Christmas is here again. One of the most consistent things on earth is the constancy of Christmas and the universality of its celebration. Christmas marks the birthday of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus. The heavens and the earth celebrated his birth when he was born. Before his birth, the angels were sent from heaven to announce his appearance on earth as a King, whose throne is forever. The gospel according to Luke, chapter 1:26-33 puts it succinctly, … “Angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. … And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end”. It is in this regard that the Bible concluded “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth”.
It was disappointing to some casual observers who were expecting a great warrior Prince from Israel, who will deliver them from their enemies, to start his earthly life by being born in a manger, where animals only ought to be inhabiting, rather than a fortified earthly palace of vanity. But this singular act by God demonstrated the kind of leadership God expects from people who call themselves people of God with fear of God. The way up is down. Humility and service are the hallmarks of godly leadership. This assertion is better formulated by Luke 22:25-26 of the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition, … “The kings of the Gentiles are deified (worshipped) by them and exercise Lordship (ruling as emperor-gods) over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors and well-doers. But this is not to be so with you; on the contrary, let him who is the greatest among you become like the youngest, and him who is the chief and leader like one who serves”. This is why the Dictionary aptly defines Service as “the action of helping or doing work for someone”.
In furtherance to the realisation of this style of leadership, Jesus refused to own a house or property on earth. He refused to own a wife or children. Hear Jesus, in Matthew 8:20. “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” He that is the owner of all things, came down on earth and for the sake of all mankind that he came to redeem on earth, decided to give up all earthly wealth and pleasure so he can be all mankind’s faithful servant and so they can be rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9 of the Holy Bible states, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” This simply means that any sacrifice made by a leader translates to a better life for the followers. He went about preaching the gospel, healing all that were sick and raising the dead. It is on record that during the earthly life journey of Jesus, none of his disciples died of disease or poverty. Even Lazarus, his young disciple, who died and was buried, was raised from the dead and grave when this was brought to his notice. When he fed thousands of people with 5 loaves and two fishes, they wanted to make him King but he refused. He preferred to remain their servant until he finished his work of redemption which terminated in his giving his own life for the eternal life of all mankind. Because he remained focused in completing his task of redeeming mankind with his own life, God highly magnified him and gave him a name that is above all names. He attained his Kingship by serving others, by dying for others. This is why his birthday is celebrated world wide.
God set out earlier in the day, before Israel became a full fledged country, planted in the promised land, as God’s people, the kind of a leader He wanted over His people. Deuteronomy 17:15-17 states “Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose … But he shall not multiply horses to himself, … Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold”. God outlawed any kind of excesses in riches, wives, children by Kings. He did this to ensure that none of them becomes corrupt and sinful so he can be a good example for the people to follow as their servant.
All the Kings that God chose for Israel disappointed him, even the one after His own heart, David. God so blessed David with greatness and success that David forgot the injunction of God not to multiply himself wives. It was unfortunate that David, not only multiplied himself wives and concubines, but also took another man’s wife from him in adultery and ended up murdering the man to cover his track. His Son, King Solomon, was even worse. He multiplied himself silver and gold to excess; wives and concubines to the tune of 1,000 women. You don’t need to be told that he eventually forsook God and joined himself with idols. He became so autocratic that his people rebelled against his Son who wanted to continue with his tyranny. The Son, Rehoboam was so arrogant when he came unto power that he had no respect for even the elders. Hear him in 1 Kings 12:13-14: “And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men’s counsel that they gave him; And spake to themafter the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions”. God continued witnessing disappointments from successive Kings that he destroyed the whole nation of Israel entirely. Thereafter, Israel was not ruled by Kings till date.
Are you surprised, where Nigeria rulers got their spine for unguarded utterances, speaking roughly to the Nigeria people. It is from the ego of lording things over the people, rather than serving them. We can see how the Kings of the old who listened to the voice of sycophants, rather than the voice of reason, lost their kingdoms. Looking above, we discovered that Rehoboam, listened to the voice of young men, rather than the voice of reason from the elders, to afflict the people the more, even when they were pleading for leniency. These young men are sycophants who want to impress the King by telling him what he wants to hear. This particular attitude led to the split of the country of Israel into two; Israel and Judah, with the tyrant King retaining only two out of twelve tribes in the former Israeli country. In Nigeria, the nefarious activities of sycophants in misleading successive leaders has reached monumental proportions that threaten the corporate existence of the country from time to time. The leaders also amass tremendous wealth through abuse of their public office for private gain. They steal from the country to enrich themselves. They have become simply corrupt, squandering the wealth of the country on the laps of women of easy virtue and wine of astronomical costs. Ethnicity and religious bigotry pervade the country with other vices.
It is in the atmosphere of this hopelessness in leadership that God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to set the example of how a godly leader should be and we plead with all our political leaders to emulate the life of Jesus and serve the people in humility, simplicity and honesty so we can start enjoying a new lease of life.
The more distressing aspect of the modern departure of the godly example in leadership shown by Jesus is the display of ostentatious wealth by the so called modern men of God. They secure their expensive lifestyles with a retinue of security operatives while preaching to the congregants that their security is in the hands of God. They collect tithes and offerings and squander them on private jets and mansions while preaching to their followers that their rewards are in heaven, for blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God. One wonders why these holiness-challenged “Men of God”, who claim to know more about heaven and the glory of it, will be encouraging their followers to wait for their enjoyment in heaven but they are living a larger than life lifestyle here on earth. These are the class of “Men of God” that Jesus warned will come after him whose belly is their God and whose end is destruction in hell fire. The Church has the largest number of poor people today, while their leaders are part of the richest in the country. The members’ children do not even benefit from the academic institutions built by these Church leaders from their tithes and offerings because they can’t afford the costly school fees, while the children of rich unbelievers who do not contribute in tithes and offerings enjoy such exorbitant schools. Little wonder, there’s general apathy of people these days for anything Church.
Let everyone use the celebration of this Christmas as a time of sober reflection. Time has come for us to structure our leadership style based on service to God and humanity. We must serve each other not lord over each other. The birthday of Jesus was a symbol of the rejection of the old order of autocratic leadership and an introduction of the new order of servants in authorities. As we decide on following the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, please accept the assurances of our highest regards even as we wish you a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year in advance.