God wants us to share in his kingdom
God’s kingdom is a kingdom of peace. No more war, no more bloodshed and no more death. According to the Apocalypse, it is a kingdom where no evil can enter. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- What kind of kingdom is this? Our Lord’s parables stress separation. Take the one where he compares the kingdom to a “net cast into the sea”. It brings in a haul of all kinds of fish. The fishermen keep the good ones and throw away the bad. “This is how it will be at the end of time: the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the upright.”
- God’s kingdom is not of this world. We cannot create it. Instead, we are supposed to ask the Father: “Your kingdom come!” The kingdom belongs to God but he wants to give it to us.
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT was happening when Jesus preached about the kingdom of heaven, imagine being a Jew 2,000 years ago. You would have heard people talking about the coming of the Messiah. Perhaps you confessed your sins and received John’s baptism, or maybe you stayed on the edge of the crowd. In either case, you heard one phrase repeated again and again: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.”
Any Jew listening to this declaration – first from John the Baptist and then from Jesus – would recognise the phrase. The Old Testament prophets often spoke about the coming of a kingdom. When explaining the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel said: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. It will shatter and absorb all the previous kingdoms and it will last forever.”
Zechariah added that God himself would be the ruler of this kingdom: “When that day comes, living waters will issue from Jerusalem, half towards the eastern sea, half towards the western sea; they will flow summer and winter. Then Yahweh will become king of the whole world.”
What kind of kingdom is this? Our Lord’s parables stress separation. Take the one where he compares the kingdom to a “net cast into the sea”. It brings in a haul of all kinds of fish. The fishermen keep the good ones and throw away the bad. “This is how it will be at the end of time: the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the upright.”
Why do good and evil have to be kept apart? God’s kingdom is a kingdom of peace. No more war, no more bloodshed and no more death. According to the Apocalypse, it is a kingdom where no evil can enter.
“Blessed are those who will have washed their robes clean, so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into the city. Others must stay outside: dogs, fortune-tellers, and the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and everyone of false speech and false life.”
God’s kingdom is not of this world. We cannot create it. Instead, we are supposed to ask the Father: “Your kingdom come!” The kingdom belongs to God but he wants to give it to us.
The Father will give us this kingdom by first giving it to his Son. That is why Jesus told the apostles at the Last Supper: “You are the men who have stood by me faithfully in my trials; and now I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father conferred one on me.” As our Lord said, we prepare for this gift by repenting.
