Father, may Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, and all the world in every corner sing my God and King, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
"If it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the Kingdom of God has come to you" (Luke 11 : 20). In the Gospels, Jesus speaks more about the Kingdom of God than anything else. From the very start of His public ministry, we're told that the Gospel of the Kingdom was at the heart of His message : "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news" (Mark 1 : 15). Everything Jesus said and did sought to awaken people to this reality. He spoke about the Kingdom in His parables. He taught His friends and followers to pray for the coming of the Kingdom. And in His wonderful works of healing and mercy, Jesus showed the powerful life transforming effect of God's Kingdom at work.
The Kingdom of God. This evening we've prayed for it's coming, in the words of the Lord's Prayer : "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." But what do we understand by the Kingdom of God? And what part are we ourselves called to play in its coming?
In his recent book Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright - the Bishop of Durham - suggests that there has been a lot of confusion about the meaning of the Kingdom of God. Imagining that the point of Christianity was to help people to 'go to heaven', many people - including many Christians - have "screened out the possibility that when Jesus spoke of 'God's kingdom' he wasn't talking about a 'heaven' for which he was preparing his followers, but about something that was happening in and on this earth, through his work, then through his death and resurrection, and then through the Spirit-led work to which they would be called" (p 215).
Perhaps we need to recall the 'big picture', the overarching story, to which the Bible bears witness. Again, in Wright's words : "Faced with his beautiful and powerful creation in rebellion, God longed to set it right, to rescue it from continuing corruption and impending chaos and to bring it back into order and fruitfulness. … He did not want to rescue humans from creation, any more than he wanted to rescue Israel from the Gentiles. He wanted to rescue Israel in order that Israel might be a light to the Gentiles, and he wanted thereby to rescue humans in order that humans might be his rescuing stewards over creation. That is the inner dynamic of the kingdom of God" (p 215).
The Kingdom of God is therefore the fulfilment of God's original intention, both in the creation of the world, and in the covenant with His creatures. And this Kingdom purpose has been realised in Jesus Christ, supremely through His own death and resurrection. He is the One through whom God's Kingdom has come to us, through whom the power of evil has been decisively defeated, through whom the new creation has been launched, and through whom we are now commissioned and equipped to put His victory into practice.
The Kingdom of God has come to us in Jesus Christ. And, one day, in God's good time, it will be fulfilled - brought to perfection - in Him. In the meantime, you and I are called to play our part by living and working for that Kingdom. And in doing so we are assured that whatever we do in the Lord is not in vain. As Tom Wright puts it in Surprised by Hope : "Every act of love, gratitude and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one's fellow human beings, and for that matter one's fellow non-human creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed which spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honoured in the world - all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation which God will one day make" (p 219).
Think of the stonemasons who worked on this Priory Church. An architect who had already got the whole plan in mind, would have passed on instructions to the team of masons as to which stones needed carving in what way. As they worked on their own task, the masons would probably have known very little about where, in this eventual building, their work would find its home. Indeed they may well not have lived to see the completed building. Yet they would have trusted that the work they undertook in following the architect's instructions would not be wasted. They were not, themselves, building the Priory. Rather, they were building for the Priory, and when the Priory was complete, so their work was enhanced and ennobled, and meant so much more than it could have meant as they were chiselling it and shaping it down in the masons' yard.
The Kingdom of God has come to us in Jesus Christ. And, one day, this glorious work of God will be fulfilled - completed - in Him. Yet those who follow Jesus are not called to be passive spectators. Rather, all of us are called to play our full part by living and working for that Kingdom. And - like the Priory masons of old - we do so, trusting that our own contribution will not be wasted. For, as the Apostle Paul both reminds and reassures us: "Be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15 : 58).
John Barr
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