The King’s Ambassador
Who are Christ’s ambassadors? What does it mean to represent Christ?
The following homily was preached to the student brothers during Compline. You can listen here or read below:
Reading: Mark 6:7-13
When a king intends to visit a place, he first sends out an ambassador to announce his coming. He is the king’s envoy. He acts as his representative. He speaks in the name of the One who sent Him. Normally, he would come with a royal retinue, gifts to impress his host to showcase the power, wealth, and status of the One whom they represent, so that when the king finally arrives and shows his face, the host will pay him the homage due to his royal dignity.
Christ is a King. But who are his ambassadors? Fishermen, tax collector, and sinners.
With “No bread, no bag, no money in their belt.” An entourage of nobodies. They have no worldly gifts to offer to their host, but their very selves and the healing power of God. Yet, this is the manner in which Christ intends to show His face.
Somehow, the dignity of his kingship is better served by one who commands no worldly respect. The power of his message is better conveyed through the mouth of weaklings.
You probably have heard the expression, “we should get out of God’s way” so that God can do what He sets out to do. But I think it is not so simple. And if we take it at face value without distinction, we might even get the wrong picture. It is as if our personal inputs are separate from God’s operation in the world.
It is not so much we ourselves who are in the way of God. To some extent, we shall always be. Though Christ could have done it all by Himself, it pleases Him to choose imperfect, fallen, broken instruments like the apostles, like us, to give a voice to His Word, a unique and unrepeatable voice to make Him known, and a face to reflect His glory.
Perhaps what gets in the way is our refusal to speak with that voice or to show our true face. We are naturally afraid of being rejected, which Christ has also anticipated.
We have been commissioned, entrusted with the Word of reconciliation. So, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. In other words, He has given us everything we need. “We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us” (2 Cor 4:7).
If we can become truly ourselves, stripped off the things that truly get in the way, that extra tunic that hides, that extra provision that will make us look more impressive, if we can divest our false selves, then His voice will truly come through when our is fully expressed. Then we shall truly become his mouthpiece, “a voice crying out in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord.”
Because we are made onto his image — “God has made us a little lower than the angels, He has crowned us with glory and honor and put everything beneath our feet.”
O Lord, how majestic is your name!
Image: James Tissot, Ordaining of the Twelve Apostles (c. 1886-1894). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
