One step at a time. That’s a familiar motto. It applies to so many things beyond just encouraging a baby to walk (although each one of those early, wobbly steps is momentous and to be celebrated). Professional and Olympic athletes make crazy sacrifices to achieve their goals. Career musicians are at their instruments many hours every day. Languages are mastered like that, too, slowly, one aggravating conjugation after another. To all things, a timeline.
But Jesus, outside of time and therefore unconstrained by what constrains us, can see the scope of eternity ‘past’ through to eternity ‘future’ in one sweeping glance. This may be why Jesus expresses his surprise at his disciples’ slowness to grasp who he was, his teachings. ‘Philip, I’ve been with you all this time and you still don’t know who I am?’ John 14:9, TPT. Later, to all his disciples ‘How much longer must I remain with you and put up with your unbelief?’ Mark 9:19, TPT.
Another situation where Jesus exposes grandiose, Kingdom reality is in Acts 1 right after the disciples once again ask a ‘time’ question: v. 6, ‘Lord, is it the time now for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?’ In verses 7 and 8, Jesus responds: ‘The Father is the one who sets the fixed dates and the times of their fulfillment. You are not permitted to know the timing of all that he has prepared by his own authority. But I promise you this – the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be seized with power. And you will be my messengers to Jerusalem throughout Judea, the distant provinces – even to the remotest places on earth!’
Here, I see Jesus revealing the magnitude and eternal character of the Kingdom of God. The disciples’ ‘work’ will cause them to speak to their own locality, to people culturally and ethnically similar to themselves. Plus, he ‘sees’ them going much further afield to reach their people. Greater still, he ‘sees’ them reaching out to foreign cultures, ethnicities, people of different languages. Last, Jesus unveils the panoramic program – everywhere! No corner of the globe is to be untouched with the message of the Kingdom. Jesus ‘went there’ when a large portion of our globe was a complete mystery to his followers. Yet his vision, his knowing, took in the totality of God’s Plan ‘A.’ The Apostle John would also see it in the Revelation given to him: ‘After this I looked, and behold, right in front of me I saw a vast multitude of people – an enormous multitude so huge that no one could count – made up of victorious ones from every nation, tribe, people and language.’Revelation 7:9, TPT.
All this takes me back to the musings of Samwise Gamgee, in The Lord of the Rings: ‘I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?’ The ‘tale’ of the Kingdom of God, the romantic story of God’s love quest for His Creation, beggars the imagination, leaves us speechless, forces us to ask with King Davd: ‘Look at the splendor of your skies, your creative genius glowing with the heavens. Compared to all this cosmic glory, why would you bother with puny, mortal man or be infatuated with Adam’s sons?’ Psalm 8:3,4, TPT. Indeed! PD
