If I were to ask you what the good news of God is, what would you say? (leave time for responses) In the first chapter of the gospel of Mark, Jesus talks about the good news of God. Mark writes, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” Jesus says that the good news is that the kingdom of God has come near. So what does Jesus mean by that? And if the kingdom of God has come near, then why does Jesus tell his disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come?

We may be asking the same question after reading our passage for this morning from the gospel of Luke. Jesus is asked by the Pharisees, “When is the kingdom of God coming?” The Pharisees believed that God would come and restore the land of Israel to the people. Rome would be conquered. All exiles would be able to return to the land. The glory and riches that Israel had under King David would be restored and they would probably receive even more from God’s hand. That was what would have been in their minds when they asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming. I suspect that the answer Jesus gave them was not what they expected. They probably thought Jesus would say he didn’t know. Or maybe they thought he’d be bold and predict some time in the future, probably after all of them would be dead, when the kingdom would come. It seems like those would have been the easy answers, the safest answers.

But as is Jesus’ custom, he does not choose to give an easy answer. Instead, he says to them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’” That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The kingdom is supposed to come as a triumphant army with God in the lead. They will march into the land and destroy the enemies. It won’t be secret. How can you secretly conquer a foreign army? If Jesus had ended there, the Pharisees would probably have just dismissed him because he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But Jesus isn’t quite done. He adds to this, “For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” The kingdom of God is among you. A very similar message to the good news that Jesus proclaimed, except one slight difference. In the gospel message, Jesus said that kingdom was near. Here he says that the kingdom of God is among them. It came closer. In fact, the word translated as ‘among’ can also mean ‘in the midst of’ or even ‘within.’ The kingdom of God is within you. Can’t come much closer than that. The Pharisees, much like us today, didn’t know what to do with that. How could the kingdom of God be that close without them realizing it?

If this is true, that the kingdom of God is already within us, then how does that impact how we understand the line of the Lord’s Prayer that we are looking at this week. The line that says, “Thy kingdom come.” If the kingdom is already near, in fact, if the kingdom is within us, then why would we need to pray for it to come near? In his book about the Lord’s Prayer, N.T. Wright explains how Jesus knew intimately the prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the kingdom of God. And that Jesus made fulfilling those prophecies the central theme of his work. Wright names three themes from the prophecies and explains the unexpected way in which Jesus fulfilled each of them.

The first is the theme of God’s kingdom bringing about the release of captives. Wright says that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy by living like the father of the prodigal son, welcoming the lost back home and celebrating them. He exemplified this by taking the love and acceptance of God’s kingdom to the outcasts and the sinners. Those who felt imprisoned by the oppression and hatred of the world found freedom in the message of Jesus. In that way, Jesus released the captives.

The second theme that Wright mentions is the defeat of evil in the world. Jesus did this by choosing a life that led to his death on a cross. Through his death, we received forgiveness for our sins. This was a defeat of the evil that tries to drag us down to death, the evil that tempts us to deny God and seek our own selfish desires, the evil that eats away at our souls and our relationships and our faith. But through Jesus’ death on the cross, that evil was defeated once and for all.

The third and final theme Wright suggests is the theme God would return to God’s people. We had fallen away from God into sin. God had given Adam and Eve the responsibility to oversee the earth. But Adam and Eve saw God’s gift of responsibility as, instead, a gift of power. And they used this power to try to get more power, because ultimately that’s what power does. It tempts us to keep striving for more. So, Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And with that, they denied their responsibility in order to grab ahold of power. This story explains to us how God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of earth became separated. And the prophets of ancient Israel proclaimed that one day God’s kingdom would come back in and the two kingdoms would merge into the kingdom that God originally created.

Wright believes that it was this theme that Jesus wanted the disciples to pray for when they said “thy kingdom come” in the prayer he taught them. Jesus was asking them to pray that he would complete his mission. That through his death and resurrection, he would reunite the kingdom of the earth with the kingdom of heaven. And when Jesus died, the disciples thought that their prayers had failed. God’s kingdom didn’t come because the one who was to rule it had died. But when Jesus came back on the third day, the disciples’ minds were changed and they saw how Jesus had brought God’s kingdom to earth.

This leads Wright to ask questions like, “If the kingdom of God is here, why is there still injustice and hunger and suffering and evil?” Those seem like valic questions, questions we probably ask ourselves at times as well. The disciples didn’t ignore those questions. They didn’t disregard them or try to spiritualize Jesus’ words or actions to make it make more sense. Instead, they kept praying. They kept asking for God’ kingdom to come. And through that they heard the call of God to not only pray for the kingdom to come, but to live that prayer. To live in ways that exemplify God’s kingdom. To live with love and care and welcome for all people.

Over the years since Jesus shared this prayer with his disciples, our interpretation of the message has changed. The kingdom of God has become a spiritual realm where God dwells that is entirely disconnected from earth and bodies and dirt. We envision ourselves ascending to that spiritual realm when we die to be with God and the angels. But for the disciples and for Jesus, God’s kingdom was not an escape from earth, but a redemption of the earth.

This is how I think we see God’s kingdom come. We see it in the moments of redemption in our world, the moments when a piece of God’s love and peace and joy breaks into our world. In one of the books I recently read for my Doctor of Ministry class, author Serene Jones talks about the end of our lives, not in the sense of death, but in the sense of the end goal or end result. And about this notion, she writes, “For Christians, this end is not just something we strive to reach in the last chapter of our lives. Rather, it is the possibility that breaks in upon us every day; it is the shape of faithful living; it is the form of a beautiful life.” The end goal of our lives is not to get into the kingdom of heaven when we die. The end goal is to bear witness to all the times that God’s kingdom enters into our world and our lives.

When we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are not off the hook at that point because Christ called us to bear witness to the kingdom of God in our daily lives, in the way we love, in the generosity we show, in the peace and justice we seek and advocate for. In our passage from the prophet Isaiah, we read, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” We are witnesses to the in-breaking of God’s kingdom into the world. We bear witness to that by the way in which we live: by showing compassion, practicing justice, acting in love, working for peace. We bear witness to God’s kingdom by living like members of it.

When we pray “thy kingdom come,” may recognize the presence of God within and among us. And let us then bear witness to this kingdom through our lives, our words, and our generous love for one another. And may we see our earthly kingdom be redeemed by God’s kingdom more and more with each passing word or action of ours and of those who share faith in the same God. Amen.