What Kingdom? Where?

During the holidays awaiting a feature presentation, I watched numerous trailers for upcoming films sensationalizing apocalypse, end-times, doomsday, fantasy, lots of killing and destruction. Why are these films so popular, attracting billions of dollars? Though they’re forms of entertainment, I think there is more. The creative world is fascinated, searching for meaning, an archetypical savior … or … perhaps many are losing hope consuming their despair in entertainment to forget about life for a while as the Piano Man sings. Not unlike other periods in our history, we live in uncertain times, times of chaos, greed, ugliness, terrorism … most of which do not make sense. Are we searching for the promised land … ultimate peace… heaven … the kingdom? What does it look like? Where is it?




I’ve imagined the kingdom to be somewhere “out there.” I’ve watched films featuring it. I’ve heard others describe what they hope it will be. The more I searched the less satisfied I became to the point of considering the kingdom is a place of pure fiction … until I realized. I am in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is at hand! Ponder It!!! It is in … the deep guttural laughter shared with friends over a cold brew … the music, our relationship that moves my daughter and I do dance with reckless abandonment on the deck on a Spring eve … the peace in silence of children sleeping knowing I love richly … my spouse’s embrace or time with a good friend I wish would never end after a trial has threatened us … the sweat of a rigorous ride, game, run … technologies I enjoy, but have no understanding of how they work … the joy I have given or restored momentarily with a warm meal or clothing … the intense satisfaction of a project well done … the smile of a total stranger who momentarily breaks my guard … the spirited lyrics bursting in song creating memories I hope to recreate some future day … the presence of being with men, friends and thinking genuinely to myself “It is good to be here.” (words echoed by some confused guys at the Transfiguration. Look it up!) They are moments I want to pause ... to get lost in ... freeze in time!

I know what you’re thinking. In a couple weeks, you’re going to hear Jesus say the Kingdom is at hand. He never said it was complete, far from it. We know brokenness, inconsistencies. These overwhelm us … hiding the kingdom present to us … and we fall back to fantasy once again. The Kingdom is not only “beyond” it is here and now. We have been invited at table … to the banquet … to cast our nets … to drink the wine and eat … to dance in the streets … to climb the mountains … to walk the shores … to emerge from the muck … to be in the Kingdom. 

More exists far greater than I can imagine. Mystery reveals elegance in nature and the sciences, in music and the arts all the time, the infinite … the incredible … the unconditional. The Kingdom is at hand! How many times did Jesus retreat into the mountains to pray, to be in the awesomeness, the vastness, the peacefulness of creation?


Am I co-creating with God as I and everyone in creation have been invited to do? We have moments … glimpses. How do we share them? How do we create, make them multiply? How do we spread them? What extensions do we make beyond our comfort zones? … or do we stay within the laws of conservation and bury them? … or are we too tied up in life that we waste the Light upon us without even knowing we are in the Light?