Prophets, Priests, and Kings

You fancy yourself a prophet, a priest, or a king, but the Bible says you are all three, not just one. Prophet, you ride high, calling the world to repentance. Priests, you lay low, taking confessions like coins. Kings, you rule lofty, making decrees with your mind and hands. But the Bible says you are all three, so will you be?

Will you be the prophet who points the ever-loving way to the Lord, never exposing sin to ridicule, tear down, or bully. But to peel away the layers of grave-clothes, the years of sin and shame, exposing deadened flesh to the hand of a skilled surgeon?

And will you be the priest, who takes and handles confessions dearly as the costly thing they are? Not as one who publishes pages of confessions on the street corners for all the callers and peddlers to market. But as one who covers the confessor and the broken with the manifold grace of a Living God?

And will you be the king who rules with gentleness, graciousness, and weight? Who disciplines his fellow kings and receives discipline in the same way? A king who does not put himself above others in the kingdom, but who lays his life down for his friends?

Some rule with a heavy and hidden hand. Some nail confessions to the doors of their churches, stoning the sinners and the saints all the same. Some cry out in the wilderness to prepare ye the way of the Lord.

But I want to be like Mary, pouring everything dear on the worship of One who has already come.