{"id":5234,"date":"2026-02-17T09:19:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5234"},"modified":"2026-02-17T09:19:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:19:42","slug":"the-king-who-takes-the-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/the-king-who-takes-the-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"The King Who Takes the Cake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>
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Today is Mardi Gras.\u00a0Fat Tuesday. \u00a0
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The last day before Ash Wednesday and the quiet, reflective, self-denying season of Lent.
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Traditionally Mardi Gras became the day to clear one\u2019s pantry shelves of sugars and fats.
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And that led to the creation of the King Cake, a spectacular, tri-colored, oval-shaped mountain of dough that\u2019s about as subtle as a Bourbon Street parade, and is traditionally sectioned off with interiors of cream cheese, cinnamon, and fruit fillings.
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We can safely estimate that hundreds of thousands of King Cakes will bring smiles to celebrants today.
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Some of those partygoers will get a special surprise.
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According to tradition, King Cakes are baked with a small plastic or porcelain baby inside like the one perched on the cake in the image above.
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Remember what your grandmother used to say if you ended up with the only piece of homemade cherry pie with a pit?\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re the lucky winner!\u201d\u00a0Whoever gets the piece of cake with the baby may be designated the King or Queen of the Mardi Gras party.
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You might also be assigned the task of buying next year\u2019s King Cake and hosting the party.
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How in the world did babies end up on the interior of Fat Tuesday pastries?
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King Cakes are actually named for four kings.
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There are the traditional three kings or Magi who came to visit Bethlehem.
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And then there\u2019s the child King himself, the One they were seeking.\u00a0It\u2019s no secret that the baby inside every Mardi Gras cake is supposed to be Jesus.
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Did you ever notice, in the Christmas story, that Joseph doesn\u2019t get to name his own child?\u00a0An angel says to him, \u201cYou shall name him Jesus [\u2018God saves\u2019], because he will save his people from their sins.\u201d
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It was the absolute right of Jewish fathers to name their own children.\u00a0It was an expression of paternal authority.\u00a0But author and pastor Timothy Keller points out that the angel took that prerogative away. \u201cBy refusing to let him name Jesus, the angel is saying, \u2018If Jesus is in your life, you are not his manager.\u00a0This child who is about to be born is your <\/em>manager.\u2019\u201d
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That quite simply goes against the grain of everything we think, hear, and feel in our culture.
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We are told that our job is to create the masterpiece of our own lives.\u00a0To our own selves we must be true.\u00a0We must pursue our deepest dreams and satisfy our deepest hungers and thirsts, no matter where they take us.
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Thus Keller observes, \u201cThe Christian calling is shocking.\u00a0Modern people need bravery to give up their right of self-determination.\u201d\u00a0We may protest that we don\u2019t want to follow God unless he allows us to \u201cbe ourselves.\u201d\u00a0But the strange, difficult, and wonderful truth is that we will never know who we really are unless we surrender to the One who made us and knows us best.
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Or as Keller puts it:\u00a0\u201cWe need him to name us.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0
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If you bite into a piece of King Cake today and find the baby, congratulations!\u00a0You\u2019re King of the Party.\u00a0
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Just make sure it doesn\u2019t go to your head.
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The Baby, after all, happens to be king of everything.
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Today is Mardi Gras.\u00a0Fat Tuesday. \u00a0\u00a0The last day before Ash Wednesday and the quiet, reflective, self-denying season of Lent.\u00a0Traditionally Mardi Gras became the day to clear one\u2019s pantry shelves of sugars and fats.\u00a0And that led to the creation of the King Cake, a spectacular, tri-colored, oval-shaped mountain of dough that\u2019s about as… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1079],"class_list":["post-5234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mardi-gras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5236,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions\/5236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}