Monarchy Pt. 5

Divine Sonship

The modern Christian doesn’t take his beliefs very seriously. It is not for a lack of earnestness, but a lack of imagination. He is like a young groom escorting his bride out of the wedding chapel, gushing forth in great excitement about the curious sensation of the wedding band on his finger. He says her married name over and over, trying to accustom his tongue to the strange sound, and then he deposits her at her parent’s house and informs her he will see her for breakfast in the morning.

We do the same thing at Easter-time. We dress up (and we do make a handsome crowd) in our finest clothes, awaken at dawn, and attend the morning service with glad faces. We listen to the sermon attentively, and then discover with renewed joy and relief that the tomb is empty—thank heaven for a happy ending. And that, for us, is the end of the day. We spend the remainder of the morning quite literally running down rabbit trails. There is nothing wrong with the Easter bunny (other than its egg-laying, which it should really have examined by a medical professional), but the meaning of Easter morning has hardly been scratched. If Jesus’ body could not be contained by death, what shall we think of our own bodies? What does the resurrection mean for these hands? What wild hope now seizes you when you realize the incredible fact of immortality? Whenever fast food is offered henceforth, the Christian ought to draw himself up and say “know you not that you offer this filth to an immortal body?” Playing with chocolates and bunnies is a wonderful way to spend any afternoon except Easter Sunday.

The truth of Divine Sonship is one of these thunderous doctrines that the modern churchman fails to take seriously. If he did think about it seriously, he might fall down. We have established, if we take our Lord seriously, that there is a real and rightful king. There is a royal family, and we are in it. Try for a moment to imagine that some prince from a far off country has made plans to visit your home. Is it possible, in your wildest fancy, to imagine that you are the prince that shall grace your dinner table tonight?

Before we get ahead of ourselves and start demanding the respect of those lowly plebians around us, we must temper the realization of our newfound status with a thorough scrubbing of humility. We are members of the royal family, but it was a promotion from shoveling the horse’s stables, and it wasn’t even because we were doing a good job. It was the entirely undeserved kindness of the king that dignified us, and the moment we begin to think of ourselves with false flattery, the old stable smell starts up again. Our orders to humility are like that one condition upon which the whole fairy tale hinges: you must be home by midnight, you mustn’t look in the red cupboard, you mustn’t swim in the sacred pond by midnight, you mustn’t eat the apple from the one forbidden tree; for if you violate this one easy commandment, all the magic will rumble away into dust.

Humility shouldn’t be that hard, however, for if you take the working out of Divine Sonship one step further you find that you are surrounded by dazzling Lords and Ladies. Women understand all of this much better than men. From childhood, they know that they are part princess, even if the princess is still sweeping the cinders. I am terribly unworthy of my wife, but she puts up admirably with the slow wits of her stable boy.

Nearly all of us are aware, despite television and air-conditioning, of the existence of those strange and uncivil creatures called neighbors, and the realization of the royal family has its most immediate and important application here. If your neighbors are Christians of any type, they are nobles and their property is a baronial estate, one which you are privileged to abut. If they are not Christians, they are still potential royalty, and the King would have you treat them with all the respect of ambassadors. Either way, there can be no question of a change in attitude toward them. You have the honor of sharing lawns and summer days with immortal princes. Imagine your humble (heart beating nervously, of course) excitement as you see one of them approaching his carriage. Might you have the distinction of greeting him today? If so, it will be with greatest respect. Imagine your awed excitement if this grand man were to stop and talk with you. Perhaps you might someday be given the honor of preparing a dinner for his family, watching the royal children, or helping to clean the garage. Even cleaning a very dirty garage is as epic a task as the Augean stables when it is done in service of a Lord or Lady.

C.S. Lewis talked about this marvelously in his description of the “Weight of Glory.” “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendship, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is the immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”