The Kingdom of God is Close at Hand
Do you ever feel like there is something wrong with our world? Or our society? We see all of these disasters happening around us. We see the animosity created between so many people. We see communities break down and violence and isolation grow. Though the technology might change, this is nothing new. Humanity has struggled with this broken world and society for a long time. Many faiths have answered, “that this is because we are meant for another world, we are meant for something different”. Christianity would agree but with one stark difference: we aren’t meant to transcend to this different world, we are meant to join God in creating in our midst and living in this new Kingdom.
We are going to be going through a Sermon Series on Jesus’ sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ Sermon is all about how we as Christians are meant to live and trust in this new Kingdom we are being offered, but before we get there we have to understand a little about Jesus and this new Kingdom, so we might understand the truly amazing gift that God is offering us.
Today, we heard that Jesus started out his ministry by leaving his hometown and going into a land of Gentiles and Jews. A land where division was a way of life, where people lived in the unknown and darkness, where death seemed to weigh them down, and where ultimately people had yet to cross the Jordan, the biblical symbol for entry into God's promised land. This should remind us of our culture or experience. It is this hopelessness that Jesus enters into. It is here that Jesus becomes the light in the darkness, he gathers, he offers a new way of life, and ultimately he offers us paradise as his first words are: “The Kingdom of God is close at hand”.
Just think about what those words mean. “The Kingdom of God is close at hand”. The Kingdom of God, a place where God reigns over all hearts. A place where people are obedient and his will is done out of a sheer desire to please their king, to be close to his majesty, and to enjoy his favor. But with God being who he is, it means that this Kingdom would also be completely just, his mercy would help those that have gone wrong, he would be gracious in his giving and lifting up everyone, but especially those in need, and ultimately he would go out of his way to make love the center of every relationship.
This may feel like a pipe dream or something too distant to be a reality, but what does Jesus say directly following: God’s Kingdom is close at hand. This is not something for another world, or for our dreams, it is something that we can reach out and grab. We can take hold of it and we need to reach out right now to do it. What’s more, as Jesus is God physically saying it, all we have to do is reach out, and hold onto him, tightly so that we don’t let go. He is the one bringing the Kingdom. Don’t you want to reach out for this new world realised in Jesus?
All of the Old Testament is actually pointing the way to this reality. Of course, I can’t go over all of that, but if we look back in Matthew we can actually see three ways God was preparing our hearts and minds for Jesus: Jesus is the New Adam, the New Moses, the New David, and the King.
As the adopted child of Joseph and son of Mary, Jesus descended from David. This means that he lived into a great number of God’s promises, but the key things to hold onto right now is that like David, Jesus has the heart of God and will build God’s Kingdom, but unlike David he will not abuse his power, show nepotism, or take God’s Kingship.
Matthew is the only Gospel that tells of Jesus’ family’s escape into Egypt and their return, but from Egypt Jesus passes through the waters, as the clouds part and then Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness. Does this sound familiar? It should be because it is very similar to Moses’ story. In the next few chapters, called the Sermon on the Mount, we will see Jesus go up on a mountain and teach them a new law that is meant to shape this new Kingdom. The biggest difference for Jesus is that he overcomes the wilderness out of trust for God, his going through the waters is out of humility and righteousness and the promised land he leads us to is far greater than just the soil or towns.
Lastly, you will remember that Adam was tempted by Satan in paradise and through sin was banished to the wilderness. Jesus does the reverse. He goes into the wilderness and overcomes Satan’s temptation so that he might reestablish paradise.
These are three essential ways that God has been preparing us. As great as Adam, Moses, and David were and they were some of the greatest male figures that humanity has had to offer up to this point, they were only lesser symbols pointing the way to a far greater King, priest, prophet, and new humanity that was coming in Jesus. So already, and Matthew has barely got started, we are meant to see that Jesus is better than the best of the best and is offering us far more than humanity has ever experienced. He is offering us Paradise, the Promised Land, and a Kingdom that is something we could only have hoped for up until now.
It shouldn’t be surprising that right after Jesus announces his new kingdom, the first thing he does is, gather people for it. He immediately invites people to take his hand, to grasp onto the Kingdom that is close at hand. But he isn’t just gathering people to live in this Kingdom, he is gathering workers, people who themselves will gather and work to build it. It would seem that doing the work of this new counter-cultural Kingdom of hope is an essential way in which we live in it as he immediately calls them to follow Him with a purpose. Through Jesus’ words, “I will make you fishers of me”, I don’t think it is just a fun turn of phrase, it would also seem that Jesus is repurposing who they are and what they already do so that it might be for his Kingdom.
This is the same for us. We are meant to enjoy God’s Kingdom, but we are not passive participants, we are called to work for it and join with him in building it. On top of that, God wants to use who we are and what we do for a greater purpose. This will change us and it might mean leaving nets behind, but we don’t go far, because it is in those same places and with those same people that we gather people for God’s Kingdom.
Lastly, before Jesus goes into the sermon on the mount, before he shows us how to live out this Kingdom in our lives, he shows us a little bit of what this Kingdom looks like and what it can mena for this world. We have already seen that it will mean closeness with God like at Jesus’ baptism, and that it will mean overcoming temptation and Satan like Jesus did in the wilderness, and that it will mean a new community and purpose, but the last part of our reading shows us that Jesus’ new Kingdom means wholeness, hope, unity understanding, and new potential. We see our wholeness in the Kingdom as people are healed, the new potential as people can suddenly walk, talk, hear, feel, and more. We see hope as people bring others to Jesus and as He casts out the evil living in them. We see unity as people from all over a disconnected and antagonistic culture come together with a singular hope. And we see new understanding as people are taught about God’s character and love not just in what Jesus says, but also in what he does.
This new Kingdom of Jesus should be amazing, it should be something we long for, but it does not have to feel other or separate or distant. It is something being offered to us right now and at every moment, all we have to do is reach out and grab hold. Then we are called to follow Jesus as we join him in creating it in our midst. We will get to what that means in greater detail over the next few months, but for now, we can all help people find wholeness, we can give them hope through an understanding of Jesus, we can give them new potential as we lift them up and we can create unity through a singular desire to seek and follow Jesus.
I will close with two simple ways that this rings true for me. First, when I am alone, I can get down on myself, or feel heavy and lost, but in those times, when I purposefully turn to Jesus to listen to him in prayer and follow, he brings me out of that so that I experience a kind of hopeful way forward with him, even if I don’t always see all of it yet and he helps me get there. Second, I often don’t feel like I fit in with others, even my closest friends. I can pretend, I can care about similar things, but that never worked. Instead, if, while I am in the midst of them, I invite God to be present and show me the way, once again I find a new purpose and meaning in these relationships, I find my fit, my place as I share a bit of his Kingdom. Both of these realities I am still practicing and learning, but my point is that each and every one of you can meet and share God’s incredible new Kingdom in your midst, if you just reach out, follow and join God in doing the work of building His Kingdom. AMEN
