Your Time Has Come - The Good News of Belonging

At the center of my heart is this place that hurts to be recognized.  One time I was lost in a crowd for a while.  When I saw a face I recognized I was overcome with relief, even giddy joy.  It is not just the familiarity, but just a small sense of belonging that comes with that recognition.  Someone looks at you and knows you and accepts you.

I have been placed in an immense crowd called humanity.  It stretches over the earth and over time.  I find it easy to get lost.  With those little (and not so little) rejections, belonging becomes precious.  Sometimes for the sake of belonging a person can forsake all reason and law.  All left behind for the sake of belonging somewhere with someone.

Perhaps this is what lies at the heart of our obsession with romance.  Perhaps even to belong for a short time, just a date, just one night, we would sacrifice anything.  In those moments a person might find at least distraction or may actually stumble on someone who really "loves" them and will stay with them a while.

When I hear the gospel of Jesus as recorded in Mark 1:15 start with "The time has come," I hear him say, "Your time has come."  No doubt much of what he meant was that God had picked the perfect moment for this good news to makes its appearance on earth.  A time that was ripe for him to overcome so much evil and bring so much good.  No doubt he meant much bigger things than just singling me out for this message.

And yet, could Jesus have also meant something in his message for each person?  "The time has come for you, Matt.  My Father has seen that it is now time for you to make your appearance in human history.  He has great plans and great hopes for you."  Maybe even his hearers understood the gravity of his pronouncement of the greatness of the coming moments of the Messiah but also heard in this man from Nazareth a compelling invitation: "Your time has come.  You belong to God.  You belong with me."

It would not be the first time I have overpersonalized something.  I am likely to take everything personally unfortunately.  God's plans certainly do not revolve around me, but they certainly don't drive over me either.  The one who set  up the universe also had me and every other person in mind.  So I don't think it impossible that people heard Jesus say "You time has come.  Come with me.  You belong with me and I am here for you."

The time had come for the world, yet it hated and rejected him.  Government and religion joined hands with Satan to perform the most horrific blasphemy of all time: the crucifixion of Jesus.  Jesus knew the time had come for the world to have its way.  But his message was not just about that surely.  Surely he looked at the disciples who would follow him to death, the women who would humble themselves before him, the children who would clamor to be blessed and said, "Your time has come.  I am calling you.  My Father and I will take you in."

Maybe Jesus says to each of us, "Your time has come.  You have meaning, purpose, and great things to do.  You can't do it alone.  Come with me and I will always be with you."  The tyranny of the world which makes its mark by rejection and condemnation is over.  Now Jesus has come with a new place for each of us to belong: at his side.  The world will still reject us, but now we have that face we can look into that deeply knows us and lovingly accepts us.  My time has come.  I belong.

Hope in the Kingdom of God: The Gospel

Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. . . .  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  (Romans 8:24b, 25, 26b)

This then is how you should pray:  Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. . . .  (Matthew 6:9)

The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 14:17)

Hope and prayer are tied together.  As Paul writes, "Who hopes for what he already has?"  It is no accident that his next section deals with prayer: "We do not know what we ought to pray for."  The prayer of faith springs from the hope that delivers me:  "That faith and hope that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel."  (Colossians 1:5)

Without hope, faith has no basis.  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  (Hebrews 11:1, KJV)  As an idea gives birth to an invention or a feeling sprouts into a desire, faith stands on hope.  Hope waits for and eagerly anticipates what is not yet seen.  It is not wishing, but joyful anticipation of what is yet to come.  Faith naturally springs from hope as its consequence in the present.  What is truly hoped for is trusted in.

One of the truest expressions of faith in God is prayer.  It acknowledges trust.  If I do not trust, I do not pray.  Prayer without trust, without faith, is just religious babble.  "And do not keep on babbling as the pagans do, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask him."  (Matthew 6:7-8)  How does God know this?  It is not so much because he his omniscient, but because he loves each person so deeply that he knows them so well.  This is the prayer of faith: knowing the God who knows me as a dearly loved child.

Such prayer also springs from hope.  If I do not hope, I do not pray.  Prayer without hope is just fatalism.  It takes the words "Your will be done" in the wrong way.  Instead of joyfully anticipating the work and will of God in this present age, hopeless prayer anticipates abandonment instead of deliverance, predictable outcome instead of joyful surprise, keeping the trinkets of this world rather than acquiring the treasures of God's kingdom, turning away quickly in disappointment rather than waiting patiently for the wonders of God.

Hopeless prayer is like a king's servant who was commanded, "Put this money to work," but on the return of the king says, "I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man.  You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow."  The conclusion of the king: "I will judge you by your own words.  To everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away."  (Luke 19:11-26)  Hopeless prayer receives little and even that little is lost.

So my prayers express my faith and my faith is the substance of what I hope for.  Jesus focuses my hope on the kingdom of God in his model prayer.  His kingdom is not a matter of external matters like food, drink, or mere religious practices, but of living with and in his Spirit who "intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will," in accordance with God's kingdom.  I think that the Lord's prayer is an expression of what I am to hope for.

The good news according to Jesus is this: "the kingdom of God is near."  This is not opposed to other expressions of hope, but stands in concert with them.  Another famous passage of the good news is 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, which can be summarized, "Christ died for our sins.  Christ raised.  Christ appeared."  The King is near as is his kingdom.  He redeems each person from his slavery to sin, defeats all sin and evil through his resurrection, and appears to each person to invite them into his kingdom.

Lord, I have often neglected the hope you have given.  I have wondered about where my faith goes in trials and temptations.  I see now that it goes where my hope lies.  I find myself like a lot of people: without hope.  I see that is also without God.  Please deepen my hope, so I can eagerly await what I do not see.  Amen.

Faith is opposed to sight.  Hope that is seen is no hope at all.  This means not that I need to live in complete ignorance.  Faith is not opposed to knowledge, nor is hope without knowledge, since it lives in those "who have the firstfruits of the Spirit."  No, faith and hope are opposed to sight because what is seen is temporary and passing away.  What is seen holds no hope since it will leave me empty.  It is the God who is unseen that I hope in and his kingdom that rules over all and yet remains holy and hidden in these days.

As Good as Dead

For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit.  (Psalm 28:2)

More and more I see why God had to send the gospel, that is "good news" to me.  There is a strange human propensity to focus on what is miserable.  I guess I am not altogether surprised.  Such continual harping on the evils of the day are an indirect accusation against God.

The Psalmists teach me that such indirect accusations rot in my bones.  They make God silent because I refuse to listen.  I am tempted to bury my head in the sand of my objections, accusations, and cynical statements because they justify my rotten thoughts and actions.  When God remains silent, I wither away.

Occasionally, God is absent because he wants to teach me to draw nearer to him.  He may want to teach me deeper spiritual matters through a "desert time" or a "dark night."  More often, however, God is silent because I  shut him up.  I refuse to receive his comfort and wisdom.  I prefer my own worries and complaints to his help and comfort.  Why?

I guess I get upset that I cannot navigate this life alone.  I get mad that I am dependent on God.  I vent my frustration on everyone around me that I am not the sole object of their respect, concern, or care.

I can learn from these people of prayer in the Psalms that without this "good news" I am as good as dead.  When the Word from God is forgotten, nothing remains except fear and pain.  The gospel teaches that the heart of this universe is not "survival of the fittest" or random movements of molecules, but a Word that communicates love.  God's love is at the heart of this universe.

Something has gone dreadfully wrong with life on earth, however.  But it is not a matter of things "being made that way."  It is a matter of people refusing to accept how things are made.  Like Milton's Satan, it is easier to imagine reigning in hell than serving in heaven.  It is frightening how often we choose to reject the good news of God's love and power made plain and certain in Jesus and embrace a world of mere survival and filling our stomachs.

This wrongness that I run across every day is not what started everything.  This ruin that has occurred could not be what brought everything into being.  Neither will this wrongness finish everything, either.  This is good news.  What I see every day is not what has always been, nor what will always be.  It is a small interruption in something that has no beginning and no end.  Goodness only ends when evil comes.  Goodness and the pleasure of goodness is infinite.  Evil is temporary and fleeting.

God does not remain silent.  He spoke everything into existence.  His very Word that created the universe came and recreated what was broken in that universe.  Renewal is under way, beginning with the hearts and lives of his crowning creation.  It will be completed with all things being made new.  God does not remain silent.  His Word is the final Word.

Lord, I feel myself falling into a pit as I listen to most people talk, including myself.  Faith is forgotten.  Hope is distant.  Love is cold.  But you speak and I am saved.  I praise you.  Amen.


The main thing is not straining my ears to hear God, but unplugging my ears.  C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters that the devil is not so much trying to put things into my mind as much as keep things out.  I want to take more time to just listen.