The news has been horrifying this week, hasn't it? The world has watched an invasion in all its ugliness. Long before this week began, though, Russia was already at work in Ukraine. While provinces in Ukraine's west have often leaned toward Europe, provinces in Ukraine's south and east have traditionally been closer to Russia, and Russia has cultivated that cultural and political influence. In early 2014, Ukraine's president – a native of that southeast area, and staunchly pro-Russian – was chased from power, and a new regime was installed. But against that uprising, there were counter-protests in the east. Declaring independence from Ukraine, rebels seized partial territories along the border and set up their own alternative states. These rebel movements and their states were swiftly infiltrated by Russian influence, backed up by Russian volunteers, money, and muscle. In some areas, polls allegedly suggested that a quarter or more of the people thought Ukraine should be part of Russia, with claims that one in five told pollsters that if Russia invaded, they'd welcome them as liberators.
Over the last seven or eight years, Russian culture has taken over those rebel-held regions more than ever – Russian flags everywhere, everything written in Russian, you name it. Russia even began handing out Russian passports to hundreds of thousands of people there. And Russia continued to manipulate these rebel states into compliance as millions fled. Earlier this month, the head of one of the rebel states said he wants his state – and beyond – to become part of a “renewed Russian empire.” A week ago, the rebel states formally asked Russia to recognize them as real countries, independent of Ukraine. When Putin said yes, the rebels celebrated with flags and fireworks and flutes of champagne. I heard an interview clip in which a woman living there said of the Russians, “They're helping us, God bless them.” Soon, Russian tanks were crossing over the border, ostensibly to help the rebel states capture by force the rest of the dominion they claimed to represent. But soon it was much bigger than that. And we've seen the devastation and the terror.
At heart, what we've been watching is an attempt to make Putin's kingdom come in Ukraine as it is in Russia. The invasion is dreadfully underway, in all its criminal violence. But before even one tank crossed the border, already were Russian operatives and duped Ukrainians working in those regions to spread Russian influence, to prepare their region to be disposed to welcome this coming kingdom. It was a most devilish secular parody of what Jesus bids us to pray for when he teaches us the words, “Thy kingdom come.”
To help us appreciate what Jesus wants us to want, it helps to climb his family tree. A thousand years earlier, in the land of Israel, the prophet Samuel had told a man named Saul, “The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David” (1 Samuel 28:17). And that's what happened: God made David king and exalted that kingdom for the sake of his people Israel (2 Samuel 5:12). God made a covenant with David that his kingdom would go on in greatness, generation after generation (2 Samuel 7:16). And in turn, David prayed passionately for his son Solomon, asking God to establish him as a good king, a righteous king, even a world-changing king. David hoped he'd judge righteously and rescue the poor (Psalm 72:1-4). He prayed also that God would bless Solomon with expansive dominion, that Solomon would receive tribute from far-off lands, that every other king in the world might become Solomon's vassal, his under-king (Psalm 72:8-11).
Later, the Chronicler would look back and hear David telling Solomon to sit on “the throne of the kingdom of the LORD over Israel” (1 Chronicles 28:5). Oh, we dare not miss the significance of that phrase! Israel had a firm conviction that the LORD their God was King – was the rightful ruler of all the earth, the one entitled to decree all the laws, command all the power, direct all the resources, establish peace and security, and ensure that things function well. They were convinced that the LORD was indeed reigning over his whole creation; it's just that earth was this partly-rebellious province that needed to be restored to its appreciation and obedience to the kingdom of the LORD. And the Chronicler is saying that Solomon's rule over Israel was supposed to be the same thing as the kingdom of God – that God's kingship over God's people was being expressed on earth by way of Solomon's royal authority, inherited from David. It was through David and Solomon, as imperfect but visible tools, that God intended to show himself as Israel's king and the world's king.1
But, of course, Solomon came and went, showing his imperfections along the way. His son Rehoboam was so arrogant that he lost ten of the twelve tribes, carving the nation in pieces, and thus severely impeding the witness to God's kingdom they were supposed to be. And yet, in Judah, his descendants – the heirs of David – continued to sit on the throne, generation after generation. Judah remained ruled by a Davidic king, supported by his administration. That administration included a queen-mother, who had considerable influence at court and who likely ruled some aspects in her own right. It included a royal steward, essentially a prime minister. It included an assortment of other officials, some higher and others lower, some closer to the king and others not, but all quite vital for the healthy administration of the government. And in retrospect, the Chronicler referred to this governance as “the kingdom of the LORD in the hands of the sons of David” (2 Chronicles 13:8). In other words, David's heirs – despite everything – were still charged with administering, through those they gathered around themselves, their kingdom in Judah as an expression of God's kingdom on earth. And God's kingdom on earth had been placed in their hands. If they governed Judah well and influenced other nations, that was God's kingdom prospering. If they governed Judah badly and aped other nations, that was God's kingdom suffering.
Alas, the kingdom of the LORD was seldom safe in the hands of the sons of David. Much like Rehoboam, very many of David's heirs would prove faithless. Only a handful escaped the description “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” (e.g., 1 Kings 21:6). And so they mismanaged and perverted the very kingdom God was seeking to establish in their hands. This faithlessness and disobedience, shared with their subjects, led to Judah withering on the vine, surrounded by mighty empires. Had she been faithful to her God-given mission, Judah might have inspired those empires to be her guardian angels and nurse her back to health. Instead, they lurked as savage beasts whom Judah appeased in fear or seduced in filth. The result was that this earthly kingdom of God diminished, hemorrhaging its true power in the face of beastly oppression. On it went, the same story with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. Step by step, Judah ceased to be a real kingdom at all. At last, they'd have no son of David governing them, but would be a captive people with no kingdom of their own, subjected to other kingdoms devoted to false gods.
But as this degeneration spiraled, the prophets dreamed of a different future. Some day, Israel would be brought together again. Some day, they'd be given back their dignity and their strength. Some day, they'd be ruled again by a son of David, a better one who wouldn't fail. And then, as never before, through the anointed son of David, a renewed kingdom of God would spread through the earth. Not only Israel but all the world would be set right. Isaiah saw it: someone on David's throne, ruling his kingdom in peace “to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore” (Isaiah 9:7), until “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). Jeremiah saw it: a son of David who'd “reign as king and deal wisely,” and under whom finally “Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely” (Jeremiah 23:5-6). Obadiah saw it: exiles reclaiming their land, rescuers ruling the nations, “and the kingdom shall be the LORD's” (Obadiah 21). Ezekiel couldn't wait for the flock to be gathered around one Shepherd (Ezekiel 34:23). Daniel was thrilled by “a kingdom that shall never be destroyed” or handed off to another, but which would roll like a boulder through the world, leaving empires in the dust, and coming to fill the earth (Daniel 2:44-45). And Zechariah saw God arriving in person to make it happen: “Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him” (Zechariah 14:5), “and the LORD will be King over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:9). That was the prophets' dream of the kingdom of God.
Of course, over the years after the prophets, as the sufferings of God's people at the hands of worldly kingdoms grew fiercer, some began to conflate the dream of the prophets with their own bitter pain. They imagined that when the kingdom would be given back to them, it would be time for revenge and carnage, time to mete out wrath against foreigners, to purge the earth of all they don't like, to bless themselves and curse the nations.
Onto this scene, enter Jesus. A son of David, he traveled the promised land David and Solomon had ruled, and he told everyone that the kingdom of God was finally close, that it was invading our world, that the time was now (Mark 1:15). But it didn't look like people expected. Jesus insisted that the other teachers were wrong – that God's kingdom isn't about burning sinners and laying down the law, but about giving sinners and foreigners a chance to change their ways and come to the table. Nor did the kingdom arrive as people expected. Jesus said God's kingdom wasn't coming to feed the pride and self-satisfaction of the aggrieved, but instead to topple it by forcing them to welcome their old oppressors with open arms. The only way to be empowered in the kingdom, he said, is to welcome it as a gift you didn't earn, like a child gleefully unwrapping a present (Mark 10:15; Luke 12:32). Jesus insisted that God's kingdom was wherever he stood or sat, and that as he and his friends feasted together, well, that little dinner club was the force destined to topple the empires of earth. It begins so small, like a single seed you scarcely see, but once he plants it, someday it'll be big enough to shelter everyone (Mark 4:30-32). It grows where we can't see, mysteriously hidden, until it begins to sprout where nobody expected it (Mark 4:26-29). And so wherever Jesus went, whatever Jesus did, that was what it's like when God is truly king – the crippled were healed, the deaf heard, the blind saw, the sick got better, the hungry were fed, storms grew quiet, lepers got clean, dead hearts started beating again – because God is King, and that's good news!
And then, to cap it all off, finally Jesus was coronated and enthroned as the Son of David through whom God's kingdom was being made manifest in the world. He was coronated with thorns. He was robed with rags. He was enthroned on wooden beams and blood-soaked nails. It was no pretty sight, nor a pleasant day. But there, there on his cross, was where Jesus expected us to get a good look at the kingdom of God – right where the kingdoms of the world and their system of injustice were being proven ignorant of the Way, the Truth, the Life. There, at the cross, the kingdom of God was being opened as its King was dying. Then he rose from the dead – that was God's verdict of justice overruling the kingdoms of earth. And in ways we can't begin to understand, God put his kingdom into the Son's hands, and the Son prepared to bring the kingdom in a new way: by pouring down his Spirit. The Holy Spirit's sanctifying work is what the kingdom of God is all about. Where the Spirit is active, God's kingdom is touching the world. And so the Bible explains that “the kingdom of God is a matter of... righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Where Jesus is served and obeyed as King through the Spirit's promotion of peace, that expresses on earth the kingdom of God. If you surrender to peace in your heart, then the kingdom of God is gaining footholds. The same holds true for justice and joy. As you surrender to them in your heart when the Holy Spirit works within you, the kingdom of God is gaining.
So when we pray to God for his kingdom to come, what are we asking? Part of what we're asking is for the Holy Spirit to come and work in us. We ask for God's Spirit to blossom in our souls, nurture our hearts, knead peace and justice and joy into our lives. We're praying for the Spirit to descend on us and fill us, for the Spirit to clean us out and set up shop, for the Spirit to direct our inner lives to make them calm, reasoned, and blessed. These are all things Jesus wants us to want, and wants us to ask for in these words.
Now, by the time Jesus ascended to inherit heaven's throne, he'd already selected his closest friends and students to be his imperial heralds, his legates, his ambassadors, announcing to the world the good news that God's kingdom was now present, was growing by the day, would one day break through with the final invasion that would perfect the world, and that all of this revolved around the work of King Jesus, who'd been given supreme authority. So his ambassadors or apostles went out, with the promise that once they finished their mission, they would come home as the high officers of his kingdom, and reign from thrones beside his (Luke 22:28-30). One was even appointed his prime minister (Matthew 16:19). In their mission, he authorized them to extend rights and duties of citizenship to others, and to lay down laws for his kingdom, and to assemble a new body politic for this kingdom in which God was coming to rule the world, and to continue working through their successors even after they finished their terms on earth.
And that's exactly what they did. On that foundation, Jesus began more and more – through years, decades, centuries – to bring the kingdom of God to earth... as his Church. As St. Augustine put it: “The Church – even in this world, here and now – is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven.”2 The onslaughts of death and hell can't drown it out (Matthew 16:18). The Church is “a kingdom that cannot be shaken,” thanks be to God (Hebrews 12:28), no matter how many Rehoboams and Jeroboams tear at it, no matter how many Josiahs die before their time, no matter how many Manassehs tyrannize from within.
So when we pray for God's kingdom to come, we're asking for the strength and health of his Church on earth, for it's God's kingdom in our midst. “Thy kingdom come” is a prayer for the Church to be built up (Ephesians 4:12-13). For when the Church believes tenaciously, hopes defiantly, and loves fiercely, then the Church is strong where it matters most. And when the Church grows by obedience into its calling, gains wisdom and prudence, and matures into its proper measure and structure, then is the Church stronger still. “Thy kingdom come” is a prayer for the Church to be well-administered, for its stewards and officers in every place and time to manage the affairs of God's kingdom well. For the kingdom of God is good governance of the people of God – and the better administered the Church is, the better for that kingdom. “Thy kingdom come” is a prayer for the Church to persevere in representing God's interests in God's ways – because we pray for God's kingdom, not my kingdom or your kingdom. When the Church gets distracted or deformed by alien agendas or misbegotten methods, then just so is the kingdom of God obscured and offered obstacles on earth.
And “thy kingdom come” is a prayer for the Church to be ready to be enthroned the same way its King first was – that is, on a cross. It's not for nothing that the King bid his subjects carry crosses to their execution in order to follow him (Mark 8:34). As Paul said, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). The Church must know how to abound with great privilege in the world, but also how to be thrown into tribulation (cf. Philippians 4:12-13). Entering the kingdom, inheriting the kingdom, is no leisurely stroll. God has seen fit to give us the credit of learning to rule by learning to suffer. And that becomes clearest when the Church is mocked, harassed, and at last forced to conquer by testimony sealed in blood. When Christians do, then in them has the kingdom of God come (cf. Revelation 12:10-11). It's by means of the world's opposition that God may “bring [you] safely into his heavenly kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:18). There are those indeed who live or die so triumphantly for Christ that, sanctified to heaven, their souls live perfectly to God, stand in his court, and reign with Christ even now until he comes again (Revelation 20:6).
But to his Church below, Jesus entrusted a mission on the earth. And that mission is to disciple the nations, to bring them and their kingdoms under the influence of his kingdom. Now, no earthly kingdom has ever simply become God's kingdom, nor any earthly nation be simply identifiable with God's people – not the Holy Roman Empire, not the Byzantine Empire, not the British Empire, not Russia or Ukraine or America. But, to one measure or another, each of these (and countless more) have been discipled – though how well, God alone can judge – and so, at their best, they are as it were vassal states to the kingdom of God present in their midst.
What does that look like, discipling the nations and their kingdoms? We teach and influence the nations to set aside greedy ambitions. We teach and influence the nations to set aside manipulative lies. We teach and influence the nations to set aside cruel habits and unjust laws. We teach and influence the nations to set aside corruption and foolishness. Infiltrating the communities of our nations and neighborhoods and the structures of this world's kingdoms, we do what we each can to shape them to look more like the kingdom we're called to stand for, the kingdom that's certainly coming: God's kingdom. We aim to be a means through which the Holy Spirit's peace and justice and joy gain outward footholds in community life, civic life, public life wherever we are – and thus God's kingdom spreads its influence.
And so when we pray to God, “Thy kingdom come,” we're asking for God to expand that influence, whether he can go through us or whether he has to go around us. We're asking God to infuse our neighborhoods with heaven's culture. We're asking God to constrain the nations to obedience, and to elevate that peace and that justice and that joy. When that happens, wars are brought to an end, trust is restored, truth is spoken out, selfish grasping loses its grip. That's the growth of God's kingdom, pressing into the world. The more God's kingdom influences the nations and their neighborhoods, the less room there is for lies or injustices or wars. The more God's kingdom shines, the less the world's kingdoms are dominions of darkness. Let God's kingdom take hold, and swords can be beaten into plowshares, and wolves and lambs lie down together.
And yet we know that we will never perfectly eliminate the lies, the injustices, the wars. The Church on earth will never be quite capable of declaring mission accomplished. That's going to take the King in person. See, in all this, we're preparing for the end. God's kingdom is growing all this time, by fits and starts – growing in our hearts, growing in the Church, growing in influence in the world. But if God's kingdom comes at first gradually and subtly, at last God's kingdom comes suddenly and explosively. For the kingdom will not be fully here until the King marches in. What we're waiting for, as we strive to receive the Spirit and build up the Church and influence the world for his kingdom, is an invasion, a takeover, the return of the King with his army. He'll charge in, faithful and true, blazing beauty, heading up the armies of heaven, ready to rule as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:11-16). When he “comes in glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne” over the earth (Matthew 25:31). Then at last will it be said, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15).
And when that happens, the powers that have undergirded all the viciousness of history – fear and shame, death and destruction – will be exiled from creation by the King's order. All the dead will live again – every soldier caught up in conflicts not his own, every person who longed for justice she never saw, and all the rest, will be raised. And the King will judge. He won't judge, as kings of this world do, by ethnicity or nationality, language or aptitude, and certainly not by how much power you've wielded. But he'll judge by faith and hope and love. At last, God will decree all the laws. God will command all the power. God will direct all the resources. God will establish peace and security. God will ensure things function well. And the principle underlying all will be love: “Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might... He will gather the lambs in his arms” (Isaiah 40:10-11).
When that happens, the King will heal our damaged world. Now, we look at our world's scars, our scars, and we see trauma. But then, we'll see the scars transfigured beyond the trauma. We'll see the foolishness of ages come undone. We'll see beauty rise from ashes. We'll see Eden overgrow the battlefields. The water of life will wash away old memories of pain. Every one shall sit under his vine and his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid (Micah 4:4). That's the healed world God wants us to walk in, leap in, dance in: the kingdom of God.
And at last, after the King has invaded, when the King has put down the petty provincial rebellion called 'sin' once and for all, when the King has reestablished his perfect rule himself, then he will fill out his administration and his body politic. Those who didn't seek citizenship, who didn't pledge loyalty, who didn't live by his laws, will be sacked: “The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9). But King Jesus will enthrone his loyalists, all of them. He'll enthrone those who sought his kingdom and lived by its laws. He'll enthrone those who worked for it with hands and hearts and voices. He'll enthrone those who longed for his kingdom most of all. To some will be entrusted much; to others will be entrusted little. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). But all will be heirs of the kingdom and its offices: “If we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12) – that's a promise. As brothers and sisters of the King, we'll prove “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” and “be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17), “heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him” (James 2:5). Made sinlessly holy by his grace, knowing perfectly as we've been known, there will be no risk of us mismanaging anything then, for then “the Lord God will be [our] light, and [we] will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
Above all, this is why we pray for God's kingdom to come. This is what we're praying for. We're praying for the heavenly invasion we live to welcome. We're praying for the return of the King in power and glory. We're praying to see the dead raised. We're praying to see the world healed. We're praying in eagerness to inherit our thrones and to reign in God's kingdom. That's what Jesus wants us to want. He wants us to call out to God for it, humbly trusting that his promises are good.
Perhaps it's surprising that with just three short words – “Thy kingdom come” – Jesus is inviting us to ask God for all this, and training us to want all these things from God. But if your heart needs calm, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” If your life needs changed, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” If the church needs strength, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” If the lies and wars and injustices keep dragging on, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” If the laws are foolish, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” If the world is broken, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” And if you want to see Jesus and reign with him in glory, pray: “Thy kingdom come!” May his kingdom come indeed! Amen.
1 Scott W. Hahn, The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire: A Theological Commentary on 1-2 Chronicles (Baker Academic, 2012), 76.
2 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 20.9
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