King

The Lion King tells the story of a king's ascent. From the moment the movie begins, Simba is branded as the heir to the throne. He is designated to the office at the start of the movie by the baboon Rafiki, who lifts up Simba before the animals of the kingdom as they bow before him. He is the future king.

The rest of the story describes Simba's exile and his homecoming to Pride Rock. When Simba returns to Pride Rock, he must battle for the throne, which has been seized by his uncle Scar. Simba conquers Scar and the hyenas, but even though he has been designated, appointed, and even conquered, the forces of darkness, his work remains incomplete.

At the end of the movie, immediately after the battle, an important scene occurs that is sometimes overlooked. The camera suddenly shifts to Rafiki, bringing the story full circle. Rafiki takes his staff and points Simba to Pride Rock. An old era has ended; a new one is about to begin. In order for Simba to claim his kingdom and be installed as the king, he must ascend Pride Rock, the rightful place of the ruler, to ritually demonstrate he has conquered.

Simba dramatically ascends the rock and roars. When he does, the other lions acknowledge his victory, dominion, and authority. Though Simba has been designated as the king from the start of the movie, though he has conquered in battle, he still is not installed as king until he ascends Pride Rock.

In a better way, Jesus is designated as king and Lord from the beginning of the Gospels and from all creation really. But Jesus had to be installed as king; he had to be enthroned; he had to be recognized as king; he had to ascend to the right hand of the father, sit on the throne, and receive from God the Father all dominion and authority. The Ascension is about the triumph of Jesus the king.

In March 2002, the former ruler of Afghanistan, the 87-year-old Mohammed Zahir Shah, returned to his homeland after 30 years of exile. Here's how an article in the Chicago Tribune described his grand and glorious welcome:

On Thursday, thousands of invited guests lined up for hours at the airport and people gathered on the streets leading to a refurbished seven-bedroom villa to see the former ruler. Delegations arrived from across Afghanistan's 32 provinces. Governors and their advisers, members of women's groups carrying posters of the king, most of the interim administration, royalists, warlords, men in turbans and others in suits all converged on the pockmarked runway where shells of bombed airplanes lay. Two red carpets were laid out. The newly trained honor guard was on hand, and young women and children in traditional embroidered dress greeted Zahir Shah with flowers and poems.

I hope you're thinking of the contrast when Israel's Messiah was born, when he came to his own people.

Nero, a man with light blue eyes, thick neck, protruding stomach, and spindly legs, was a crazed and cruel emperor, a pleasure-driven man who ruled the world by whim and fear. It just goes to show the difference an upbringing makes.

His mother, the plotting Agrippina, managed to convince her husband, Claudius, to adopt her son Nero and put him, ahead of Claudius' own son, first in line for the throne. Maternal concern not satisfied, she then murdered Claudius, and Nero ruled the world at age 17.

The young Nero, having been tutored by the servile philosopher and pedophile Seneca, was actually repulsed by the death penalty. But he resourcefully turned this weakness into strength: he eventually had his mother stabbed to death for treason and his wife Octavia beheaded for adultery. (He then had Octavia's head displayed for his mistress, Poppaea, whom years later he kicked to death when she was pregnant ) The Senate made thank offerings to the gods for this restoration of public morality. Unfortunately, that is but the tip of the bloody and treacherous iceberg of Nero's reign. Yet such activities overshadow the few constructive things he attempted, albeit without success: the abolition of indirect taxes (to help farmers), the building of a Corinthian canal, and the resettlement of people who had lost their homes in the Great Fire of Rome in 64.

Nero tried to pin the blame for that fire on the city's small Christian community (regarded as a distinct, dissident group of Jews), and so, appropriately, he burned many of them alive. Peter and Paul were said to have been martyred as a result. But the rumors persisted that Nero had sung his own poem "The Sack of Troy" (he did not "fiddle") while enjoying the bright spectacle he had ignited. That business about singing was not unreasonable, for Nero had for years made a fool of himself by publicly playing the lyre and singing before, literally, command performances.

Political turmoil finally forced the troubled emperor to commit suicide. His last words were, "What a showman the world is losing in me!"

The historian Pliny called Domitian the beast from hell who sat in its den, licking blood. In the Book of Revelation, John of the Apocalypse may have referred to Domitian when he described a beast from the abyss who blasphemes heaven and drinks the blood of the saints.

Domitian repelled invasions from Dacia (modern-day Rumania), something later emperors would have increasing difficulty doing. He also was a master builder and adroit administrator, one of the best who ever governed the Empire. Suetonius, who hated Domitian, had to admit that "he took such care to exercise restraint over the city officials and provincial governors that at no time were these more honest or just."

But there was something wrong with Domitian. He enjoyed catching flies and stabbing them with a pen. He liked to watch gladiatorial fights between women and dwarfs. And during his reign he was so suspicious of plots against his life, the number of imperial spies and informers proliferated, as did the number of casualties among suspect Roman officials.

Domitian was the first emperor to have himself officially titled in Rome as "God the Lord." He insisted that other people hail his greatness with acclamations like "Lord of the earth," "Invincible," "Glory," "Holy," and "Thou Alone."

When he ordered people to give him divine honors, Jews, and no doubt Christians, balked. The resulting persecution of Jews is well-documented; that of Christians is not. However, the beast that the author of Revelation describes, as well as the events in the book, are perhaps best interpreted as hidden allusions to the rule of Domitian. In addition, Flavius Clemens, consul in 95, and his wife, Flavia Domitilla, were executed and exiled, respectively, by Domitian's orders; many historians suspect this was because they were Christians.

But what goes around, comes around. An ex-slave of Clemens, Stephanus, was mobilized by some of Domitian's enemies and murdered him.