Hey, everybody, it's day 37 in our 40-day tour through the Gospel of John.

Welcome. The story is getting so serious as it develops now. The plot is thickening,

and there's no turning back. We're in John

chapter 18 versus 28 to 40. I want to start in verse 33 though. Jesus has asked a simple but

profoundly important question. Are you the king? Are you the king of the Jews? I don't know what it is

about kings and queens, about royalty that captures our imaginations as Americans, but it does.

It's built into our founding documents that we won't have royalty, that we won't have kings and queens.

Maybe that's why we're so enamored by the drama surrounding royal families.

I mean, even Oprah's involved now, and social debates rage, and we pick sides over the of the queen Elizabeth family royal family

controversy the fairy tales that we tell and that we share and we famously know tell rags to riches

stories that reveal our childlike goals that maybe the dream would be someday we could live in a palace and we could

have all of the fortune and the fame and the authority and the power that comes with it.

There's the king Elvis Presley and all the Elvis impersonators who claim to be the king.

I was thinking of doing an Elvis impersonation right there, but I'm just going to move on.

There's the king of pop, the late great Michael Jackson, there's Prince, there's Queen Latifah,

there's the King of Queens and the Crown TV shows, there's the Tiger King.

Don't recommend that one.

There's the Lion King and Simba singing, I just can't wait to be king.

There are high schools that have homecoming weeks,

and they crown a king or a queen, their homecoming king or queen. This is the crown that our oldest

son wore, the crown our middle son wore, the crown that our daughter wore. We have a small dynasty

of homecoming kings and queens in our household. And that in a quarter will get you everything

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