There's yet warmer colouring in _Luke's_ picture. This serving King is
_nearest of kin to us!_ He is not only of the blood royal, but of the
blood human. He is bone of our bone, blood of our blood, and life of our
common life. He came to us through a rare union of God's power with
human consent and human function, never known before nor repeated since.
This is the bit that Luke adds to the composite message of these four
little God-story books.

Here Jesus has a tenderness of human sympathy with us men, for He and we
are brothers. There's an outlook as broad as the race. No national
boundaries limit its reach. No sectional prejudices warp or shut Him off
from sympathetic touch with any. He shares our common life. He knows our
human temptations, and knows them with a reality that is painful, and
with an intensity that wets His brow and shuts His jaw hard.

This king who serves is _a man_. He _can_ be a king of men for He is a
_man_. He has the first qualification. I might use an old-fashioned word
in the first old-time meaning,--He is _a fellow_, one who shares the
bed and bread of our common experience. And so He is _kin to us_, both
in lineage and in experience, in blood and in spirit.

And John's share in this partnership message adds a simple bold touch of
colouring that makes the picture a masterpiece, _the_ masterpiece. This
King who serves, and is nearest of kin to us, is also _nearest of kin to
God_. He is not only of the blood royal, and the blood human, but of the
blood divine. He was with God before calendars came into use. He was the
God of that creative Genesis week. He came on an errand down to the
earth, and when the errand was done, and well done, He went back home,
bearing on His person the marks of His fidelity to the Father's errand.