The Lord is here; his kingdom has come. (Part 16)

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 16: In God we find fulfilment now and hope for the future

“The kingdom has come” is Christians’ declaration of hope that redemption is possible. That a person can live a new life – not simply a life that rediscovers qualities of love and joy and peace, but a life that discovers a relationship with God, and it is this that enables a life of love, joy and peace to develop.

I am not being carried away with emotional guff. I do believe in the principle that every single person, no matter how far they have fallen into evil, is redeemable. However, and terrible it is to say it, I recognise that in practice some people are irredeemable – because society will never have the resources available that are required to turn some peoples’ lives around – and without this enormous input, the individual will never find the resources within themselves to break free from their addiction to evil. Of course God can act, but he acts within us, as we live in the world, and – in practice – God’s call to us can easily be drowned out. Thankfully, I have no idea who is, in practice, irredeemable and who isn’t, so I can declare the Christian conviction that, in Christ, all can be redeemed. For, in practice, those who are fallen far into destructive lives will never find the resources in themselves to be redeemed, but in God’s grace there are endless resources.

So, full of faith, and with a completely realistic appraisal of the world and of human nature, I declare: “The Lord is here; his kingdom has come!” It is a supreme statement of faith, because it can only be said in faith. Without faith, our appraisal of the world and humanity would be so damning that it would be ridiculous and offensive to say anything so joyful and full of hope. So, we come to the ultimate decision for each person and for humanity as a whole. Looking around you as clearly as you can, and looking within yourself as honestly as you can, how will you live in the world? Is it to be in fear and despair at the appalling hatred and violence that is so prevalent? Is it to be in thankful but insular and selfish gratitude that you have, by chance, fallen into happy circumstances where you can hope to have a comfortable life? Is it to be in heroic effort to marshal the material resources of human society to try and make improvements – relying on our own human abilities? How will you cast your lot? Ultimately, which side will you take in terms of making a step of faith, or of holding back from this step? It is an ultimate statement of faith because only by faith can we possibly declare something so positive, so beneficial, so transformative as: “The Lord is here; his kingdom has come!”. Without the Lord, I think that we will not succeed.  Of course, in 2000 years we have not yet succeeded, and, given what I’ve said about human nature, we will never succeed “once and for all” for the battle needs to be fought and won all over again with each new generation. Yet faith in Christ does redeem our human nature from the dominion of sin, evil and death; it does deliver us into a new way of living; and it does clothe us in God’s grace. Only from this perspective can we declare our faith with conviction; only here does it cease to become futile wishful thinking, but a reality experienced by all who believe, and a reality of transformed lives by all who receive the freely given agape love of God. Because it is true that the Lord is here, so his kingdom grows whenever his people exercise their faith within the arena of their influence to love as God in Christ loves us. Thus, our faith becomes an endless, inexhaustible source of hope as we find ourselves, and the people with whom we share God’s love, transformed by the renewing, healing, forgiving, energising, guiding, empowering presence of God. In Christ, we find new life, life in all its fullness, where the compassionate grace of God is made manifest in the world, and where God’s people celebrate his presence in their lives. Because of this, it becomes the most basic truth and the simple reality of their lives that: “The Lord is here; his kingdom has come!”.