Ch. 3 - The Dawning Kingdom
In student ministries not too long ago had a series on the Kingdom of God, which would make Ron Sider (and Jesus) happy:
Unless Matthew, Mark, and Luke are totally wrong, all who want to preach and live like Jesus must place the “kingdom of God” at the center of their thought and action.
Sider suggests that to best understand what Jesus meant when he announced the kingdom to his listeners, we need to understand the Jewish messianic hope which was derived from the prophets. With this in mind, imagine being present at the synagogue in Nazareth when Jesus read a very messianic passage from the prophet Isaiah …
(1) The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
(2) to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
(Isaiah 61:1-2, TNIV)
… and then clearly said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
That is huge.
Jesus was announcing that the kingdom had come, though he made it clear in further parables that it had not yet reached its culmination. As one Caedmon’s Call song goes, and as our experience in life attests, death [and sin and the devil] is on a long leash.
This is a kingdom of the already and the not yet, and there is a great quote from some dude named Mortimer Arias, who said,
Jesus, who had announced the Good News to the poor in this life, still had Good News for the poor beyond this life, when nothing could be expected from history. Jesus’ evangelization, therefore, is truly holistic - for this world and for the world to come!
You may not be used to agreeing with things the Pope says, but I thought these words from the late John Paul II were right on:
The kingdom of God is not a concept, a doctrine, or a program subject to free interpretation, but it is before all else a person with the face and name of Jesus of Nazareth, the image of the invisible God. If the kingdom is separated from Jesus, it is no longer the kingdom of God which he revealed.
Consider Sider’s comment, that “Jesus, the kingdom, and all the blessings of the kingdom are inseparable [and that] one cannot have the ethics of the kingdom or the forgiveness of the kingdom apart from Jesus.” What do you think of that assertion? In adhering to a limited, one-side view, have we somehow missed the boat completely? What do you think has been the cost of neglecting the other dimensions of the kingdom all this time?
The cost, if we really believe what we say we believe, is countless people suffering in hell for eternity because we’re not doing everything Jesus told us to do in order to be a kingdom that really is a “city on a hill” and a light that would draw people towards eternal life.
I think YES, we have emphasized the “not yet” in our tradition of theology to the neglect of the “already”. It is interesting, taking Matt’s comment into consideration, that the very thing that we are trying to tell people about “be saved from a hell” which is “not yet” is causing them to be disinterested in believing because we are not talking about the hell which is “already”. The hell of this world…I firmly believe that we need to re-focus our words and deeds on the light that we can bring to the world by being the kingdom people in the “already” dimension of the kingdom. This, I think, is where we have lost so many to religion…it has been about something that we can’t get our hands and mind around…it has been primarily about eternity to the loss of kingdom transformations of the world around.
That said, I must say that I think the world IS better off because of the things the church has done for good, even considering the bad that has come with it. However, we can increase the good for the kingdom, revealing to others the message of reconciliation here and now AND into eternity.
I’ll continue with your use of songs to help express your thoughts… David Crowder’s new song Remedy sings about Jesus, “You are the remedy…” and then at the end he sings, “Let us be the remedy, let us be the remedy, let us bring the remedy.”
I agree, except that I don’t think that the problem with our focus has been that it’s too much about eternity so much as that it’s the wrong focus on eternity. It shouldn’t be about saving people from hell so much as inspiring a hope and vision for God’s kingdom - both now and eternally - that is simultaneously biblical and worthy of passion. Focusing on eternity, in a POSITIVE light, is exactly what we should be doing, because the only point of having a kingdom in this world is to model and foreshadow the eternal kingdom. “Set your mind on things above, not on things below.” Or CS Lewis…”Aim for heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim for earth and you get neither.” If we have an accurate vision of how AMAZING God’s eternal kingdom is, we’ll naturally start acting in ways that will do more good for this world than anything we’d do otherwise.
Ok, reading back over what I said…that’s not the “only” point of having the kingdom in this world…it’s just the MAIN point.