The Young Prince

There once was a young prince whose father ruled a vast and diverse kingdom. The King had designed, staked out and cultivated this kingdom, a place of incredible diversity and beauty. The King ruled his Kingdom from afar, though he ensured the bountiful supply of food and resources, which he left in the care of the citizens. These resources had the potential for great ingenuity and development should the citizens choose to explore and discover them. This King provided a bright light to warm and fuel this kingdom and ensured that plentiful water was supplied to nourish the ground so that crops could grow. He provided a code for the citizens; laws by which they should order their lives. 

However, the citizens became dissatisfied with this King. They said to themselves, “this King is distant and far away. He wants our homage, our resources and our time. What makes this King better than us? We have made great inventions and discovered the secrets of success in this kingdom. Let us rule ourselves!” And so the people revolted against this great King. But the revolt resulted in consequences felt throughout the entire kingdom. Some strong citizens stored the wealth and resources of the Kingdom and refused to share it with other citizens in the Kingdom. So famine came in various parts of the land. Those who had power over the kingdom’s resources misused them. They threw waste on the streets of the cities so they became filthy. As the filth spread, so too did sickness and disease. Bickering arose amongst members of the kingdom as to who deserved to rule the others (for they realised that some form of leadership was necessary). Families were divided against other families and cities against other cities. Hatred arose as the citizens became polarised and divided against those who were not like them. So conflict and war broke out amongst the citizens of this Kingdom. In all of this, the citizens of the Kingdom broke the King’s code, and were guilty of many crimes.

 As things became worse and time moved on, the citizens forgot the great King. Rumours spread throughout the kingdom and it was even taught in schools that he did not really exist. If he did exist, the citizens said that he was not a good or just king. Indeed, the citizens chose to blame their sorry state of affairs upon the great King. 

The young prince looked from afar upon the events in his kingdom with great sorrow and heaviness of heart, for he loved the kingdom. Most of all he loved his citizens, even though they despised his father.  Turning to his father the King, he asked him, “father, what can I do for my citizens?”

“My son”, the father replied gently and lovingly, “there is something you can do. But it will cost you a great deal. I will send you to enter the kingdom. But I will ask you to leave behind your crown and your wealth. You will go into the kingdom as a servant. You will go to pick up the rubbish in the streets, and clean the cities. You will go to help the broken and sick people and make them well. The people will not recognise you as my son. You will look just like one of them. I will send you with a message about me and who I really am. You will tell them that all the problems started when they chose to reject me, and that you have come to reestablish my kingdom and rule. You will tell them that there are eternal consequences for rebellion against me, for I am a good King who will not ignore the requirements of justice. Yet the people will hate your message. They will reject you as my son. They will falsely accuse you of being part of the problem and they will condemn you to death.”

At this the father paused, looking into the eyes of his young and fervent son. The son’s face was grave and he responded “My father, will I be separated from you?”

At this, the father’s face became filled with sorrow. “Yes my son” he replied. As tears welled in his eyes he said “we will be apart, but only for a short time. Though you will die at the hands of the citizens, I will raise you up to new life. Your death will not be in vain. For I will treat your death as punishment for the wrongs of all those citizens who have rebelled against me, yet choose to ask for forgiveness. If they will acknowledge you, my son, as King of my Kingdom, accepting that they have rebelled against me, I will forgive them for their crimes and offer them an amnesty. They will no longer have to pay the price or suffer the consequences of eternal imprisonment for their rebellion against me. I will give them access into my great eternal kingdom, here in my presence.”

The son’s head went back and a resolve entered his young eyes. Setting his face firmly, and squaring his shoulders, though his voice trembled with much emotion he said “Then my father, send me. I will go. I will not rest until I have done everything you have asked”. For though this prince’s heart mourned at the thought of separation from his father the King, whom he loved very deeply, this prince loved his citizens so passionately that he desired to do everything in his power to save them. 

The father’s heart welled with pleasure over his young son. For the King had longed to send a solution into his broken kingdom. But the father’s heart simultaneously broke. For he loved his son so much, that to be separated from him and see him suffer would cause him just as much pain as the son himself would physically suffer. 

The young prince went to the kingdom. He lived in a socially disadvantaged neighbourhood. No one from that neighbourhood was ever expected to achieve much. As a result, many of the citizens looked down upon him and treated him with contempt. The young prince took the position of a servant. He went through the city streets and cleaned the foul smelling rubbish. He did not falter despite the contempt of the wealthy and powerful citizens of the Kingdom. He visited the sick, outcasts and the broken. The young prince had the power to make the sick well. He set the drug addicts free of addiction. His truth spoken in love enabled the prostitutes to leave their trade and join his kingdom instead. He showed love to those whom society excluded. He invited those who were hoarding money and cheating other citizens to leave their life of dishonesty and choose his ways instead. Yet the civil authorities were jealous of this young prince and did not like his message or humility. They stirred up the other citizens to falsely accuse him of rebellion and insurrection. 

So though the young prince came to set the citizens free of their rebellion from his father’s rule, he himself was falsely accused of starting a rebellion. A day came where the sentiments of the people were so riled up that he was forcibly taken to endure an unfair trial. He was given no legal representation or jury. As a part of this unfair process, he was handed over to the citizens to be tortured and abused. The citizens of the kingdom gleefully took this opportunity to mock and revile their own prince. The young prince bore all of the abuse, setting his face like flint and refusing to resist because he remembered the words his father had spoken with tears in his eyes. His father had promised him that his suffering and their separation would save the citizens from the consequences of their crime and rebellion. With every lash of the razor sharp whip on his bare skin, he brought to his mind the faces of the citizens of the kingdom who would be saved by his death. Through every false accusation and lie, he remembered the eyes of his father, filled with so much love and brimming with tears, while he gave him the most important task the kingdom had ever known. 

The young prince did not resist as the citizens of the kingdom chose a cruelly devised means of executing him. They nailed his hands and feet to two beams of wood and left him hanging to die in slow suffocation. And the prince in that moment was treated by the great King as enduring the punishment for the crimes of every citizen of that Kingdom. As he became the object of punishment, the young prince experienced the most excruciating separation from his father the King that he had ever known. Yet he endured this agony for the benefit of the very citizens of the kingdom who stood around him and executed him, unaware of the significance of that moment. 

The great King’s words rang true. Though the young prince died that day upon those two wooden beams, the great King raised him back to life. The young prince was returned to his father’s Kingdom and he left his message in the mouths of some men and women in the kingdom who had believed in who he was and had followed him. These men and women travelled the height and width of the kingdom and shared the message of the Prince and how he was inviting the citizens to turn away from their rebellion from the great King and accept the amnesty he was offering should they choose to acknowledge his son, the Prince. 

Many citizens experienced the powerful love of the Prince though the words of his followers. Many citizens experienced the Prince’s ability to heal them of sickness and liberate them from addiction. Yet sadly, other citizens preferred to live in rebellion because they did not want to follow the young Prince. When the young prince returned to his father’s kingdom, he spent his time advocating before his father’s throne for the lives of all of the citizens of the Kingdom, with whom he felt great affinity. He spent great resources and time and efforts upon the citizens who did not know him, that they may hear and understand the message of his life and death and the possibility of an amnesty. He knew that if the citizens failed to accept his substitutionary death and the amnesty, they would have to pay the punishment for their crimes themselves; eternal separation from the great King in a prison of torment. The Prince did everything in his power to make the citizens understand who he was and his message of love and forgiveness so that they could be in the great King’s eternal kingdom forever and not go to prison. 

Ultimately, the young Prince awaited the day when he would physically return to his kingdom and fully reinstate his father’s rule. On that day, all of the citizens, those who had believed in him and those who had not, would see him and know that his words were true. On that day every lie would be demolished, and all would realise that the great King was good and just.