The kingdoms of this world are more corrupt than we ever fear.
The Kingdom of God is more wonderful, beautiful, trustworthy and good than we ever imagine.
Virginia Giuffre was just a teenager when she was swept up into the dangerous corruption of powerful men and women who use and abuse.
She knew she was going to be dead very soon - and now she is.
In any sane world, the "client list" of Jeffrey Epstein would not only be common knowledge but it would be taken very seriously.
Think of all the famous, powerful people on the list.
(If you don't know... Google it - but to start you off the Independent newspaper provided a fairly long list... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/epstein-list-virginia-giuffre-prince-andrew-b2739882.html )
The kingdoms of this passing world are so shaky and flaky that the high praised values of one age are the hated horrors of the next age.
Isaiah 5:20 - "What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter."
When the oppressed of one age gain cultural/political power in the next age, they oppress too...
left flips to right,
dark flips to light,
good flips to evil.
The taboo words & ideas of one age are replaced with new taboo words and ideas in the next age... and all must learn to express the same horror for one as the other.
Rather, we don't "learn" it - because we are all carried along in the same tide... and because we are indoctrinated and manipulated, we all genuinely feel the sanctioned, "appropriate" responses to the new moralities, the new taboos, the new... "thing".
However, there is a Kingdom that lasts forever - a Stone that is becoming a Mountain.
There is a Seed that was Promised from the primal foundations of humanity - and that smallest Seed is not only growing to become a mighty plant to shelter all, but this Seed was also born...
to become the very best of all humanity...
yet a Seed that had to be planted for three days before it sprouted into something very, very new.
I understand the desire to patch up the kingdoms of this passing age.
I really do.
There are phases of my life when I want to campaign for my political preferences to win - because I have a gut feeling that the kingdoms of this world would be so much better if my political heroes won...
Yes, I really mean it
- and I really feel it.
Genuinely, there are times when my flesh really is moved to tears because I yearn for a political leader or movement or party in this passing world that will "make things better", restore justice, defend freedom, make everything more.... fair.
I want this passing world to "make sense".
Seriously.
I grieve - deep down grieve - that it doesn't make sense and that it seems to make less sense now than years ago.
YET....
When I pray "YOUR Kingdom come.... YOUR will be done" - I sometimes WANT that to mean something like "may YOUR Kingdom show up as the political party/leader/solutions that my flesh believes in - that I think will make this passing world better, make more sense, be easier to live in, be better for those who aren't enjoying the power & privilege of this passing world."
YET....
I don't think that is what "YOUR Kingdom come, and YOUR will be done" really means.
Many people of both left and right try to "challenge" me to see the Divine Kingdom in terms of all kinds of this-worldly political agendas... pushing me to embrace government enforced redistribution of wealth on the one hand or government enforced protections of freedom on the other.
There is always plenty within me to respond to these appeals...
and YET...
and yet...
Is that ALL the Celestial Kingdom is about? 😟
Just the embrace of one political philosophy or another - getting more food or freedom, money or meaning, nationalism or globalism...?
What if we human beings are much, much, much more than any of these things?
What if we should never settle for simply more money as Marx would urge us or more freedom as others might urge us?
What if....
What if we judge no one by the flesh any longer because we are caught up into something much, much, much bigger and better...
so that even if we die of hunger or die in prison...
or die a martyr's death...
YET in the Kingdom of God we know we are full, free and finished!
What am I trying to say?
That the agendas that are pushed onto us by left and right, old and new, tradition or progress...
all of them are so much LESS than what seems to be offered by the Christ-Centred Cosmic Civilisation - the Kingdom of God.... the Bride of Christ, destined to be married to the Living God for all eternity.
What if sharing in the life of God is much, much, much more valuable than having political/social freedom or financial/social justice in this passing world?
What if we are downtrodden, rejected, hated and oppressed all our lives long...
BUT
...we are drinking deep from the divine Fountain of Life, sharing in the divine nature, caught up into joy unspeakable and full of glory through Jesus by the Spirit.... reaching to our Heavenly Father?
I know...
I know.... all of this might sound far too much "pie in the sky when you die" kind of language for those of us who are passionate about justice, freedom, pleasures and treasures in the kingdoms of this passing age....
I know.
Surely Jesus was very interested in feeding the hungry NOW, in throwing off tyranny NOW, in smashing immorality and evil NOW.
Yes, that's all true... and YET...
and yet...
Maybe there is something more than the political and social culture wars of this passing age....
so that even if we are messed up or crushed down in this passing age...
maybe, as Church, none of that really matters....
that we can stand/sit/live together as Church in a way that is...
perpendicular to the struggles of these passing kingdoms.
What if we really did believe all that the Prophets and Apostles believed about this more substantial, more real, more valuable level of reality called the everlasting Kingdom of God - the very subject that Jesus kept on speaking about?
2 Corinthians 5:16-21...
"from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view...
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old life has gone, the new is here!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.
Christ commissioned every one of us with sharing this life-changing message of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ.
Seriously.
The Living God will not charge people’s sins against them!
Christ the LORD has entrusted this revolutionary message of reconciliation to US - yes, to you and me!!!
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
Accept His offer of peace and friendship.
Stop wasting your life on things that have no future - and be welcomed into the life that lasts forever - the life of God!
God made the LORD Jesus who had never done anything wrong... to be everything that was wrong with the world.
WHY?!?!??!
So that in the Holy LORD Jesus, even messed up, mortal & momentary motes like us might become all that the Eternal God thinks is right and good!"