come near

 

‘As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”’ Jesus

‘The kingdom of heaven has come near’ means that the very life of God — the life that creates and redeems and sustains all life — is reaching out to us, is made available to us, that we might know life in all its fullness. That the character, power, and resources of God might shape our lives, enabling us to be not superhuman but simply, astonishingly, fully human.

Are you anxious? It is possible to know peace.

Are you in a position to administer justice? It is possible to be strengthened to do what is right even when it is hard, even when it is not expedient.

Are you on the receiving end of injustice? It is possible to know that long-suffering endurance that transforms anger into resilience and restrains us from adding our own wrongs to theirs.

Is your body and/or mind shattered by pain? It is possible to know the wholeness of being held together, by love.

Are we struggling to forgive ourselves, or someone else? It is possible to know forgiveness.

Do we grieve the loss of a loved one? It is possible to know what it is to be comforted.

Has the life you hoped for come to a tragic end? It is possible to receive a new life, and even to flourish within it.

The kingdom of heaven has come near. That is good news, wherever we find ourselves. Whatever life looks like in this moment, or season. Good news, in a myriad of ways.

If you have ever known life, known your life renewed or given back to you or simply still here against all the odds, you have experienced the kingdom of heaven drawn near, whether you realised it or not.

Not that this is easy. It is neither a magic wand that erases difficulty nor a drug that numbs us. It is a daily dependency on a higher power, on the highest power, on power given away to others, made perfect in human weakness.

But it is good news, worth proclaiming.