"your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
What do these words mean? Over the last 8 years or so of my
existence, they have come to mean everything in my walk with God. They are the reason I am launching this study, even though the situation is not exactly perfect. I have not mastered
Tanahkic Hebrew, nor do own
Baumgarten's four volume lexicon, nor an apple computer with the $400 dollar lexicon/
translater that would allow me to dissect each word to the verb root as I desired when I thought of doing such a study years ago. And the
aesthetics of my surroundings are not quite up-to-snuff. I still do not have that blue cozy chair I have coveted with the ottoman, and my window scene isn't amazing. But it ain't bad anyway, the sun is finally peeking through the dark rain clouds, the street
glistens from the just fallen rain and the leaves are just beginning to turn colors. In addition, there is a
Greek festival up the street with a cup of
avoglomeno soup with my name all over it, and perhaps a necklace or two...
yah!
So, kingdom. here or in heaven? what is God's desire? what did
Yeshua mean by this verse, this prayer? Why should we pray the same way? I feel this verse makes us or breaks us as Children of God. We may not know it for a long time but I think it helps unlock how we are supposed to walk our walk with him. Where we view the kingdom of God shapes our walk - it impacts our actions and how we live our lives. It separates the wheat from the chaff. And what exactly it is is the focus of my study. What did
Yeshua mean by the kingdom of God?
First, lets unpack the actual verse itself, since this will be the starting point of my study.
David Stern notes in the Jewish New
Testament Commentary (which is the only reference book I have at the moment...I'll work on that) that the opening lines of
Yeshua's prayer is similar in style to the
opening phrase of the mourners Kaddish, the prayer that comes near the end of the
Shabbat services on Friday evenings. The
opening of the Kaddish reads "Let God's name be made great (hallowed) and holy in the world that was created as God willed (thy will be done). May God complete the holy realm in your own lifetime, in your days and in the days of all the house of Israel, quickly and soon."
I have always loved the Kaddish. How perfect is it that just at the point where we as an
individual are
mourning our loss, we collectively with our religious community, rise up and praise God. It is not about us, it is about him and his Holy name. For those suffering wrenching grief at the loss of a dear one prematurely, I understand if this does not comfort you. It just puts me in a sense of awe though, that God is sovereign. It reminds me of the time I went to Auschwitz the death camp almost a six years ago at this time but during the days of Awe, and I was crying and upset, asking God those questions everybody asks in times of tragedy, even if they do not believe in the Creator of the Universe - where were you when this
occurred. Why didn't you stop it? I remember so clearly what i heard back (we can talk offline if you have an issue with me hearing things from God - feel free to ask) "I was here."
I'm not going to say I get this answer, or think its fair. I wonder too about a God that would be there among such
awfulness with the
crematoriums burning deep into the night and the suffering...but God is. on earth as it is heaven. Not that heaven is a bunch of brutish
fascists burning people, but we as his followers did not do enough to stop it. there is line where something on earth becomes our responsibility as agents with free will. the holocaust - we did not stop it. global poverty - we have not stopped it. the genocide in
darfur, the brutish acts of the
burmese regime, the murders in Iran...all things we have not stopped. What is a God who gave us free will to do? what is permitted on earth is permitted in heaven; on earth as it is in heaven.
I have this passage from a book i want to share but the husband is not feeling well and sleeping in the room where the book is so I'll post it later. Plus I do not want to dwell too much on the Holocaust. The point I want to end with is that how we view the kingdom of God affects how we live our life and our walk before him. If we think its some magic place up in the clouds with streets of gold, where we get to eat whatever we want and feel no pain, and that its God's job to fix it all. In fact, the worse this place gets, the faster his kingdom of gold and chocolate mousse will come to us - then we are not going lift a finger to make this world better. If the kingdom of God is here on earth, or can be manifested here on earth and we can exercise our free will to make this place better, then we'll live the life of servants. Of course, to pull a C.S. Lewis, it could be neither of these or something in between. it is my hope that by the time this study ends, we'll all have a better idea of what we should be walking towards.
