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!”.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 15: It is the love of God that transforms us

We have not fully expressed the transformative effect of God’s love. It is only as we open ourselves to the love of God that we see a new way to live – for ourselves, and in relationship with others. We see new possibilities for human society, and we receive the wisdom and energy to work towards them. We love because God in Christ first loved us, and it is as we receive love from God that we are enabled to become channels of his love to others. This is also true for all the other gifts that God gives us. Evolution taught humankind to be selfish, but as social animals it also taught us to co-operate and of the value of altruism. Yet the nature of Christian love is of a completely different order – and the ancient Greeks had a word for it: “agape”. Clearly then, it is not an invention of Christianity, but it is Christian faith that has taken agape to be the fundamental essence of God, and proclaimed that humanity should live out this kind of love if we wish to be in communion with God.

Clearly, the experience of the presence of God that leads a believer to say, “The Lord is here”, is the foundation for being in communion with God; hence the inescapability of beginning with the personal relationship with God as the way of transforming the world into God’s kingdom. So, in natural human terms, we might love someone because of a close family relationship, as a friend whose qualities and company we enjoy, or because of sexual attraction. In a variety of ways, the person has “earned” our love; we love them because they are lovely. However, agape love is an entirely selfless love – it is given not with the hope of receiving something back in return for our love; it is love given solely because the person needs our love. It is an entirely altruistic love that wants nothing but the well-being of the other. It is love given because the nature of God is to love, and those who believe in him try (desperately, pathetically, but also sometimes gloriously) to love others as God loves us. It is precisely because Christian love is this kind of love that enables Christianity to be so focussed on compassion, forgiveness and new chances. Very often our – completely sound – human judgement is that a person does not deserve compassion, forgiveness or new chances. What they deserve is condemnation and judgement for their wickedness – and in other societies this might lead to many forms of punishment, including capital punishment. However, the ultimate solution to human evil is for the person to repent and live a new kind of life. Coercing people into goodness, or, at least, restraining evil, is beneficial for society, but is not extracting the root of the problem, or healing and renewing the person. The only way to do this is through the transformative effect of embracing the love of God. When the burden of our guilt is too great for us ever to make amends, when we are so trapped by our habits of weakness, when we are incapable of achieving the good we approve of, or have lost touch with qualities of goodness, truth and justice entirely, then only the amnesty of forgiveness that God declares in Christ can heal our wounds sufficiently to actually give us a realistic chance of a new life.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 14: It is God as a person with whom we are in relationship that we are in love with

This is a great challenge -especially to Christians like me who revel so much in their experience of God’s presence. Our faith must not simply be a personal comfort blanket, a way of providing emotional and spiritual fulfilment, a mechanism for coping with personal anxieties, weaknesses and mistakes. The Lord is here! His mission is to launch and establish the kingdom of God. Our task is to take up this mission and make it our own.

So, where the Lord is, there is his kingdom. So, the two elements we are considering: “The Lord is here”, and “The kingdom has come” are two sides of the same coin. We must begin with the experience that the Lord is with us because this is the spring out of which the coming of the kingdom flows. I have some sympathy for secularists who may want to declare that wherever love is, there is “the kingdom” – though we must expect them to translate the term “kingdom” into something like, “the prefect, fulfilled society”. I am not against the triumph of love, forgiveness, transformation etc! As Jesus said, “Whoever is not against us is for us”. However, I remain wary of saying that the two approaches are interchangeable. When Christians say, “God is love”, they do not simply mean that, “Love is the ultimate value”. Christians sometimes annoy atheists by claiming that every time one of them acts in a loving manner that this is, in fact, God at work. Not even God has the monopoly on love. Though it is a fine point – I see why Christians make the claim. However, my particular emphasis is that, if we human beings simply rely on acting in a loving manner, then we are acting in an entirely human way, but I have said that human nature is inadequate. It is only through our relationship with God that we make contact with his love. Even more than this, we are making contact with him. God is not simply love. This is tricky to explain clearly, but I will try. If we say, “God is love” we are saying something that is true, for the very essence of God is love – but that does not mean that the words “God” and “love” are interchangeable. “God is God”. That is the ultimate truth. Turning it into a more devotional form, I am coming to the view that the only thing that matters, and the essence of all prayer, is simply to declare, “The Lord is Lord”. All other words are simply clarifying for our own benefit the implications of the one over-arching truth that, “The Lord is Lord”. So, when we come to faith by recognising that the Lord is here we do not just make contact with love – supremely wonderful as that is. It is not even that we learn a new and better quality of love from God – though that is also of supreme importance. The crucial point is that we make contact with the person of God – and it is out of that relationship that everything else flows – including the channelling of love into the world.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 13: It is the love of God that transforms our humanity

So, what we end up with is not Christians making a deceitful retreat from facing the reality in the world of evil and suffering, into a “safe” internal psychological space where all that really matters is your own personal, subjective feelings. What we have is a hard-headed acceptance of the external, objective realities in the world and of human nature. There is so much suffering because human nature is not good enough! Remarkably – for I don’t think any other creature does this – we have developed enough to agree with this statement. We are not happy just being human; we want to be better than human. We judge ourselves and find ourselves wanting. However, although we have developed the ability to recognise our inadequacy, we have not developed the power to overcome it. But! – but, when the Lord is here, we do acquire the ability to become different people. Clearly, we remain far from perfect, but when we are in the presence of the love, goodness, truth – and all the other good gifts – of the Lord, we do become better. Our human nature is redeemed from the domination of sin, evil and death, and we become a part of God’s kingly rule. Hence, there is simply no alternative but to locate the kingdom of God initially in the hearts, minds and souls of those who believe in him. The old-fashioned, perhaps trite, comment of the evangelists, is, in fact, a simple truth: God’s kingdom grows one person at a time, and we must stop being a part of the problem and start being a part of the solution. So, we are not retreating from the hard, cruel realities of the world, we are recognising that the only way to improve the situation is for each believer, and each community of believers, to extend the rule of God by our actions.

We can envisage that, initially, the arena of the Lord’s presence, in which his will is supreme, is very small. It is located just within the believer, but wherever the believer goes, so long as they are acting in tune with the love of God, then they expand the arena in which God is known as present and in which his kingdom has come. Everyone of us has our own sphere of influence and we can use our faith to choose to act differently – that is, in accordance with the values that we have learnt from God. However, this is not simply a process of applying principles in tune with a theoretical point of view that we approve of, it is living in tune with the God of love, with whom we are in relationship. Of course, we do not have complete freedom of action; we are subject to powers and systems as everyone is; and we have the weaknesses of human nature which dilutes the effectiveness of our actions. Nevertheless, all of us have the ability to act to change things for the better, and as Christians we can identify our particular opportunities, and this becomes our personal mission. It is a powerful antidote to feelings of powerlessness or despair that are so easy to feel when we see the immense problems in the world and consider our own extremely limited ability to address them. Yet we are not completely without influence. Within my own sphere, I can have very considerable power, and if I exercise the transformative grace of God that my faith has introduced me to, then that influence can make all the difference in the world. When Christians remind themselves that they are a member of the worldwide fellowship of the Church, then we are an extremely powerful agent to change the world into God’s kingdom. We need to do more!

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 12: God’s kingdom redeems humanity; it does not terminate our humanity

However, I try to base my approach on sober realism. I cannot be blind to the suffering in the world, so I cannot be glibly optimistic that “all is well”. Yet I have not forgotten that in my own assessment of my life, I truly do believe that, as the Lord is with me, then all is well. However, by that I don’t believe that all is right with the world, or even that all will go smoothly for me. What I mean is that, as the presence of the Lord is of ultimate, supreme importance, and I am completely confident that that cannot be taken away from me by any power in the world, then whatever happens to me, in my external circumstances and the physical fate of my material body, then all is well because I cannot lose what really matters.

We also have to face reality in understanding the world, and our theological stance on creation and the redeeming work of God is also crucial. Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world? Primarily, it is because of the selfish greed and hatred of human nature. So, when God acted in Jesus to redeem the world, he did not majestically, omnipotently sweep in to over-rule human actions – as though he had made a mistake in creation, in making us as we are, but was no longer prepared to put up with the abuses, so he was now “taking over” to “put everything right”. This would entail either  removing human freedom of action, so that we were no longer allowed to do, and presumably somehow forcibly restrained from, those actions that cause others harm, or we would have to have our fundamental human nature altered to somehow make us better. Perhaps we could be given a different mentality or moral compass so that we simply find it intolerable to do anything that harms others. Either way, we would no longer be human – not in the way that we understand being human. If it is possible for humanity to have a kinder nature, it implies that God made a colossal mistake in not creating us in that way in the first place. So, we either lose the nature of God, as completely wise and good, or we lose the nature of humanity, the very essence of which is that we have the ability and freedom to do either good or evil. I think it’s a fair argument that human beings who literally found it intolerable to do anything unkind would not, in fact, be free beings. (Note, I am not suddenly ditching evolution, but perhaps God could have found some way to create a material universe in which evolution would produce creatures who simply cannot do anything selfish).

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 11: The kingdom really has come – here in the world as we know it to be

Let’s consider, “the kingdom has come” more carefully, because on face value it is so ridiculous a thing to say as to be offensive. God’s kingdom has clearly not arrived because the suffering and evil in the world make this manifestly the case. The arrival of God’s kingdom implies that his rule holds sway, in which case there would be no selfish exploitation of others, no greed, hatred, anger or fear. Violence would cease and compassionate service to heal and restore all that is wounded would be everywhere. Yet for Christians to say, “the kingdom is coming” does not do justice to what they believe God has already done in Jesus. If it’s coming then it’s clearly a future event. This might raise uncertainty: perhaps it won’t happen after all. Even if the claim was made in complete confidence because believers in God have complete confidence in the ultimate complete triumph of his omnipotent will, it still implies a sadness that we are still waiting for it. Most of all, it belittles what Christians believe that God has already done in Jesus. Our salvation has been achieved. It is not a future event or hanging in the balance. The fundamental aspect of the kingdom having come is that the Lord is here. Christians often make sense of the situation by adopting the idea of the kingdom as already here but not yet fully here – though even this does not do justice to the crucial aspect that the Lord is fully here. Again, the language becomes difficult to find precise words, and the paradoxical situation remains that Christians want to say contradictory things – not because what they say is false, but because they believe that all the elements are true, and they refuse to sacrifice one or more of them even to gain a coherent whole picture. So, we might say that the kingdom has already been fulfilled – because it has fully “arrived” in the person of Jesus, but it has not been consummated, as in final completion, and this is to take account of the manifest facts of the continuation of evil and suffering in the world.

Secularists may feel that Christians are adopting “a cop out”. Full of faithful enthusiasm they declare that God’s kingdom has come – and sometimes they point to all sorts of progress that is genuinely being made in the life of the world, and often they may point to the growth in the number of Christians, and project that at some point in the future the tide will turn and we will progressively see God’s kingdom being established in practical terms – “on earth as it is in heaven”. However, the evidence doesn’t really support this sort of optimism. Hence secularists may accuse my sort of approach as a retreat from the reality in the world. If I locate the reality of the kingdom in the reality that the Lord is here, I seem to be retreating from the claim that God’s kingdom is making a tangible difference in the external world, and instead locating the kingdom primarily in the hearts and minds of believers – which may be a very profound experience, but which is an internal, personal experience, not subject to objective testing by others.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 10: Where the Lord is, there is his kingdom

So, believers no longer understand themselves to be powerless, insignificant pawns, flotsam, swirled this way and that by every current of human society, or meaningless, accidental products of a material universe . We are a band of brothers and sisters gathered into the security that emanates from the Lord, and we are a band of disciples with a mission! Where the Lord is, we feel safe. Where the Lord directs us to go, we will boldly go with confidence and hope – rather than, perhaps, cowardly fear – precisely because the Lord is with us. Again, theologically speaking, as the Lord is everywhere, and he is always with us because he will never desert us, then this is a universal, everlasting confidence. However, at the moment I am thinking of the spiritual reality of experiencing God’s presence, and this is experienced at particular times and in particular circumstances.  I also want to move on to link it to the idea that the kingdom has come – so I am exploring the sense that the Lord is here, with the idea of him being here with me – or with us, if I am together with other Christians, notably in worship or in service. The Lord is here, and a meeting with God is a meeting with a purpose – that is why God is enabling the encounter. I do find analogies helpful, though it is hard to find an ideal one for this situation, but this is the image that comes to mind.

Imagine a land oppressed by a usurping tyrant; the suffering is very great, and some have been corrupted into colluding with the tyranny to escape persecution and gain advantage for themselves. However, others have remained faithful to the true Lord of the land. This is the archetypal story of: “The King returns!”. So, my image is of a band of faithful disciples greeting the returning, true Lord. Here in this place, the Lord is here! The rest of the land is still sorely oppressed, and there is a great deal to be done to set all free. So, “the Lord is here” expresses the belief that where he is, in his presence, it is his rule that holds sway. The rest of the land is still oppressed by evil forces, but in the arena where the Lord is present there is no evil, because the goodness, truth and love of the Lord flows out from him to fill all those who look to him with faith and love. So, in this small arena, where the Lord is greeting his disciples, his kingdom has come, because the Lord is here. The presence of the Lord creates an arena in which his values of justice, compassion, forgiveness, renewal, are the ones that animate all within that sphere. Most of all, the presence of the Lord creates the arena in which he is known

So, the two elements are really two sides of the one dynamic transformation that the presence of God enables. Wherever the Lord is, there his kingdom has come.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 9: The Lord is the be all and end all

Let us explore a little more the effect of this belief that the Lord is here.

We begin with a simple conviction that, if the Lord is here then “everything is alright”. This is a ridiculous thing to say because, of course, there are so many things that are wrong. And we begin also, therefore, to explore the relationship between the two aspects that we are examining: the Lord is here, and that his kingdom has come. Yet, fundamentally, it is true: if the Lord is here then everything is alright, because the presence of the Lord is all important. If he is with me, then what do I have to fear? If you reply: disaster, torture, disgrace, death, then, though these are horrendous experiences to suffer, they are clearly being done by other people, whom the Lord does not support, because he is here, with me. If the Lord is with me, then he can bear me through all trials and tribulations. If my life is to be ended through the actions of evil people, or through natural disaster, then the Lord accompanies me through death and receives me into everlasting life. I do not belittle the agony involved in human suffering; I thank God that I have never suffered terribly; and I strongly suspect that I would collapse under the weight of suffering. However, even this does not negate that all is well and all will be well because the Lord is with me. Hence, because the Lord is here, those who believe in him are filled with an immense confidence and joy. It is a simple fact that each person is weak and vulnerable in the face of the enormously powerful forces that can blight our lives, but if you believe that the Lord is with you then you can face anything and everything because nothing is more powerful than the Lord, and nothing can snatch us from his love.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 8: Our experience of God is of someone else, and God is wonderful beyond measure

It would be a nice, easy way out of many a dilemma if God was only an experience in my own mind. However, throughout this piece we have tried to be true to how people actually experience God. We have accepted the paradoxes and the unanswerable questions, rather than “tidying up loose ends” to make the whole thing easy to accept. So, Christians simply do not experience God as fully encompassed by themselves. Put simply, God is “out there”. He is an independent person over whom I have no control whatsoever. The crucial dimension is expressed in the experience of “meeting with God” or having “an encounter” with him. God is not me! I am nothing like God. To suggest that God is some sort of extrapolation of my best self or my fondest hopes is ridiculous when one considers the futile weakness of humankind compared to the awesome and glorious grace of God. God is someone else, and the experience of the presence of God is that of meeting with another person.

So, there is a table and chairs and a window looking onto the garden. In this setting, in which I might easily be engrossed in entirely secular matters such as reading the news or doing the ironing, from time to time I become aware that the Lord is with me. I have learnt over the years that the Lord is always with me, but I am not always aware of him. However, the moment I turn my attention to him then I become aware of “an additional presence” that was not there (to my attention) until I thought about him. I don’t mean to imply that I can “switch God on and off” whenever I wish – God is not me; he is someone else. So, sometimes I long to feel God’s presence but to me he appears to be absent – even though my firm faith conviction is that I am not alone. What I mean is that, very often, when I lift my attention from the mundane, I become aware of a sacredness that embraces me.

The expression of this presence varies according to what God wants to share with me, which will vary according to my need. However, there are common strands to what this presence feels like. Although there is just a table, chairs and a window, all of which are inanimate objects expressing nothing but their physical presence, as I become aware of God’s presence, I become aware that I am being held in an embrace of intense love. (If this is somehow a creation of my own mind, it is a simply astonishing achievement which I wish I could bottle and sell to others). I know that I love being alive, but the moment I think of God’s presence I am overwhelmed with the wonder of life. I feel blessed beyond measure. I am conscious that there is a forgiving, redeeming, healing, renewing person who is “my friend”, who is completely on my side, and who is constantly at work with all the power and love of God to make me whole.

Now if you say, “Aha, so what you really value is life, love, forgiveness, healing etc” and you are simply using God as a psychological vehicle to deliver these good things to yourself, then I reply that you do not understand at all. Perhaps an analogy is of being in love. When someone is in love it is not the sense of floating on air or bursting with joy that they love, it is the person that they love. If I try to “extract” “God’s good gifts” from the person of God, so that I can enjoy the gifts without “the baggage” of believing in the person of God, then I discover that all the gifts crumble into dust. I do not love, love; I love God, and as I become aware of his presence and of his love for me, then my response is to love him. The emphasis is on loving him as the person who fills my heart. Not simply loving him as the vehicle of the gifts that I really value.

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 7: Starting to examine precisely what we mean by “The Lord is here”

I have gone quite a long way round in explaining how much I don’t know about God, and in trying to lay out a broad framework for how I experience God’s presence. I will try once more to focus in on what I mean by, “The Lord is here”. What I will try and describe has been experienced by countless people, but there are many different ways to experience God, so, while what I will describe is common, I am outlining my own experience.

In this wonderful world, in this vale of tears, in the material universe created by the Big Bang, and human society shaped by evolution and the history of civilisation, we can meet with God and experience his presence. Sitting in the room now, with table and chairs, and a window looking out into the garden, and other people as they come in and out, the Lord is also here. Of course, I cannot see him or hear him, and so it is quite a puzzle to clarify what do I mean by saying the Lord is here? In some ways, I put it as though God is an additional item in the room. There is a table and chairs and a window and sometimes other people – oh, and also God. I don’t think there is any escaping this way of thinking – or, at least, this way of talking. An atheist sees the table and chairs but denies that God is also present.

I am completely convinced of the independent, objective reality of God as a person. The alternative to this is to understand God as a dimension of my mind. He is a part of what I do. We might say that God, or my sense of the presence of God, is an aspect of my way of looking at the world. In this sense, God did not create me; I created God. God is an idea or a set of values which I have adopted and I impose these criteria onto what actually exists – that is, onto material reality – and in doing so “I see God”, because God is the lens through which I look at the world. This would be a pretty satisfying way of understanding God, and it would certainly make more sense, or, at least, be easier to believe in, than believing in an independent, spiritual agent who is the person of God. There would be no difficult questions to answer in such an understanding of God, and anyone and everyone could immediately opt into it (if it suited their preferences) because “faith in God” could be understood in an entirely secular way. “God” is the way some people choose to look at the world. If you do, you see God everywhere; if you don’t he is invisible – or, rather, he is non-existent.