In case you’ve forgotten due to political drama elsewhere, our monarch visited Australia recently. It went largely as expected, but the moment of his visit that generated the most comment was when a parliamentary senator felt the need to verbally communicate the following message to King Charles: “You’re not my king!”

We could no doubt have a good old quarrel about the rights and wrongs of the Senator’s actions—and plenty of people have done that already. However I’d rather connect this incident to the message and hope of Christmas. But… it’s a bit of a circuitous journey to get from A to B, from secular palace to stable, so stick with me.

Let’s note firstly that it’s not the first time a king has been rejected.

About 3,000 years ago, recorded for us in 1 Samuel 8:5, the people of the nation of Israel tell Samuel they want a king just “like all the nations”. In doing so, God says, “they have rejected me from being king over them” (v 7). Apparently they wanted a real king, one who would lead them and deliver them from their enemies.

But as Samuel points out (on God’s behalf) in 10:17–18 and 12:7–11, rejecting God as their king was pretty silly, given that God had famously led them and delivered them up to this point in very real ways.

Nonetheless, God and Samuel give the people their new human king: the tall and good-looking Saul. And just to demonstrate how ready he is for this role … Saul hides when they want to make him king (10:22).