It is announced that our king is coming. His description is righteous and humble. What makes for a humble king?

We should be humble because we have nothing of our own. Our righteousness is Christ’s righteousness, our own, nothing but filthy rags. We are completely reliant on Christ for our righteousness and our righteousness is our defense and in it we have acceptance before the Father. We need Jesus; that’s where our humility lies.

But Christ’s righteousness is His own. Where does His humility come from?

It says He will speak peace to the nations. He created the peace. By His sacrificial life and death, He made peace with God possible. He united people into one new man.

He will save the people. He will protect them. He will set prisoners free. He will do it.

Where does humility of our king come in when He is all that and so much more? He is God. He is our salvation. His name means salvation.

The Son is submitted to the Father. He emptied Himself. Jesus took on His Father’s identity. He lived by the Spirit. He submitted to the Father’s will in all things. He did nothing of Himself. He taught what the Father taught Him. He did what He saw His Father doing. When He went to the cross, He was relying on His Father to raise Him up and not allow Him to see decay.

He was entering Jerusalem as king because the Father appointed Him to the position.

He looked to the Father in all things. He will be a humble king. He will reign representing His Father, still doing the Father’s will in all things. He will still be bringing the Father glory by doing the work given Him to do.

The chapter ends with some exclamations. How great is God’s goodness! I think we see the Lord’s glory most clearly in His goodness. He is only and always good. There is also a declaration of the Lord’s beauty!

We don’t have descriptions of Jesus in the Bible as beautiful. We don’t see God, not really. No one is allowed to. But here we’re told of His great beauty. David, when he sat before the Lord, gazed on the beauty of the Lord.

I hope you already see Him as beautiful. His glorious goodness is amazingly beautiful.