Revelation 1:12 – 13

“When I turned I saw…someone like a son of man…with a golden sash around his chest.”

This “someone,” Jesus Christ, was once a limp corpse hanging in death on the Roman cross on Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem. John had seen that with his own eyes.

Now, in derision the Roman rulers commanded that a sign be placed on Jesus’ cross, “The King of the Jews.”  That was the crime for which he is being crucified. The Jews did not like that sign because they had no king at all, a great problem for them, of course, and they hated the petty Roman ruler, Herod, whose job was to keep the Jews from ever having a king, ever.

The Jews had no king to kill!  That is what irritated many. That made the sign so utterly distasteful. The Jews had judged that Jesus was a criminal, not a king by any stretch of the imagination.

The Romans liked the sign because it warned the Jews that if they have any thoughts of rebellion in order to establish their own Jewish king (an unthinkable possibility) they better settled down and be obedient to Rome in every way. So even the sign said one thing for the Jews, another for the Roman occupiers.

It was in this context of being “king” that in the vision John saw that the “someone” had a golden sash around his chest.  Israel’s High Priest wore nothing of the kind. He wore the ephod that kept the twelve tribes of Israel on his chest, near his heart. So the sash was obliviously not a Jewish but a Roman symbol. We recall the many statues and busts of Roman emperors who wore golden breastplates.  That was obviously a sign that they were, in might and power, unequaled by any in the world.  The Emperor was the mighty one.

Does that mean that Jesus Christ is a king?  My answer and certainly John’s is, Jesus is “the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  1:5  Over the exalted Emperor Domitian? Absolutely. Look carefully, the Risen Christ is Ruler of All.  That is a fact. It requires patience and hope to comprehend and accept that. It is not because it is untrue, not at all. The truth remains, forever.  Unchanged.  But we accept it by faith, and by experience and evidences galore.

As Jesus is Lord of all, may he be my Lord, every day, every hour for ever and ever. May I never forget that he is “The Almighty One.”