“The Pharisees questioned Jesus as to when the Reign of God would come. He responded to them and said, ‘The Reign of God isn’t something you will see. It’s not something people say “Hey, look over here” or “Check it out, this way.” The Reign of God is in your midst'” (Luke 17.21).
Jesus has left us an unfinished story. It’s as though only a portion of the manuscript was completed and the Holy Spirit now comes to us like an expectant editor asking us to finish it out in the style of the One who started it. He didn’t leave us any notes; so, we’re relying on the draft to give us a sense of where we’re supposed to go, where this tale will end.
And thankfully it’s a collaborative effort. You and I are working—sometimes separately, sometimes together—to figure out the pacing and where the climax falls and, ultimately, how it all ends. Because, this is the story Jesus left us to complete.
Even though, it seems, it’s already finished.
The Reign of God, Jesus said, is not something you’ll see. It isn’t a fixed point. It’s not something you’d be able to point to and say, there it is. Because, it’s already right here in your midst. That, for me, is confusing; because, the Reign of God seems pretty tangible. It’s a realm where the poor are blessed, the grieving comforted. The last being first and the first last seems like something you’d notice. It seems very much like something you can point to and say, “there it is.”
And, for that reason, I don’t see how Jesus could say that the Reign has already arrived. The world around us isn’t like this at all. In fact, I could look down the day’s headlines and find plenty of examples of just the opposite.
But Jesus is wiser than I; so, what is it that I’m missing? How, in this realm where the first are first and the last are last, does Jesus so confidently say that the reign of love has already come and is in our midst? What made him think this story is complete? What makes me think it isn’t?
These words got me thinking about wind. We can point to where it’s been but never where it is, can we? It slips around houses and hills, ruffling our clothes and the leaves above us. It is, Jesus tells us, what the Spirit of Love is like: tangible but invisible, nowhere at all while being all around us.
And, perhaps, this is what Jesus meant when he announced that the Reign of God had come into our midst. Like the late-spring breeze, it slips through every part of our world, filling it and changing whatever it touches. No, it can’t be seen but its effects are impossible to ignore.
Which makes me wonder if, in fact, this manuscript we’ve received is complete after all. It’s not looking to us for a climax or resolution. It’s looking for the characters who have been changed, often by the slightest breath. It wants us to pen our part of the tale in harmony with not only the story itself but the One who wrote every part but the conclusion.
So we might contribute to the story that is without end.
Jesus, when I look around this doesn’t seem like a world your love has made completely new. But you remind me, again and again, that your love permeates the air I breathe and the ground on which I walk. And that same love once shook the earth. As I move from this season to the next, help me to inhale deeply, to let the breeze reshape me so I can be a part of your Reign that invites everyone into its courts.