Thy Kingdom Come

It strikes me as I read the Gospels how Jesus responded differently to people depending on their condition: to the sick and hurting and lowly, he offered comfort and hope; to the arrogant and deceptive and prideful, he offered a sort of pity and, at times, anger. He recognized that both were in need of a sort of restoration in their heart, and to both, he urged repentance and a new way of life. Neither were yet condemned nor redeemed, but both were fallen. But in the love manifested from Jesus to the downtrodden, it seems, perhaps, that their hearts were more fertile for the Seed of Good News. Indeed, something of their openness to relationship and to new life would be characteristic of those who would enter the upside-down Kingdom, a Kingdom of peasants living abundantly.

In the upside-down Kingdom, the softened heart will hold steady and the hard will have perished into mush. The humble will be given great confidence and the cocky will not stand. Those who live by the Spirit will take form and those unwilling to let go of the flesh will lose all the substance they hoped to gain. In this eternal hereafter, the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

As I read the Gospels, I find that the coming Kingdom will be all that this world was intended to be, that the darkest shadows of our soul will be fully illuminated, and that by entering this Kingdom, in all ways we fail, we will overcome. And, as I look closely, as I read between the lines, it becomes increasingly clear to me that there is something incredibly mysterious about this Kingdom: that it has begun. Wherever a prodigal has returned home and that home has celebrated, wherever a wrong has been done and forgiveness and reconciliation have followed, wherever a soul confesses its own sinfulness and trespasses, wherever a neighbor is known and embraced, wherever a child of God rejoices and sings and dances for the love of God borne in them, it is there that the King sits on his throne. And it is from that place that a new world will come.