In case you’ve forgotten due to political drama elsewhere, our monarch visited Australia recently. It went largely as expected, but the moment of his visit that generated the most comment was when a parliamentary senator felt the need to verbally communicate the following message to King Charles: “You’re not my king!”

We could no doubt have a good old quarrel about the rights and wrongs of the Senator’s actions—and plenty of people have done that already. However I’d rather connect this incident to the message and hope of Christmas. But… it’s a bit of a circuitous journey to get from A to B, from secular palace to stable, so stick with me.

Let’s note firstly that it’s not the first time a king has been rejected.

About 3,000 years ago, recorded for us in 1 Samuel 8:5, the people of the nation of Israel tell Samuel they want a king just “like all the nations”. In doing so, God says, “they have rejected me from being king over them” (v 7). Apparently they wanted a real king, one who would lead them and deliver them from their enemies.

But as Samuel points out (on God’s behalf) in 10:17–18 and 12:7–11, rejecting God as their king was pretty silly, given that God had famously led them and delivered them up to this point in very real ways.

Nonetheless, God and Samuel give the people their new human king: the tall and good-looking Saul. And just to demonstrate how ready he is for this role … Saul hides when they want to make him king (10:22). And then he goes home and works in his fields (10:26; 11:5). Not exactly the dynamic new national leadership the people were hoping for.

That’s the trouble with human kings: they have this habit of being as flawed as the next man and, in the end, letting you down badly.

Nonetheless, imbued with the Spirit (10:6; 11:6), Saul makes a fresh start as leader. He steps up to the plate during a national crisis. But, importantly, Saul doesn’t get carried away with his own importance—he recognises that there is still a significant role for the prophet of God (Samuel) in the national leadership (11:7), and when he leads the people in a resounding defeat of the Ammonites he gives all the credit to the Lord (11:13).

From here the quality of Saul’s leadership falls away quickly. But at this point at least, he seems to understand what Samuel makes clear in 12:14—that if the people and their human king all recognise that God is their true king, then “it will be well”.

It’s as if the human king is in reality a bit of a hindrance; he gets in the way. He’s a tempting distraction from focusing on the real king, the true and sovereign king, the actual king who is capable of delivering his people: God himself. The best-case scenario is having a human king who humbly deflects all of the people’s attention and worship towards God, but biblical history tells us this sort of humility is rare.

Bottom line: wanting a human king is generally ruinous, because it involves rejecting God as king and enthroning a poor substitute.

Unless, of course, the human king happens to be God in the flesh.

In coming into the world as a man, being raised from death, ascending to heaven, Jesus has become the human king we can all relate to, as well as the divine and sovereign king who doesn’t get in the way or need to deflect attention elsewhere. He is the king who isn’t flawed, the one who can lead, deliver and save us, the one whose kingdom will never end. He is the king whose arrival Christians celebrate at Christmas, and whom non-Christians frenetically try to paper over with fake snow and ham.

King Charles? I’m not really fussed. I’m certainly not going to yell at him: “You’re not my king!” But nor will I be looking to him for rescue.

King Jesus? Well, he’s another story altogether. I’ll joyfully declare: “You are my king!”