Photo and Commentary ©2026 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, October 25, 2026
I never know what we’ll find on our neighborhood walks; this day a king of diamonds playing card stared up at us from the mossy ground next to the sidewalk. “Somebody lost their king!” I exclaimed. (I’ve heard the comment that someone “wasn’t playing with a full deck,” and in this case that would be literally true!)
I don’t know who lost this king, and how and why, but I immediately thought of two stories –one Old Testament and one New Testament – where we clearly see all the particulars of how this happened. In both cases I want to leap into the story and change the choices, show God’s chosen people they need to keep their King.
First story:
So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”
But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” (I Samuel 8:4-9 NIV)
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.” (I Samuel 8:19-22a)
So they lost their King, traded Him in for a king. Look at their reasoning: they wanted a king “to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” Wasn’t that what the King of heaven, their King, had been patiently doing for them? Why clamor for a lesser king?
Second story:
Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he [Pilate] said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”
But they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!”
Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?”
The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”
Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. Then they took Jesus and led Him away. (John 19:14-16 NKJV)
But He died as their King, on the cross:
Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was:
JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘He said, “I am the King of the Jews.” ’ ”
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” (John 19:20-22)
No matter what was written, He was rejected. Isaiah foretold it:
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4, 5)
He was not the King of their hearts.
Is He the King of ours?