Jesus is a very special kind of king. He doesn’t represent the opulence or extravagance that we associate with royalty. He is not a king that is waited on by an entourage of servants.
Our king Jesus is not vested in fancy garb — he wears the clothes of a simple man. He’s a king without armies or soldiers. He inhabits no castle on earth. He gives to others rather than collecting taxes from his subjects.
He’s a king without a queen, and one that leaves no heirs.
So what kind of a king is he, anyway? A king that brings peace. A king that teaches us to love one another. A king that calls as his court the most unlikely of members – fishermen, outcasts, even a hated tax collector.
Our Lord Jesus comes to create a new kind of kingdom — not one with geographic boundaries, but rather a kingdom of hearts. This king wants your heart and he wants mine. And he wants to gather every heart to himself.
You see, our King sees what is inside us — he sees who we are at the core. He doesn’t notice the imperfections of our bodies. He doesn’t care about squeaky voices or wrinkles or weight. He loves each heart precisely the same — whether it’s wrapped in a tiny body still in the womb or in a frail body in a nursing home.
And even as Jesus seeks our hearts he gives each one of us a way to sing. We can paint or write or sing or build or study or pray or care for others to make our song heard to the world around us. And as each one of us shares our gift – it melds together into a beautiful symphony for our king.
Our king is unlike any earthly ruler – he doesn’t need anything from us, but he longs to bring our hearts to himself. And that’s the essence of what heaven is all about – our hearts, our souls uniting with the person of Jesus for all time.
Deacon Chris 
Our Beloved Copper
Last Tuesday (Oct 3oth) Erika and I had to put our beloved Copper to sleep. He lived a good life, a full life, and gave so much joy to all those he encountered — humans as well as dogs. But the last couple days of his life he lost his hearing and sight. So we did the right thing, the humane thing, but it was very difficult and it hurt . . . badly, profoundly and comprehensively.
Copper (or Copperboy, as we affectionately called him) was with us nearly our entire married life. We adopted him from the Humane Society around our first anniversary, and we think he was a little more than two years old at the time. As such, he was probably about 14 when he died; so God blessed us with his presence for all these years.
Copper was always his own sort of man (dog?) – from the moment we took him home — he lived life on his own terms. Not patient enough to wait for his stitches (from his neutering) to be removed the next week, he just ripped them out the first week. I taught him how to catch a Frisbee, which he loved very much. But when he was tired he would just refuse to bring it back, and trot off to some other part of the yard.
So it was fitting that for his last hurrah, he wanted to go outside and trot around the yard one last time. He must have made the rounds largely by memory, as his eyesight had failed. But he seemed to enjoy himself, and after 20 minutes or so he just flopped down into the fallen leaves.
We miss him terribly, and I’ve never so much hated the quietness of my own home. Each day as I arrive from work he was there to greet me and play with me for a bit. I miss that. And Erika misses him getting up and down from the bed throughout the night. We miss him scruffling in where ever he wanted.
Copper was a fan of taking a ride in the car, any sort of drive-thru (bank, restaurant, whatever) and catching his Frisbee. He knew the names of all his toys and would bring the requested one by name. A sweet and loving companion, and a protective one at that. One time he nearly took the hand off a visiting mom who gave her misbehaving child a swat on the butt. After checking over the child he watched over her for the remainder of the visit — and glared at the mom to boot.
Thank you God, for bringing such a wonderful pet into our lives. We love him and miss him, and are so grateful you brought us together.
Rest in peace, our darling Copperboy. We will always love you.