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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our president and congress are in their “fifth contentious fiscal fight” of the last two years. As the sequestration deadline looms, fewer people think the country is headed in the right direction, and more people are less‑confident about the country’s economy. Recently I saw a headline claiming the associated article gave the Bible’s solution to our country’ fiscal crisis; I did not even bother to look at the article, since I know the Bible is about a solution to a bigger problem than the U-S budget. Some think that if we just got everyone in Washington, D.C., to follow the Bible, then the United States would be just like the Old Testament Kingdom of Israel. Well, the Bible itself says some things about such an idea. We hear some of those things tonight, as we continue our special services sermon series focusing on the Lord’s Prayer in light of the words and deeds of our Lord’s Passion: tonight, the Third Petition, “Thy Kingdom Come.”
The Bible certainly can speak of kingdoms of this world such as the United States. Herod Antipas offered to give half of such a kingdom to his step daughter (Mark 6:23), and such kingdoms rise up against one another as the end draws near (Mark 13:8). But, Jesus said His Kingdom is not observed in the same way as other kingdoms (Luke 17:20-21). The Kingdom that we pray in the Lord’s Prayer to come is less about territory as a reflection of a king’s dignity and power and more about the king’s dignity and power itself, about the king’s being and nature.
While the Gospel writers refer to the same kingdom as either “The Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew) or “The Kingdom of God” (Mark and Luke), those of us who were taught the Christian faith using the Synod’s “Explanation of the Small Catechism” may remember learning about three different “kingdoms”: the Kingdom of Power (that is, the whole universe), the Kingdom of Grace (the church on earth), and the Kingdom of Glory (that is, the church and angels in heaven). Those differences can be helpful, such as when we say that, since God already rules over the Kingdom of Power, we pray in the Lord’s Prayer for the coming of both the Kingdom of Grace and the Kingdom of Glory. But, those differences can also be unhelpful, for example, if we think that can only be a citizen of one such kingdom at a time. (The distinction between the kingdom of the left-hand, the government, and the kingdom of the right-hand, the Church, can also be problematic when we think we are only a citizen of one or the other.)
When Jesus was being questioned by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, Jesus made clear that His Kingdom is not of this world as Pilate was thinking that it was (John 18:36), and so Pilate did not see Jesus as the threat to Caesar that the Jewish leaders tried to make Jesus out to be (John 19:12, 15). Over the course of His ministry, Jesus taught a great deal about His Kingdom, often in the form of parables, many of which we studied last year in our Midweek Bible Study. In one of those parables, the so‑called “Parable of the Ten Minas” or “Pounds”, Jesus mentions a nobleman who went to a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return, but, Jesus says, his citizens hated him and so sent a delegation to the far country saying they did not want the man to rule over them (Luke 19:12, 14). The illustration was especially timely in Jesus’s day: a delegation had been sent to the Romans opposing the Romans’ making Archelaus, one of Herod the Great’s sons, king, and there were other similar cases. In the parable, when the nobleman returned as king, those who opposed His rule were put to death.
To what extent do you and I oppose Jesus’s rule over us? He redeemed us that we “may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in … righteousness, innocence, and blessedness”, but do we do those things? When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that the Kingdom of Grace that would come to us so that we lead godly lives, but do we? Too often we do not. By nature we lead ungodly lives in thought, word, and deed. By nature, we are as opposed to Jesus’s rule over us as the citizens in the parable were opposed to the nobleman’s rule over them. By nature we deserve to be put to death as they were. As much as some may romanticize about Old Testament Kingdom of Israel, they may forget how it ended up on account of unfaithfulness: divided, then exiled, and ultimately destroyed. The same destruction awaits all those who are unfaithful and oppose Jesus’s rule over them.
Yet, such destruction is not what God wants for us. First John the Baptizer preached repentance for the Kingdom of God was at hand (Matthew 3:2), then Jesus preached likewise (Matthew 4:17), and so do those He sends. What they said, I say to you: Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Turn in sorrow from your sin, believe God forgives your sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to do better. When we repent—when we are humble or “poor in spirit”—then the Kingdom is ours (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20). The kingdom is ours by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Christ, the One anointed King. Jesus is of the royal line (Matthew 1:1-17), and His receiving the throne of His father David, ruling over the house of Jacob, and having a never-ending kingdom were all proclaimed at His conception (Luke 1:32-33). Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of the royal line, and He was hailed as King when He entered the royal city of Jerusalem. Jesus resisted the temptation to receive the kingdoms of the world by worshiping the devil and instead received them by honoring His Father’s will to save us from our sins. The Kingdom of God is about our salvation, righteousness before God, and peace with God by faith in the King, Jesus Christ. In one sense, the Kingdom of God came on the cross, when Jesus died, redeeming and delivering us, bringing us to Himself to rule over us as a King of righteousness, life and salvation, against sin, death, and an evil conscience (Large Catechism III:51). The gates of hell, emblems of the devil’s kingdom, do not prevail against the Church, but rather the Church, the Kingdom of God, prevails against the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18). Jesus gave evidence of that coming victory by casting out demons (Matthew 12:28). That victory and His Kingdom belong to all who believe in Him, unbelievers have no place in God’s Kingdom.
Notice that we pray “Thy kingdom come”, that is, to us; we do not pray that we come to the kingdom (Chemnitz, Lord’s Prayer, 48). We cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him. The Kingdom’s coming to us is a gift of the Father’s good pleasure (Luke 12:32), and it comes to us when He gives us the Holy Spirit so that by His grace we believe His holy Word. God in fact gives us the Holy Spirit so that by His grace we believe His holy Word in preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. As Jesus told Nicodemus, unless one is in Baptism born of water and the Spirit, one cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5). No matter our age, at the Font we each as a child receive the Kingdom (Mark 10:15). And, as Jesus’s parables likened the Kingdom to a wedding feast (Matthew 22:2), so in the feast that is the Sacrament of the Altar we not only feast with our Lord, Who has completed His work and brought His Kingdom (Matthew 26:29), but we also partake of Him: bread that is His body and wine that is His blood, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In these ways—preaching, baptizing, absolving, and communing—the Church conveys the benefits of Jesus’s death and resurrection for us and so is the instrument for His continuing His work of bringing the Kingdom to us and to others.
I said that in one sense the Kingdom of God already came on the cross (Matthew 16:28; 26:64), but there is another sense in which it is still to come and for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. (And, be careful what you pray for, as you just might get it!) If God does not summon our souls from this Vale of Tears beforehand, we will see Jesus coming on the clouds and bringing His Kingdom in its great glory, visible to all, when all will bow the knee and call Him Lord, even though for many it will be too late. Even though the Kingdom has in one sense come to us already, and even though our lives are not as godly as they could be, we live every day with repentance and faith, saying, like the repentant thief on the cross, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom” (Luke 23:42). On that day, Jesus’s answer to us will be as it was to the repentant thief: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43). Then, we will reign with the King of Kings (Luke 22:29-30). Then, we truly can sing what was revealed to St. John and quoted by Handel’s compiler Charles Jennens in “The Hallelujah Chorus” of the oratorio The Messiah, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:16).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +