I Kings 10:1-13, Kingdoms pp. 196, 197
“Visiting Royalty”
November 4, 2018 – Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost
In May of 2012 we were in Toronto in Canada for our daughter’s wedding. No one except our two families noticed us arrive. At about the same time, almost everyone in Canada noticed Prince Charles and Camilla arrive at the airport in Toronto. The royal couple was all one saw if you turned on the television the night before Susan’s wedding. Though we care little for such things here in America, visiting royalty is still a big deal in other parts of the world. It makes an impression.
Visiting royalty was a big deal in ancient Israel. As we read together from Kingdoms, the tenth chapter of I Kings, when a queen decided to visit Solomon from a relatively far off and exotic land, it made an impression. The Queen of Sheba’s visit to Jerusalem was significant enough that even Jesus commented on it nine hundred years later, as you can read in Matthew 12:42.
Who was she? Where was Sheba? We can’t really be sure. Sheba is mentioned in the Bible and in the Quran, but its location is not specified. The best scholarly opinion today is that Sheba was the home of the Sabaeans, an ancient civilization known as “Saba” in South Arabia. She mostly likely came from what we now call Yemen.
However, Ethiopia in northern Africa has a long-standing claim to be the kingdom of Sheba and the home of Solomon’s royal visitor. The ancient historian Josephus identified Ethiopia as Sheba. It seems like he made a mistake, but that tradition has held for centuries and has generated some pretty fascinating legends around the queen and what happened there during her time with Solomon.
Jewish legend from the 8th century gives us nineteen riddles the queen was supposed to have asked Solomon and says that she had hairy legs. In Islam, the Quran gives her a name, Bilkis, and says that Solomon married her. But it’s the Ethiopian national legend from the 14th century, seven hundred years ago, that really elaborates the story.
At the end of the biblical account we heard that “King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba whatever she asked for.” In other translations it reads, “whatever she desired.” The Ethiopian legend says that included having Solomon’s baby. She went home pregnant and gave birth to a son who became the first of a dynasty, a line of kings to rule Ethiopia.
Near the beginning of the Song of Solomon in the Bible, the bride says, “Dark am I, yet lovely,” or simply “I am black and I am beautiful,” which gives a bit of credibility to the notion that Solomon did in fact marry an Ethiopian woman.
Whether or not they were actually descended from Solomon, the Abyssinian dynasty did rule Ethiopia for hundreds of years, right down to the last one in recent history, Haile Selassie, who was emperor from 1930 to 1974.
Those legends around Solomon and the visiting queen are all tangled up with other stories about the Ark of the Covenant being still today in a church in Ethiopia and the Rastafarians regarding Haile Selassie as some sort of messiah, even though he was an Orthodox Christian all his life. You might wonder whether there’s much here that’s edifying for us as Christians in this strange little corner of God’s Word.
One important lesson is the one I mentioned Jesus Himself taught, that the queen of Sheba had the good sense to travel hundreds of miles to listen to the wisdom of Solomon. He said it to slam those who stood right there in Jesus’ own presence and refused to pay attention to the wisdom He brought them. That ancient queen is an example of how God is always bringing unlikely people from strange places into His kingdom because they are willing to listen and learn from Him.
We read how the queen was overwhelmed with Solomon’s wisdom, the magnificence of his palace, the food at his table and even the clothing on his servants. But she was also impressed by the offerings Solomon made in the Temple. She perceived that Solomon’s wisdom and glory had a source beyond him, a source beyond this world. So she told him, “Praise the Lord your God who delights in you and has placed you on the throne of Israel.”
Whether the legends are right or not that the queen of Sheba took Solomon’s baby home with her, it appears they are correct about something else she brought home with her: Solomon’s faith. We can’t say for sure that she totally converted to the one true God of Israel, but she definitely acknowledged God’s power as displayed in the wonders and strength of Solomon’s kingdom.
Taking the queen as our example in one direction, let us be as willing to come and sit at the feet of our Lord and King and listen to His wisdom. Let us bring Him all our questions and be willing to accept His answers. On page 196 we read that “Solomon had answers for all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her.” Jesus said about Himself, “something greater than Solomon is here.” Let us humbly learn how to live from the great source of all wisdom, from Jesus our King.
In another direction, however, we might remember the kingdom of God. Jesus promised His kingdom in our Gospel lesson to the poor in spirit and to those persecuted for righteousness and for His sake. God’s kingdom is meant to show up here among us if it’s anywhere on earth. If some modern monarch wanted to go looking for the glory of God on earth, that king or queen should be able to find it among God’s people now like that visitor from Sheba did among God’s people back then.
Yet we Christians are not always that glorious, are we? How impressed would a royal visitor be today who walked into a church looking for the King of the world? Would we look like people who share in great wisdom, or are blessed with wonderful gifts, or who are as kind and generous as Solomon was with the queen from the south?
Part of the story of this royal visitation is the exchange of gifts. The queen came with camel loads of spices and gold and precious stones for Solomon. Those presents are mentioned again on page 197. It would have been standard practice for Solomon to give back to her gifts of equivalent value, much like we do on a lesser scale in our families as we exchange Christmas or birthday gifts. But Solomon went beyond that. He gave her more than she brought, “whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon.”
The queen gave to Solomon; brought her best treasures to him. He gave back to her things worth more than what she gave him. So a Christian church father from Syria asked, “Why do not we imitate the queen of the South,” by offering precious gifts to Christ? “The transaction is that we lose worthless things, so that we may get great ones, which we search for and lack in highest degree.”[1] Our book of the month for November is about Christian martyr Jim Elliot, who echoed that church father and other Christians since, saying, “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
So let us come to Jesus our King giving up things of lesser value, which we cannot keep in the long run anyway, whether it’s time or money or the work of our hands. In return He give us His love, His wisdom, and His eternal life, gifts worth far more than the gifts we bring to Him.
There are lessons for us here, then. We can imitate the queen of Sheba visiting king Solomon by seeking wisdom from King Jesus. We can follow Israel’s example by being a community of people where seekers may find King Jesus. And we can be like the queen again by offering ourselves and our gifts to our King in return for the better gifts He gives us of love and grace. As we think today of the saints who have gone before us and of being saints ourselves, those are good ways to be more saintly.
Yet there is one more way to look at this story of visiting royalty. I’ve already mentioned what it says on page 196, that the queen of Sheba was “overwhelmed” and “amazed” at what she saw there in Jerusalem, at King Solomon’s majesty and the beauty of his palace. In other translations, at the end of what is verse 5, it says that when she saw it all, “there was no more spirit in her,” or “no more breath in her.” That is, being in the presence of King Solomon took away her breath, left her speechless in awe.
Let us consider then what it means for us to be in the presence of our King, to come with awe before Jesus and simply appreciate Him, maybe in speechless silence and wonder.
Friday morning, Garry Barker told our men’s group about a chapel service at Wheaton College on September 22, 1967. Garry was there. The former president of the college, V. Raymond Edman, was giving the message, entitled “In the Presence of the King.” Edman began by talking about being invited to appear before that same Ethiopian ruler I mentioned earlier, Haile Selassie. He described what it was like to enter the royal court and stand waiting in awe to be recognized and be invited forward and given seats. They remained silent until the king spoke. Edman told how he explained to the king that Wheaton College’s educational philosophy was based on the Word of God. Selassie responded that he too would like Ethiopia’s educational system to be based on God’s Word.
Then there in his chapel talk, Edman began to draw some conclusions for the students. He said, “But I speak primarily of another King,” and went on to ask students to arrive for chapel as if coming into the presence of their true King, to be quiet and respectful, to “prepare your own hearts to hear the Lord, to meet with the King.”
My mouth dropped when Garry then told us that while Edman was saying these things in chapel, he had a heart attack and died right there. Garry saw it happen. As Billy Graham said at Edman’s memorial service a few days later, Edman had moved into the actual presence of the King just as he was speaking about “The Presence of the King.”
We are reminded today as we remember those who have gone before us, President Edman of Wheaton among them, that the presence of the King is our goal, the aim of our whole lives. We heard that presence described in those words from Revelation 21, the great royal wedding to come when our Lord takes us as His bride, when “He will live with them, and they will be his people,” when “God himself will be with them.”
The gifts our King will give us then in His presence will be far beyond anything we have now, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.” He will make everything new. That’s what we are looking forward to in the presence of our King, what many of those we love and remember are already experiencing in His presence.
Let’s learn to live now, as Edman was trying to suggest to college students, in the King’s presence. Let’s enter into worship with reverence and awe. And let us learn to respect each other, all of us children of the King, as fellow members of the royal Family. Whatever their actual relationship, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba showed each other the deepest respect and generosity. As royal heirs of our King Jesus Christ, let us offer to one another that same sort of generous giving and deep respect.
Everyone who walks through those doors into this sanctuary is seeking what you are seeking, to be in the presence of the King, the final and only true King of this world. Let us commit ourselves to helping each other arrive there, in the presence of Jesus. And let us discover together the majesty and the love and the grace of being with Him.
Amen.
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2018 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj
[1] Ephrem the Syrian in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, vol. V, p. 70.