In all the days of his public ministry, Jesus’ focus was the Kingdom. Over and over, he used parables and stories to illustrate it and bring its reality into the present. And it wasn’t just some pretty idea floating around out there somewhere, untouchable, inaccessible. It was, as he said, at hand. There was an open invitation to receive a love that was eagerly reaching out, a love different from any previously known. And because Jesus was authoritative and consistent and vulnerable, his message was all the more powerfully attractive.
At the time of Jesus’ arrest in Jerusalem, thousands upon thousands of ordinary Jews had been captivated by the Kingdom of God, and by Jesus, its representative. The crowds knew, without question, that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy, the Messiah, their Liberator. And all who were present that day of his entry into the city were making a terrible, undignified noise that was reverberating off the city’s stone walls (and rattling the teeth of the religious rulers). What jubilation! What excitement! (What fragile understanding of the ‘how’ of their salvation!)
Well, we’ve moved 2 000 years past those days, have the entire New Testament at our fingertips, can read the Gospel accounts, know that if all that Jesus said and did were written down, all the books in the world (then and now, probably) couldn’t contain everything. And then we have Paul’s letters. When Hebrews says we have a ‘great cloud of witnesses’ cheering us on, imagine how many more we have today after all this time! That number is like the number of grains of sand on all the beaches in the world! We can access church history, read the biographies of notable believers, read the accounts of the Holy Spirit’s revivals.
‘By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.’ 2 Peter 1:3, NLT. Isn’t that incredible? With that equipping, God has graciously given us the rest of our days here on earth (because He knows we’ll need it) to mature into the image of His Son, to mirror that image! Our journey (not always very pretty) consists largely of choosing to say No to our flesh and Yes to His Spirit. And, Hallelujah!, we get to do this in family! Sweeeet! PD