The Kingdom We Never Knew We Needed
“And they lived happily ever after.” Pause for a moment and ponder those words again: “They lived happily ever after.” Those may be the most beautiful and haunting words in the entire library of mankind. Why does the end of every great story leave us with a lump in our throats and an ache in our hearts? If we are honest, we will admit that some of the best endings bring tears to our eyes. Because God has set eternity in our hearts, every story we tell is our attempt to put into words and images what God has written on our hearts. Think of the stories that you love. Remember how they end. Truth be told, the human heart longs for happily ever after.
Every story has an ending. That is every story, including yours and mine. Even if you manage to find a little taste of Eden in this life, you cannot hang on to it. You know this; your health cannot hold out forever. Age will conquer you. One by one your friends and loved ones will slip away. Your work will remain unfinished. Your time on this stage will come to an end. Like every other person who has gone before you, you will breathe your last breath. And then what? Is that the end of the story? In a world that has rejected God, where is the hope? Without God, the end is the end. If there is no God, if there is not something better, if there is no righteous Judge who will sort all things out, then our stories are tragedies. They end with unfinished business and lost dreams. As we observe a world that does not have God in the equation, it is small wonder that people drink too much, eat too much, and/or watch too much TV. It seems like we live in a world where, more and more, people are checking out of life. If they allow themselves to feel the reality of their actual longing for life, love, and happiness, they fear that despair and failure are awaiting them. It’s just too much to bear.
Remember, God has set eternity in our hearts. We try to express this truth in the stories we tell. Or perhaps, this truth has been trying to express itself on our hearts. Obviously, during His time on earth, Jesus was showing through His power that He was the promised Messiah - God incarnate, God in the flesh. But I maintain that Jesus was offering other blessings and help as well that is often missed. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see. All the beauty of the world opened for them. When He healed the deaf, they were able to hear. They were finally able to hear laughter, music, and their children’s voices. Jesus touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet, able to dance. He called the dead back to life and gave them to their families. Can you see it? Wherever humanity was broken, Jesus restored it. Jesus was offering an insight and a glimpse of hope. Jesus showed that the coming Kingdom of God restores the world that He made.
Jesus repeatedly announced that the Kingdom of God is near and at hand. He was pointing out that a new thing was coming. A new age was about to dawn. This happened when the church was birthed over 2,000 years ago. The Kingdom of God, the church, takes a lot of heat and ridicule in today’s world. I believe this is because Satan does not want people to understand that they can have hope and life. Satan does not want people to know that they have the potential for an amazing, wonderful, inspiring life story. Imagine if people understood that they are offered eternal life by their loving God; death is not the end. Creation will be redeemed and rebuilt by God. Evil will be no more. Suffering will be banished. This is what the Gospel proclaims. The good news that God wants to be made known to this world is that our failures do not get the final say. The sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus turned an upside-down world right-side up. God’s story for us is that we are not in control, He is in control. We do not run things, He does. We do not know all the answers, He does. We can return to God because he has provided a way of redemption. He paid the price in the life, work, and sacrifice of Jesus. Keep looking up!