Where Is the Kingdom?
Epiphany • Sermon • Submitted • 15:49
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· 25 viewsA sermon for The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
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As soon as Jesus comes into his public ministry, he proclaims that “the kingdom of God is at hand.”[1] For some reason, many commentators think the kingdom of God is shrouded in mystery, especially in Mark’s Gospel. I hardly think so. The kingdom of God is no mystery, in Mark or Matthew, Luke, and John. The kingdom is mentioned 162 times in the New Testament. It would be a shame to tease us with it. We’ll talk about the kingdom a lot but keep it shrouded in mystery, wouldn’t be helpful of the evangelists or the apostles.
I think the gospels, let alone the whole New Testament, make it very clear what the kingdom of God is, but where it is too. That is what I want to talk about this morning. But first, let’s pray… Amen.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
In the Apostles Creed, we proclaim something that I would not say as a boy when reciting the creed at St. Luke’s. I could not wrap my young mind around the idea of Jesus going to hell. It just didn’t seem right to me that God would wind up in hell for any reason. I still remember visiting a church with my friend in Florida right after my first year of college. I was 18 years old and still wouldn’t say it. When it came time to say the creed, we both knew it by heart, and were saying it with the whole church. When it came to time for that phrase, I went dumb after “crucified, died, and was buried,” while my friend, James, continued on with, “He descended into hell.”
James wanted to know after church why I didn’t say, “He descended into hell.” I told him that I didn’t know if I believed it. Since then, I have discovered biblical references to this, as well as theological support. What used to bother me, now gives me great joy and peace in believing. That Jesus went to hell but it couldn’t keep him, is a great comfort. If it couldn’t keep Jesus, it’s not going to keep you and me and all those who have been crucified into his death. Hell can’t have us because we are promised a resurrection like his. Hallelujah!
This promise and its fulfillment comes to us through faith. The story of Jonah illustrates this truth. Jesus himself compares Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the great fish to his impending death and burial.[2] But through faith, the great fish could not have Jonah. In faith, Jonah declared, “Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.”[3] Jonah believed that God would have him live on and be able to worship in his temple again. Then, when he felt his life ebbing away, the reluctant prophet remembered the Lord. He believed his prayer for salvation had reached God.[4] Jonah had faith; he believed that “salvation belongs to the Lord!”[5]
Through faith in Christ alone, death, the great fish, could not have Jonah, could not have Jesus, and will not have you. Neither will hell. Jesus saw to that. Just as he rose from the dead, he stopped off in hell for a quick visit. He doesn’t go to suffer but to liberate with the gospel those imprisoned there, as I believe Peter alludes to in 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6. In doing so, he destroyed death and hell for all who believe. This is good news indeed: just as death could not keep him, hell also could not have Jesus. It cannot have, therefore, any hold on you either.
I’ll go a step further and hope you stay with me. I only do so, in order to illustrate as graphically as possible what and where the kingdom of heaven is. Here we go; stay with me. If Jesus were still in hell, that is where I’d want to go after I die—because that’s where the kingdom of God would be.
In our gospel lesson this morning, it becomes especially clear that the kingdom of God comes near when Jesus does. Therefore, the kingdom is in this place and in your homes and in your very lives. If you have faith in Jesus, the kingdom of God is coming to the bellies of great fish, to condemned cities and countries, to people dispossessed of friends and family. Things that make us feel plain lousy fade in the glory of the kingdom’s good news of Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ cousin John, the harbinger of his Messianic ministry, is imprisoned. Jesus knows that John faces death at the hand of Herod. Where feelings of regret and dear and anger might have ruled the day, Jesus makes a rather startling statement. He could have said, Let’s rise up, march on Machaerus,[6] and riot! Instead, he said that the kingdom of God is near.
When your life is shattered, or you are angry, or otherwise feeling deprived, disoriented, and disappointed, ask yourself where your joy comes from, where you find your peace, the kind of peace that cannot be found in an earthly kingdom or political party or government. Jonah wanted very specific action accomplished in Ninevah. He wanted them defeated and destroyed. Our wills rarely coincide with God’s will. We should heed the tale of Jonah, lest we end up in the belly of a great fish. Then we may faithfully pray in our Vespers service: “Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give…that we…may live in peace and quietness.”[7]
When things are not going the way we would have wanted, it is time to look around. Has Jesus walked on the scene? Is he anywhere to be found in Ninevah or in Washington? Or are these just places we want to drain, filled with people we’d prefer to just drown already?
Be careful. Can you listen to NPR, and the kingdom of God be near? Or has it gotten so bad that you have allowed the media to totally control you, to have your attention so thoroughly that there just isn’t room for the kingdom, that you’d rather be angry and disenfranchised?
Give me Jesus over a president any day. Give me his kingdom over government, no matter what the government mints on its coinage. Now, I am hardly saying that we should not be concerned about civic affairs, or vote our conscience, or pay our taxes. There are two kingdoms, as Luther taught us. I’m just saying that kingdom of heaven better have come near to you no matter what the evening news reports, no matter how a vote turns out, no matter what H&R Block says you owe this year. This country could fall all the way apart, depart and arrive at the fabled handcart’s destination, yet the kingdom of God be nearer than ever.
The kingdom is not something we are waiting on; it’s already here! How could it not be here, for the kingdom is wherever Jesus is. That’s why he said at the outset of his earthly ministry, when he first walked on the scene in the midst of that horrifying news about his kin, that the kingdom had come near. Jesus brings the kingdom with his very presence.
Is Jesus present in your life? Then the kingdom is at hand. Is Jesus present in your family? Then the kingdom is in your home. Is he present at St. Paul’s among its members? Then the kingdom of God is constantly drawing near to us in this place. Where Christ Jesus is, there is his kingdom. It doesn’t matter where you are or what’s happening around you. You could be in a session of the House of Representatives while enjoying the kingdom of God. You could be in the belly of a great fish; you could have Covid; you could have just buried a loved one; you could have been let go by your employer when you were just a few years from retirement. A favorite pastor may have moved on; your denomination could have left you. All of these things and worse could happen, yet the kingdom of God still be coming near to you…in you…for you.
The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is wherever Christ, its King happens to be. So, of course, the kingdom may be anywhere and everywhere.
That is what we are to see when facing great difficulties like confronted Jesus in Rome, in Herod, in John’s arrest. All these things, not to mention the knowledge of his own impending death, three days in the belly of the earth, might have robbed Jesus of the reality of the kingdom. We might allow them to fleece us too. Or we may leave our nets and follow Jesus. We may forsake the concerns of family to follow him. We might just as well say that we may secede from all these cares of the world to take up a new residence with Jesus in his kingdom.
May it be so among us at St. Paul’s—for his kingdom is at hand.
[1] Mark 1:15
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 12:40.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jon 2:4.
[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jon 2:7.
[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jon 2:9.
[6] A palatial fortress near the Dead Sea that may have been the location of John’s imprisonment
[7] Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1978), 151