Are you the king of the Jews? We are familiar with that question, which is asked of Jesus in the passion story. Everyone in those days knew what a king was! We are not talking here about best sport, or Miss Congeniality — we are talking kings! When Alexander the Great was the greatest king of the then-known world, he decided to conquer all of Asia Minor. Darius, the King of Persia, the only other ruler that could claim super-power status, sued for peace, saying to Alexander: "Let's you and me just divide up Asia together." To which Alexander replied, "Just as the earth can stand only one sun, so the world can have only one ruler!" Alexander promptly crushed Darius.

That is a king! As we learned last week, Israel had come to know kingship through the ministry of Samuel, who was called to a…