His Kingdom is
Forever
It is Saturday evening before Easter 2020. I just returned
from a short drive to drop off something at the doorsteps of a friend’s house.
I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR)[1].
The music was terrific and was played by unknown musicians from their homes with
acoustic guitar and piano. And the comments by the host doing the show from his
home studio in the Brooklyn, NY seeing the rainbow drawn by kids on a wall
while walking his dog reminded of the promise to Noah. It moved me to tears
that I had to double-check whether I was listening to NPR or a new and better
Christian station on the air. A poem appreciated a junk mail leaflet for sale
of sofabeds pondering the work went to produce the sofas, the marketing people,
graphic artists, and it went on to express how much the author misses the
ordinary interactions with people, his drive to work, etc. God is up to
something with people who are on shutdown due to coronavirus outbreak.
In Luke 24, we read Jesus was appearing to His disciples on
the day of His resurrection, the first Easter. Jesus did appear many times in
the days following until the day of His Ascension for 40 days. The central
theme of His encouragement during His appearances focused on the Kingdom of
God. The resurrected Jesus is indeed the Lord and the promised Messiah. The God
of the Hebrews, Yahweh, is indeed the Lord Jesus, the Christ in a resurrected
body. The palpable first fruit of hope of God’s eternal kingdom. This message
needs proclamation starting from Jerusalem, where Jesus was rejected and
crucified to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The witnesses whom Jesus would choose to testify are the remaining apostles who are to stay until the promised Holy Spirit to come upon them. These apostles and rest of the disciples (120 of them in total) remained faithfully in prayer to receive the Holy Spirit, Who would fill them as promised in the Old Testament (OT) on the day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost was a day of feast and celebration of wheat harvest, and special sacrifices were offered in Jerusalem as prescribed in the OT. Also, in Judaism, the festival was associated with the renewal of God’s covenants with Noah and Moses. The Spirit of wisdom, joy, and power would fall upon a church devoted themselves to prayer. What an encouragement to prayer so that the church of Jesus Christ today would be filled with the Spirit of God to bear testimony to God’s kingdom. Prophet Joel envisioned the pouring out of the Spirit of God on people in the context of a plague of locusts on Israel (Joel 1-2) as an impending judgment. But when the people responded in repentance, the Lord heard them and reversed their fortunes, promising them plenty of harvests.
The witnesses whom Jesus would choose to testify are the remaining apostles who are to stay until the promised Holy Spirit to come upon them. These apostles and rest of the disciples (120 of them in total) remained faithfully in prayer to receive the Holy Spirit, Who would fill them as promised in the Old Testament (OT) on the day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost was a day of feast and celebration of wheat harvest, and special sacrifices were offered in Jerusalem as prescribed in the OT. Also, in Judaism, the festival was associated with the renewal of God’s covenants with Noah and Moses. The Spirit of wisdom, joy, and power would fall upon a church devoted themselves to prayer. What an encouragement to prayer so that the church of Jesus Christ today would be filled with the Spirit of God to bear testimony to God’s kingdom. Prophet Joel envisioned the pouring out of the Spirit of God on people in the context of a plague of locusts on Israel (Joel 1-2) as an impending judgment. But when the people responded in repentance, the Lord heard them and reversed their fortunes, promising them plenty of harvests.
We are amid a pandemic during this Easter season. As we look
to the days ahead, let us remember God is calling His church to Himself and the faithful proclamation of the good news of His kingdom and resurrected
Christ as Lord. The people are looking for answers and yearning for connection
with other human beings who are image-bearers of God. May we pray they would
seek the Author of Life. May we also pray as Israelites in Joel’s day in
repentance and faith so that we are filled with joy, wisdom, and the power of
the Holy Spirit to bear witness and that God would heal this pandemic. A day of
celebration of harvests would dawn.
