Gone are the days when we could sit comfortably in our homes, believing that everything is well with the world that we inhabit. We only need to turn on the six o’clock news to be confronted with the daily carnage of fallen humanity. Home invasion, murder, rape, theft, spousal abuse, racism, neighbourhood disputes, and the bank crisis continuously flash across our TV screens like reruns of old movies. Politicians continually rubbish one another, while acting like petulant children in Parliament and during Question Time, so much for the so-called cradle of our democracy. Acts of terrorism, war, genocide, ethnic cleansing and famine enter our living rooms so regularly that we so quickly become immune to the horror that confronts us.
Yet, there is also much good in the world to which we must not become blinded. Because in the time between the times good and evil mingle together. Therefore, we must strive for justice and righteousness, mercy and love, peace and reconciliation as we await the coming of the kingdom in Jesus Christ. Equally, we must continue to pray, as Jesus taught, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).
For as Tom Wright reminds us, “To pay ‘your kingdom come’ at Jesus’ bidding meant to align oneself with his kingdom movement.” Thus, in praying this prayer we are asking Jesus and his kingdom to take over the personal, social, cultural, and political spheres of life from which they are currently excluded. We are also committing ourselves to be part of the movement he initiated at his first coming into the world. Thus, “God’s kingdom is launched through Jesus and particularly through his death and resurrection; but by the Spirit, this kingdom is not an escape from the present world but rather its transformation, already in the present (starting with Jesus’ resurrection) and in the ultimate future (the new heaven and earth, including our own resurrection)” as Wright as so ably pointed out.
Similarly, as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together as God’s people we are called to remember the Lord and proclaim his death until he comes as we participate of the bread, and the wine for Paul wrote, “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11: 25-26). Charles Deems rightly declares, ”The Lord’s Supper has been greatly instrumental in keeping His cause alive. It is the voice of all believers preaching the Lord’s death till He come. He who believes that the Lord did come to die for us, will come again and take us to Himself, and will not hesitate to regard this last request of our Lord and Saviour.”
