The Kind of Glory that Lasts

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.”

This line comes from the famous poem Ozymandias, a brief poem describing the ruins of a once great kingdom. In the poem, a traveler relates to the narrator the ruins of a statue he found. All that was left was the legs and the plaque at the bottom, a plaque that read: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.” The traveler concludes his story in an ironic fashion. After relating the proud Ozymandias inviting the reader to look on his impressive works, the poem ends with the observation,

No thing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Now, why would a poet write a piece about a statue in the middle of nowhere? Because the author was making a point, and he made it effectively: political power fades. What was once a mighty ruler over a sprawling kingdom is now nothing more than the pedestal of a statue. Time wore away the grandeur and splendor until Ozymandias’s kingdom was nothing more than a sea of desert. The poet was even intentional in the name he chose. Ozymandias isn’t a well-known figure from the past, and that’s the point. Even the name of this once great king had faded into obscurity. Although obviously this particular name is fictitious, how many once great rulers from the past have you and I never heard of? Time has a way of wearing away everything we build, even the name we build for ourselves.

The reason I share this brief story is because this week I’ve had the privilege of visiting Israel and seeing many of the sites we read about in the Bible. The very first site we visited was Caesarea by the sea. Now, you’ll have to really rack your brain to remember what happens in this city in the biblical text. You might recall that this is where Cornelius, the Gentile centurion, sends for Peter and accepts the message of Jesus. This is an important story in Acts 10-11, because this is when the gospel first really makes an advance with the Gentiles. You might also remember that Caesarea is where Paul was taken for his safety after being arrested near the end of Acts and it’s where he made several defenses of Christianity at the end of the book of Acts.

While perhaps you have heard of these stories, you may not have even realized that they even took place in Caesarea. The city doesn’t really loom that large in the minds of even the most serious students of the Bible. It’s more like a random fact that you can impress people with if the opportunity arises. But one of the things I learned on this trip is that at the time of Christ, Caesarea was a powerful and impressive city. It was built from essentially nothing by Herod the Great. He had desired a port city, but since there wasn’t a great natural port in Israel, Herod had built one from nothing. He did this by building a massive artificial port that allowed ships to come in and be safe from the sea, quite the impressive feat.

The city boasted other impressive works, from Herod’s majestic palace, to an amphitheater which is still used today, to a well-known horse race track (hippodrome). Some of these architectural works were so impressive that the splendor of this great city was known even beyond the borders of Israel. Herod the Great wanted to be known as, well, great. He wanted to leave a legacy. And yet I wasn’t visiting Caesarea because of Herod. Ironically enough, I was visiting Caesarea because of someone Herod had tried to kill.

You see, it was Herod the Great who was ruling when Jesus was born. It was Herod the Great who told the wise men to let him know where the King of the Jews was born. And it was Herod the Great who killed all the infants in Bethlehem to try and stop Jesus. But he didn’t stop Jesus, and Jesus ended up changing the world in ways that Herod could only dream of. Why? Because Herod’s brand of power doesn’t last. Herod built a great kingdom, but that kingdom crumbled. Herod built an impressive dynasty, but that dynasty has faded. Herod wanted to be great, but his ego and his paranoia left him as one of history’s greatest bad guys, who every December is rightly remembered as the monster he was.

Jesus, on the other hand, never built a single building. Jesus never sat on a throne, and least not during His earthly ministry. But Jesus changed the world, and Jesus is remembered, honored, worshipped, and celebrated all over the world in countless nations and tongues. The power of Jesus has not faded, rather it has grown and continues to grow. His power was not political power, at least not at His first coming, but it was the power of Truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Ozymandias rings true, and it was one of the first things that came to my mind as I looked over the ruins of Herod the Great, whose impressive palace was now a pile of stones. It’s a sobering reminder for us about what really matters and what will last. Even today, wealthy businessmen and political figures try to build kingdoms that will last, but it’s amazing the kind of toll 2,000 years will take on your kingdom, no matter how impressive it might be. The real power, the real glory isn’t to be found in building massive structures or acquiring a giant kingdom. Those things will fade. The real glory is found in following the example of Jesus, who gave Himself for others and achieved a real, true, lasting glory. And if we do that, Scripture promises that we will receive a crown of glory that never fades.

 

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Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.

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Photo: The ruins of Herod’s temple in Caesarea