What It Means To Be "Royal"

Hello everyone and Happy Holidays! I hope you had a blessed and merry Christmas and that you will have a blessed and prosperous new year!

Recently, I've had a couple of conversations on what it means to be “Royal”. Royalty has become a hot topic in modern culture. Prince William and Catherine, Dutchess of Cambridge, The recent wedding of Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist and the recent royal nupitals in Monaco have gotten the whole world it seems, talking about royalty... what it means to be royal... the pomp and circumstance that comes with the title... the parties... the traveling... the state events... it seems the whole world is mesmerized by their glamorous lifestyle. Average, middle-class people are willing to go into great debt or go to great extremes to have a look of opulence, which they equate with being “royal”... to have a dress like Catherine or a hairstyle like Sofia or your pop star de jour. They will change their mannerisms, their look and occasionally their speech, all in an attempt to be like “royalty”. But are all the public events and pomp and circumstance what it really means to be “royal”?

Out of all the recent royal couples out there, I think I admire Prince William and Catherine the most, not because they are royalty, but because they appear to be very down to earth people. They take care of their children. Charles goes to work everyday just like any young husband and father. Catherine does her own grocery shopping, just like any other young wife and mother. They just happen to be heirs to one of the oldest, successive monarchies in the western hemisphere and yet doing “common”, everyday, mundane things, like doing your own grocery shopping, isn't beneath them... down to earth and in some ways, a little Christ-like.

Black's Law Dictionary defines “royal” as, “Of or pertaining to or proceeding from the king in a monarchical government” [ 6^th ed. p. 1330]. In the book of John, Chapter 17, Jesus “lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” [Jn. 17:1-5] Jesus was asking God the Father, the First of the trinity, to restore him to the fullness of his divinity because his work was done.

Christ was and is and will always be the ultimate royal. He willingly cast off the fullness of his divinity, to take on flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth [Jn. 1:14], to become the son of Mary, a simple young girl and to be raised by Joseph, a simple carpenter [Lk 1:20]. He allowed himself to be subjected to all of what it means to be fully human... pain, loss, need, temptation, hunger, humiliation and ultimately death [Matt. 27:50] and only at the very end, at his most human point, did he ask, “My God my God, why have you forsaken me” [Matt. 27:46]. Christ is the ultimate royal in that he was willing to suffer the cross, all for his people... you and me... for the Kingdom of God.

This Christmas, as I sat in church singing Christmas carols and looking at the beautiful lights and decorations, I thought of the day the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to a savior... I thought about the day Christ is born in a manger (not a palace)... I thought about the wise men who traveled to pay tribute to Christ, one of only two acts of pomp in his life (the other being Palm Sunday) and how simple and beautiful and awe-inspiring these moments are, and I wonder if we today have any real understanding of what it means to be royal at all.

Do We Really Want To Be Sophisticated?

When I was in my early 20's I worked as supervisor at B. Dalton Booksellers in Redondo Beach, CA. I enjoyed the job, because I got to be around books, something I truly love. That year, Word For The Day calendars were all the rage. We sold many of them at the bookstore and I had one on my desk. One morning when I came in to open up the store, I tore off the previous day's date/word and found a word I had never seen before. “Sophist”, as defined by the Merrian-Webster dictionary is one who uses“subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation”. However the definition I saw that day was much stronger. It was “one who forms arguments or reasoning based on false knowledge”. That last phrase false knowledge, struck me in my gut and shook me to my core. I had never before read words that had such a powerful and jolting impact on me. I actually experienced fear when I read them.

This experience immediately led me to the dictionary where I looked up the word and discovered that Sophist shared the same root word as sophistication, which is defined by Merrian-Webster's Dictionary as, “sophistic reasoning; the process or result of becoming cultured, knowledgeable, or disillusioned....” Another definitions given by the Free Online Dictionary is, “to make impure; adulterate. “ I decided at that very moment that I NEVER wanted to be sophisticated and to this day, it is a word I rarely use.

There are some good uses for the word... say for instance, in design. A sophisticated interior design can deceive the eye into believing a room is bigger or brighter or taller than it actually is. A sophisticated use of color can manipulate the emotions of a viewer, causing them to be calmer, or happier or more energized than they previously were. In both cases, the deception can be beneficial because it can make a person happier with what they have...until they get what they really what... a larger house/room with better light and a genuinely improved mood. But sophistication is never any substitute for the real thing, which is why in life, with people, it never works. And that's why I made a vow never to be sophisticated. I never wanted to deceive anyone into believing I was something that I wasn't and I always try to be truthful, because nothing of value is ever built on a lie.

Now as simple as this way of being may seem to be, it has actually gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years, and from some really unexpected sources. Not just because I have said things or asked questions people didn't want to deal with, but because I expected others to live by the same credo. Big mistake. To my amazement, it seems that some people want to be deceived. In recent years I have found it increasingly more difficult to find individuals who appreciate and seek truth, who are honest and forthright, but fortunately, I know one who is.

In 1John 5:6-7 it says that “... the Spirit (The Holy Spirit) is truth” and that the Godhead , “the Father, the Word (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, are one.” I never have to second guess God's leading, or his word, or his love for me. He tells me that He will never leave nor forsake me (Heb. 13:5), and that He will teach me all things (Jn. 14:26) and write His law in my heart (Heb. 8:10), and He has.

So whenever people or society want me to be more sophisticated, I think back on that little slip of paper with the word Sophist written on it and what that really means, I and align myself with the Spirit of Truth, who is Truth and thank God He's allowed me to keep my vow of never being sophisticated.