Solomon’s Executions and Jesus’ Prayer
June 14, 2009
What do the Lord’s prayer and the execution of Shimei the son of Gera have in common?
This connection came into focus for me earlier this week when my morning prayer and evening reading converged in an unexpected way. In the morning I was meditating on the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, especially the phrases regarding God’s kingdom: “Your kingdom come…” and “yours in the kingdom and the power and the glory.” I have a general idea about what those kingdom references mean, and was praying accordingly.
That evening I read in 1 Kings 2 about the transition of rule from David to Solomon. Here is the nutshell: dying David warns Solomon about everyone who “done him wrong” (Southern version), like Shimei the son of Gera, and after he takes the throne, Solomon has all those people killed. It was a challenge to glean spiritual insight from political vengeance, at least, anything more than “Thank you, God, that I will never have to do that.”
The following morning, the connection between the previous day’s prayer and reading hit me like a Mack truck. I went back to 1 Kings 2 and read again the bookends of Solomon’s score-settling: “So Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established” (1 Kings 2:12). “So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon” (1 Kings 2:46). Solomon’s acts of establishing his kingdom were tantamount to his kingdom “coming,” so that Israel could say of him, “yours is the kingdom.”
This association between Solomon’s executions and the Lord’s prayer was disturbing, to say the least, especially when other New Testament texts regarding the final establishment of the kingdom of God flooded my mind. Paul says that Jesus “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” at which time “he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power” (1 Corinthians 15:24-25). In John’s Revelation we read of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords who will lead the armies of heaven, wielding a sharp sword “with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron” (Revelation 19:15).
In other words, when we pray “your kingdom come,” the end result of our request is the vanquishing of all God’s enemies. And this does not simply mean a handful of egregious offenders, like Solomon did. God will bring final, eternal judgment to all who refuse to bow to him as King. This is a terror-filled prospect.
Our response to this frightening prayer is not to avoid it, but to supplement it. Along with our prayer that God would conquer his enemies on the final day is our prayer that God would have mercy on his enemies now, making them his friends. We do not want our family member, our co-worker, our neighbor to be as Solomon’s enemies when he took his throne. We want them to be reconciled to the King. So we plead for mercy, and we proclaim the good news that mercy is available before the King comes, for the conquering King first came as a suffering servant to offer clemency to all who would trust in him.
Trembling before his justice and his mercy,
Pastor Chris