ABNY Week

I'm in a rather unique window of time this week. 

Last week, my dad began cancer treatments. It's not a grave scenario, and the non-chemo treatments are for better quality of life rather than trying to stave off his mortal decline. The side effects are not severe, and in his case, manageable and quite minor. But it's still cancer treatment, an ominous reminder of the inevitable degradation of the human body. We get old and eventually die.

On the other hand, this Sunday, I won't be with you all because I'll be at my folks' church with the amazing privilege of baptizing my own mother. Baptism is the most prominent Christian symbol of new birth, new life, and our everlasting existence in the Kingdom of God. The exact opposite of the decay and death of our fallen state. The promise that is needed only because of things like cancer.

And I'm in this week, the middle of these two events in the lives of my own parents. Yet, this week is a microcosm of the era we all live in - somewhere between the inevitable destruction of these bodies and the fulfillment of the eternal promise of everlasting life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

We must not, however, think about the Kingdom of God as something that is only future. There is clearly a great future of enjoying the full Kingdom for all time, with the complete absence of sin, death, sorrow, pain, suffering - the complete absence of the results of being a sinful race. No more cancer and no more cancer treatments and no more side effects of cancer treatments. New, glorified bodies designed to endure forever.

However, the Kingdom of God is also present. Jesus told His own generation that the Kingdom of God was already upon them. At the moment we become members of God's family through faith in Christ, we enter the Kingdom in this era. Our citizenship is in heaven already. We can experience attributes of the Kingdom today. We can live as citizens of the Kingdom this week. Jesus can be our King and reign over every aspect of our lives now. Even while we have things like cancer. Especially because we have things like cancer.

We can also bring aspects of the Kingdom to those God puts us in contact with. Not only can Jesus reign over our lives, but by our influence through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can bring the goodness of our King to our environments, "on earth as it is in heaven." 

We cannot usher in God's Kingdom, and it is not our task to (contrary to what the "Kingdom Now" theologians claim). We can, however, bless those around us with the benefit of the Kingdom's impact on their lives, too.

If you are not yet sure you're a member of this Kingdom already, it would be a privilege for me to talk with you about it.

In this week, between cancer and the sign of new birth into the Kingdom of God, I rest in the already but not yet. I am able to rest because I know I have already entered that Kingdom, and I am convinced that its fulfillment is even more inevitable than the decline of my own body.