The Kingdom Already Come (Luke 17:20,21)
When I was a kid, my dad used to take me fishing. It never really became a passion for me. What I did learn, however, was the difference between a snag and a genuine bite. Standing on the shore, I would cast the line and reel in my bait hoping to catch a fish. If I went too slowly, the lure would droop too low in the water and catch on weeds or sticks in the mountain ponds. I would get excited, thinking that I had a fish on the line. I did this a lot until I got my first real bite. There was never any doubt, or comparison really, between a snag and a bite. But I had to experience a real bite before I could tell the difference.
At first glance, this snippet of a story from Luke reminds me of this. Jesus is asked byt the Pharisees, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” He answers, “It isn’t coming with signs. You won’t have to have people tell you that it has come. You will see it plainly.”
In one way, this story is actually the opposite of what my fishing story was showing me. Instead of people seeing what they perceived to be signs and mistaking the coming of the Kingdom, the pharisees have just seen a powerful sign. The healing of the lepers is a sign of Jesus’s messiahship. They are not confusing a snag with the bite. They are ignoring the real thing and asking when it will finally come. Jesus declares, “Behold, the Kingdom is in your midst!”
It is often the case that the stories involving the pharisees are relevant to our modern Christian cultures. Christianity has been around long enough that we have had ample opportunity to form our own pharisaical attitudes. In this case, today’s church needs to be less concerned with the signs of the end times, and more involved in the already come kingdom that we are a part of. The end times will take care of themselves. Let’s not obsess about them at the expence of who we are supposed to be in the world today.
At first glance, this snippet of a story from Luke reminds me of this. Jesus is asked byt the Pharisees, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” He answers, “It isn’t coming with signs. You won’t have to have people tell you that it has come. You will see it plainly.”
In one way, this story is actually the opposite of what my fishing story was showing me. Instead of people seeing what they perceived to be signs and mistaking the coming of the Kingdom, the pharisees have just seen a powerful sign. The healing of the lepers is a sign of Jesus’s messiahship. They are not confusing a snag with the bite. They are ignoring the real thing and asking when it will finally come. Jesus declares, “Behold, the Kingdom is in your midst!”
It is often the case that the stories involving the pharisees are relevant to our modern Christian cultures. Christianity has been around long enough that we have had ample opportunity to form our own pharisaical attitudes. In this case, today’s church needs to be less concerned with the signs of the end times, and more involved in the already come kingdom that we are a part of. The end times will take care of themselves. Let’s not obsess about them at the expence of who we are supposed to be in the world today.
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