There is a far off Kingdom

While the topic of the kingdom is never too far from my mind, it has been particularly prominent over the last week or two. The first instance was when I received the new song "Far Kingdom" by the Gray Havens in my inbox. Awesome music and great lyrics. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And the second moment was when I read Justin Taylor's blog on C.S. Lewis' words from The Weight of Glory about his longing for the far-off country.

Anyway, so it got me thinking. The idea of a land for us to inherit is a dominant theme in the Old Testament. If there were two major blessings the people of Israel anticipated more than anything else, it would have been a rich, abundant land in which they could dwell and a righteous and loving King who would rule over them. In the beginning, God intended the garden to be a sanctuary that would be ever-extending outward in its reach, where all of creation would dwell with the Lord in peace. Later, God would confuse the languages of all the peoples of the world at Babel so that they might not be concentrated in one place, but continue to extend the influence of his righteous reign throughout the whole earth. Still later, the Lord told Abraham he would make him (and his Offspring) a blessing to the nations, and that he would give him a land in which to live - a kingdom for his innumerable posterity. Israel would live in anxious longing for the unfolding of this promise, only to be disappointed both by the land itself and for their own lack of faith. Their enemies remained encamped on every side, their kings were corrupt, and the land itself groaned for restoration and renewal. They longed for a far-off country to which their present residence in Canaan could not compare.

And their longing reaches us even today, where we live between these two worlds, feeling the almost unbearable tension between our present citizenship on a fallen earth and our future inheritance as citizens of the Kingdom of Christ. This Kingdom is of a glory that words cannot describe. It is a sanctuary that resounds with the peace and joy of our Creator and Redeemer, where a river runs through it that produces an abundance of life-giving fruit, where animals of every kind dwell in harmony with each other, and the peoples from ever nation in history sing in one voice of the greatness of our King.

It is a far-off country. It burns deep within our members. We can taste it and hear it sometimes. Its influence in this world continues to pervade like leaven in bread, growing like a small mustard seed in the ground, until one day, when the time has fully come, we will see it at last.

SDG