This fever is pretty relentless you know.
This is day six and I still feel the effects. Well its mostly gone by yesterday, but the lethargy and the aching is still around.
Oh well. Hope I'll be completely completely completely alright tmr.
Anyway, been meaning to post this piece from The Jesus I Never Knew for a few weeks already lol. Its the last one so here it is =).
The thing is, the kind of kingdom that God wants to usher in is not something that can be achieved by one man, even if the one man is God. Displays of miracles and a show of power as seen in the Bible only caused people to be attracted to the show, and when its over, nothing is gained. God can subject the Earth under his kingdom rule anytime if he wants, but that would involve either (a) intervening with free will, which obstructs the perfect love of God, or (b) cause the kingdom to be nothing like the perfect kingdom He desires for it to be.
So one man, Jesus Christ, could never usher in the kingdom of God himself in the ideal manner. Till today, two thousand years later, there are still unreached regions around the world. But Jesus Christ by dying upon the cross and breaking the chain of sin, set into motion the coming of the kingdom of God.
John 12:24 is the word of Jesus where he says "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."
This is how the kingdom of God will work. And it goes on and on in a chain till kingdom come.
And so, with the Ascension, what is left is us, and our legacy as the extensions of the will of God, to usher in his kingdom.
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Ancient religions, such as the Roman paganism of Jesus' day, believed that the actions of gods in the heavens above affected the earth below. If Zeus got angry, thunderbolts shot out. Like kids dropping rocks off highway bridges onto the cars below, the gods rained cataclysm onto the earth. "As above, so below," went the ancient formula. Jesus, though, inverted that formula: "As below, so above." He who listens to you listens to me," Jesus told his followers, "he who rejects you rejects me." A believer prays, and heaven responds; a sinner repents, and the angels rejoice; a mission succeeds, and Satan falls like lightning, a believer rebels, and the Holy Spirit is grieved. What we humans do here decisively affect the cosmos.
I believe these things, and yet somehow I keep "forgetting" them. I forgot that my prayers matter to God. I forget that I am helping my neighbours to their eternal destinations. I forget that the choices I make today bring delight - or grief - to the Lord of the Universe. I live in a world of trees and telephones and fax machines, and the reality of this material universe tends to overwhelm my faith in a spiritual universe suffusing it all. I look into the blank blue sky and see nothing.
By ascending, Jesus took the risk of being forgotten.
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Jesus knew that the world he left behind would include the poor, the hungry, the prisoners, the sick. The decrepit state of the world did not surprise him. He made plans to cope with it: a long-range plan and a short-range plan. The long-range plan involves his return, in power and great glory, to straighten out planet earth. The short-range plan means turning it over to the ones who will ultimately usher in the liberation of the cosmos. He ascended so that we would take his place.
"Where is God when it hurts?" I have often asked. The answer is another question, "Where is the church when it hurts?"