Meeting With God: Your Kingdom Come

Why did Jesus come to earth? If you are a good Protestant like me, you answer the question something like this: "Jesus came so that He would die on a cross to forgive our sins." True. If we read the Gospels carefully, we find that the Gospels really focus on the crucifixion. Paul can't escape the importance of the cross in his letters. I will not diminish the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, nor will I minimize the importance of forgiveness. What I would like to do is frame forgiveness in a greater context- the Kingdom.

Mark 1:35-45 gives us a framework of what Jesus came to do. Jesus is healing tons of people, but tells His disciples that He has come to preach. The content of Jesus' preaching was, at the core, a declaration that the Kingdom of God has come (Mark 1:14). The desired response- repentance, which opens a pathway to transformation. Forgiveness is key in the Kingdom and in repentance, for it is the promise of forgiveness that acts as the siren song to a broken heart. But "me and Jesus" forgiveness shrinks the Kingdom to a one-on-one transaction. What is interesting about the Mark passage is that Jesus leaves from saying that and is face-to-face with a leper. Jesus touches the leper and is declared unclean- meaning He can't go into the villages to preach for a week. Jesus' ministry is more than spoken word, it is spoken word matched with action.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

This passage is Jesus' introduction in Luke, and is a fitting description for the Kingdom. Good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoner, recovery of sight for the blind, release of the oppressed, and the year of the Lord's favor are all elements of the Kingdom. Jesus repeats this way of thinking in a discourse right before the crucifixion (Matthew 25:31-46).

In my former way of thinking, salvation was that I was saved "from" something and the rest of my life was convincing others to join the path. But as I am increasingly confronted with Jesus, I am realizing more and more that I have been saved "from" something and "to" something- the good works prepared for God's people (Ephesians 2:8-10). What have you been saved from? What have you been saved to?