worse. Finally, the drunk man forced a confrontation. The bank vice president had a choice to make. He looked the man straight in the eye and said gently, "You know, God really loves you."

In that instant, the drunk man's hostility melted away. He sat down and said, "My mother used to talk like that," and then he began to open up.

The two men sat and talked for a long time on that train, and the V.P. told the drunk man about God's love, and how God could help him turn his life around. Over the next several months, these men spoke to one another often.

Think how differently that encounter could have gone. The bank president had all the power on his side. He could have insulted the drunk man, or allowed himself to be drawn into a fistfight. He could have called on the police or other passengers. He could have continued ignoring the man, denying the man even the basic human dignity of having his presence acknowledged. Instead, he chose to respond to the drunk man with God's love and mercy. Why? Because he served a King who did the same. (3)

Numerous kings and dictators have used their power to oppress or kill or enslave their people. They have demanded obedience and ruled by fear. Jesus changed the world simply by the force of his love. When Jesus first came, he came in the form of a humble man, a peasant with no money or political power. When he comes again, as the Bible promises he will, then he will establish the perfect kingdom prophesied by Isaiah, and Solomon, and Jesus himself--the kingdom of righteousness and justice and mercy and peace. And, just as our passage tells us, every other kingdom and power on earth will bow before him and pay him homage as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. As Philippians 2 says, ". . . at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (911)

1. "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" by Elaina Richardson, O Magazine, April 2003, pp. 196-198, 243.

2. "Why I Can Feel Your Pain" by Philip Yancey, Christianity Today, February 8, 1999, p. 136.

3. Gordon MacDonald, Forging a Real World Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers, 1989), pp. 202-203.