The Keimathea Chronicles - a Christian Worldview parable - Part IV
Redemption - Glorification: The Banquet Table of the King
The question, at the end of the
evening, is what we will do in the midst of the suffering and evil in our
lives. The citizens of Keimathea faced
the same question—how would they respond to King Ma’alekei’s invitation in the
corrupted kingdom they experienced?
One day, the good and wise king
entered a small village on the fringes of the realm—far from the palace, and
very close to the outer darkness. Three
young women—Alyssa, Karin, and Maya—emerged and talked with the king. Ma’alekei gave them food, money, clothing,
and some extravagant silk fabrics out of his royal bounty. He re-affirmed his eternal love for the three
girls, and invited them to come and join the banquet at the castle in the heart
of the kingdom. The three women,
awe-struck, listened silently as the King talked.
After Ma’alekei left, Alyssa,
Karin, and Maya looked at one another with shocked expressions on their
faces. Karin immediately ran to her hut,
and soon re-emerged wearing a small backpack, a hat, and hiking shoes. King Ma’alekei’s silk scarf was woven through
her flowing blond hair. She said to
Alyssa and Maya, “Well—aren’t you going to get ready to go?”
“Go where?” Maya asked.
“To the castle, of course!” Karin
responded. “I’m going to join the King’s
banquet table in the palace. I can’t
believe he would take peasants like us.
Are you coming?”
Alyssa pondered the question
silently, withdrawn. It was surprising
that a good and wise King would seek after dirty, uneducated peasant women like
the three friends. Obviously Ma’alekei
didn’t know that Karin had been with three different husbands over the past ten
years. Surely if he knew that, he would
not have invited her to the banquet table.
Alyssa, on the other hand, had been faithful to her husband Valaric
since their marriage eight years ago—even though her husband was a no-good
drunkard and deadbeat. Alyssa was
raising their children on her own—a hardship that someone like Karin could not
possibly understand. If Ma’alekei was
such a good and wise king, if he was the rightful ruler of the realm, then why
hadn’t he done something about her situation?
Why hadn’t Ma’alekei punished Valaric for his unfaithfulness, his
drunkenness, his abuse? Why hadn’t
Ma’alekei rescued Alyssa from her painful situation? Did he think he could just waltz into town
now, invite her to some royal banquet, and pretend that everything was okay,
that all would be fine? What kind of
king did Ma’alekei think he was? No—there
was no way that Alyssa was going to take this so-called king up on his so-called
banquet table. It was most likely a
false hope, a false promise. Probably
the fellow just wanted to lure her into some brain-washing cult and take all of
her money, rob her of her freedom.
Alyssa spoke up:
“No, Karin,” she retorted
sharply. “I want nothing to do with this
fairy tale, this fantasy that you are about to waste your life with. I’d rather keep grounded, face the facts of
our nasty kingdom, and live the life that’s set before me. You go.
I’ll be here when you come back crying.”
Maya looked at Alyssa,
surprised—she had never heard her friend so tart and short-tempered. Maya had been thinking things over too. There had been other men who had come to
their village before, claiming to know the path to a fuller life. She remembered one in particular—a handsome,
vibrant, intelligent young man named Joronae, who assured her that following
him, supporting him as sovereign would bring peace and prosperity to their
village. Maya and several others had rallied
around Joronae, joining his entourage, and traveling to other villages in the
countryside. Eventually, however, it
became clear that Joronae was interested only in receiving adulation from
peasants like Maya—he was not bringing peace to the country, nor prosperity to
his followers. Disillusioned, Maya had
returned home—but she was no longer welcomed by her parents, who had seen
Joronae for the fraud he truly was, and had retained their allegiance (in name,
anyway) to King Ma’alekei. Now that very
King had come! Maya had seen him with her
own eyes! Yet she remembered her
parents. They had claimed allegiance to
Ma’alekei, but died without ever seeing the king. In fact, they died quite miserable, poor
deaths—much like the lives they had lived.
And they had never forgiven Maya for her dalliance with Joronae, even
though Maya had cried tears of sorrow and repentance. Maya recalled her father’s steely, unyielding
glance, his firm rejection of his own daughter.
She set her jaw and looked at Karin.
“I could never go the banquet table
of the one whose followers disowned me, Karin,” Maya said softly. “Ma’alekei might have been my parents’ King,
but he’s not mine.”
Karin glanced from one friend to
the other, and tears came to her eyes.
How could they deny the reality of the one who had just appeared among
them? Ma’alekei was there, flesh and
blood, as plain as day for all to see!
He had spoken with them; he had even given them tangible gifts
demonstrating his royal love and concern.
Karin knew that Alyssa’s lot in life had been hard—Valaric was a poor
husband, a despicable man, and had mistreated Alyssa terribly. But how was Ma’alekei responsible for
that? Karin had been broken-hearted when
Maya’s parents disowned her. While Karin
herself had never even heard of Ma’alekei at that point in her life, she had
found it strange that parents would push their own children away simply for
choosing a different leader to support.
Karin had helped Maya get re-established in the community, opening her
home to her dear friend after her second husband left for greener
pastures. What Karin now could not understand was why Maya blamed
Ma’alekei for her parent’s mistreatment of her—it’s not as if it was the King
himself who had shunned Maya!
Karin could not understand her
friends’ responses to the king’s invitation.
Nor could she fully grasp the King’s invitation itself. Why would the King invite her to the banquet table? Did he not know her past? Didn’t he know who all she had been
with? Didn’t he know how she paid her
bills and supported her family? No—she
realized immediately, the king did
know all about her. She could tell when
he looked her in the eyes. There was a
piercing recognition—as if Ma’alekei saw straight through Karin’s eyes and
directly into her soul. He knew her
history, all right; he knew her character.
In fact, she could have sworn, in that moment their eyes locked, that he
even knew her future. But, and this was
the striking thing, she thought—despite the fact that King Ma’alekei knew all
about her, he loved her nonetheless. He
loved her enough to invite her to his banquet table. He loved her enough to welcome her into his
castle—out of her village, out of her peasantry, out of her bondage, and into
the free abundance of the royal palace.
Whatever choices her friends would
make, Karin realized, there was only one way forward for her—it was on to
Keimathea Castle, to seek the banquet table of King Ma’alekei.
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