In keeping with the directives of our church calendar, we celebrate Christ the King today.

As we do so, two great events are in the background of our thinking. One has to do with the occasion when the Israelites came to David at Hebron and petitioned him to take on the additional responsibility of being their king as well as the king of Judah. The other is the remembrance of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, and being acclaimed a king by the excited multitude that had gathered, because they had heard that he had raised a man from the dead.

David accepted the kingship, with the idea of being a shepherd king. And he did a reasonably good job of it for thirty-three years, although there were times when he let himself be corrupted by the power of his office.

Jesus, on the other hand, ap…