The Best for Now

You have saved the best till now.
-John 2:10, italics mine

The final project from singer/songwriter Rich Mullin’s prolific career, The Jesus Record, came about because he felt compelled to spend time thinking on the life and words of Jesus. Though there is much to think of in this journey with God, and much he did think of – grief and sorrow, battle, friendship, growing up and growing old and even growing young – this one thing he felt compelled and drawn to: Jesus’ life and His initiation and invitation and ransom through it.

I find that really instructive, and so that’s what I, too, and compelled to do. It was another saint who said that we should “fix our eyes on Jesus.”

So, here’s what I am seeing recently. When I look at people around Jesus, those who interacted with him in the gospels, I see basically two types: those who eventually fell in love with him and gave their lives to following him, and those whose hatred toward him and the kingdom he came to announce became murderous. There was hardly any middle ground. In fact, Jesus himself said as much – “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30).

Out of the four main socio-religious groups of the time – the Essenes, the Herodians and their friends the Saduccees, the Zealots, and finally the Pharisees – Jesus didn’t fit in. He couldn’t be categorized and so he wasn’t so easily dismissed. It’s interesting to note that those who hated Jesus were those whose fury came from their inability to own him, who couldn’t use him for their own agenda. Rich’s words are true here, that “the world can’t stand what it can’t own and it can’t own you ‘cause you did not have a home.”

Jesus came, of course, to bring his kingdom to us, to announce it so that we may be invited in. To open up for us a new way, a new reality, a new world order. His kingdom opens up for us the possibility of a new heart and with it a new and intimate relationship with ourselves, with each other, and, of course first with God. In Jesus, God stooped down to look us in the eyes and say, “I want you to be mine now. Join me. Become my friend.” [Incidentally, the Hebrew for “unfailing love” in Psalm 6:4 (“…O Lord… save me because of your unfailing love”) denotes befriending.] A better picture is God lifting us up to where He is, to a "high and holy place" - Isaiah 57:15. It is a new order outside of ourselves but coming from within, from hearts full of life (Proverbs 4:23).

While all of this is baffling and more than a little shocking in its implications, perhaps the most scandalous notion of all was the kingdom’s availability and presence. All good Jews in Jesus’ day knew something about a kingdom coming. This language wasn’t unfamiliar to Jesus’ hearers. For centuries, prophets have been describing and foretelling this kingdom. Many of the prophets before Jesus spoke on behalf of the poor and oppressed, the rejected and outcast. With prophetic tradition, Jesus spoke of the inward sincerity of the heart and authenticity – again, nothing too unfamiliar (though mostly forgotten) to his hearers. And, of course, just like the prophets before him, Jesus spoke of the coming judgment – that evil would be exposed and named for what it was. Finally, Jesus emphasized the coming of a new order of things, a time in which “in that reality, the poor and rejected will be embraced and valued and brought back to the community. In that new era, what will count is what is in the heart – not merely what is projected, pretended, or professed. In that new realm, evil in all its forms will be exposed, named, and dealt with. In that new kingdom, justice, integrity, and peace will overcome” (Brian McLaren, “The Secret Message of Jesus,” p. 23).

Most of the Jews should have known this much already, but only in the sense that it was far out in the distant future. That’s why for many – Nicodemus perhaps being one of them – Jesus’ arrival (and with him, the kingdom) was such a shock. It exposed their unbelief. When John the Baptist announced, “Repent!” (Matthew 3:2), not much of a raucous was raised. But he finished his pronouncement with, “for the kingdom of heaven is near.” What a fool he must have sounded like! Who would really expect the kingdom to be at hand, really? That came as a contradiction to what everyone thought and expected. No one expected the kingdom of God to happen now. “It could only happen then,” writes Brian McLaren, “after the Romans were ejected or eliminated, which in turn couldn’t happen (for the Zealots) until later, after the Jews were militarily mobilized and led by a great military liberator (or messiah), which couldn’t happen (for the Pharisees) until later, after the prostitutes and drunks and other undesirables were either reformed or otherwise eliminated. Put together, these conditions were so hard to imagine actually occurring anytime soon that they were considered (by the comfortably adjusted Herodians and their similarly comfortable friends, the Saduccees) completely improbable, no, practically impossible. The Kingdom of God? Maybe in some distant someday. At hand, here and now? No way!”

Yet it was just a few days later when Jesus strolled right in front of John and John yelled out, “This is the one I meant…!” The kingdom of God, indeed, is near – standing right before him. Standing right before us.

We get to live on this side of that amazing invasion by the King into enemy territory to bring about this new kingdom. And yet, we often do with it the very same thing those contemporaries of Jesus did. The kingdom of God can only happen then, after… fill in the blank. I go to college. Get married. Buy a home. Have children. Accomplish something big in my career. Get more money. Find a community. Be healed or feel better. Beat depression. The list goes on.

We miss Jesus in our midst because of this, and in the process miss everything that he won for us by the kingdom come – his reign and rule, living in the freedom and fullness of a new heart, offering love and invitation and truth to others. Essentially, we are not really living at all unless, and until, we live in and out of the kingdom of God now here, established in and from us by the King and by our Intimate One.

Father God, it’s true. I have bought into the lie that I have to wait until things change or get better before I can really live in the kingdom. I have squandered the most startling and amazing gift ever given that is fully mine to have, fought for and won for me by Jesus – life, life to the full and free and all that it implies: heart intimacy with you and with others, full expression of your character, glory and honor to you, and the beauty and dire need of your kingdom being established here throughout my own home and community. I have missed it. Why… and how in the world…? Forgive me, Lord. Jesus, come again in the fullness of your Spirit and establish me again into your kingdom as a citizen of it and may your kingdom in turn be established here, in, through, and from my heart, my household, and my domain. I give all of myself back to you: body, heart, soul, mind, spirit, strength. I am yours. Reign here. Move here. Speak here. Bring your presence and blessing here. Open my eyes and ears. You have saved the best for now, indeed. I am taken. I love you. I love you. Amen.