My Kingdom v. His Kingdom

Thanksgiving came as early this year as it can come, which among other things means that there are more shopping days between Black Friday and when Santa Claus comes as possible. It also means that if you use a real tree for your Christmas tree and typically put it up the week of Thanksgiving – you need to come up with a plan to keep it going for a week longer than usual. 

For those of us who are believers, this season can create all sorts of internal conflicts. We know that Christmas is actually about the coming of Christ into the world to redeem God’s creatures and God’s creation. We know that because He came – “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” as John says – the season of Advent (that begins next Sunday on the Christian Calendar) can truly be about preparing for His reappearing in glory. We even know that He is King of a kingdom that is not of this world, as John 18:36ff so powerfully says.

But we also know and experience the reality of living in this world as we wait for the reappearing of the King in glory. You don’t need me or anyone else to tell you that can be a challenge!

Think about it. For some of us, our personal preference wasn’t elected in the recent election cycle in our country. That could be the candidate I wanted to be President of the United States or the candidate I wanted to be County Coroner and a whole hosts of other offices. For others, our favorite football team, the one that began the season with all sorts of promise, isn’t even bowl eligible, much less in line for a national championship. Then there are those who stood in line for hours in anticipation of Black Friday sales – we even missed our family’s Thanksgiving Dinner – only to discover that the last of the sixty inch, HD, flat screen televisions at Walmart was given to the person in front of me in the line. Then there’s my friend who put her 23 pound turkey in the kitchen sink on Thanksgiving morning, and the sink collapsed down into the cabinet.

Life in “my kingdom” can get a bit messy. I haven’t even mentioned the price of gas, the unemployment numbers, how many foreclosures happen in Georgia every day, and the cost of college tuition. We can’t forget the challenging issues associated with the cost of health care, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. 

And don’t forget, while you’re on this journey to realizing that “my world” isn’t all that it is cracked up to be – that the Middle East, ever a bit testy, is in one of those very testy moments that makes even the most optimistic among us stagger with cynicism. Just thinking about what in the world (this world) is going on in Egypt is enough to give one a bit of a pause.

In the Christian Calendar, the season of “Ordinary Time” comes to an end with the Sunday before Advent. This particular Sunday is sometimes called “The Feast of Christ the King,” and because Thanksgiving was so early this year, was actually this past Sunday. The Feast of Christ the King celebrates the reality that Christ truly is King, and “His Kingdom” is not deterred by “my kingdom.” 

Listen to Jesus in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

In response to the question of James and John about their own place in His kingdom, Jesus reminds them that “His kingdom” and “my kingdom” are not the same. Why? Because in “His Kingdom,”  we follow a King who said, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

How will that work out when all is said and done? Pretty well,  at least if you allow Paul to offer an answer. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

But in “My Kingdom” there is always this sense of how could this be. Again, Paul comes to the rescue by reminding us “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17) Apparently the King of this other Kingdom, the one not of this world, is able to hold this world together, even if it seems like “my kingdom” is falling apart all around me.

We are on the longest possible journey from Thanksgiving to Santa Claus right now. It will, no doubt, have a few ups and downs that can thrill us and challenge us. We are living this out on “this fragile earth, our island home,” fully aware that there is tension between “my kingdom” and “His Kingdom.”

May that tension be tempered and tuned by our confidence that “when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)