Devotion for December 22 and 23, Year B (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Christ Pantocrator

Image in the Public Domain

The Kingdom of God

DECEMBER 22 and 23, 2023

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The Collect:

Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.

With your abundant grace and might,

free us from the sin that would obstruct your mercy,

that willingly we may bear your redeeming love to all the world,

for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever. Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 19

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The Assigned Readings:

Zephaniah 3:8-13 (December 22)

Zephaniah 3:14-20 (December 23)

Psalm 96 (Both Days)

Romans 10:5-13 (December 22)

Romans 13:11-14 (December 23)

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He will judge the world with righteousness

and the peoples with his truth.

–Psalm 96:13, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

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The language of the Kingdom of God functions on more than one level.  It describes the following, with some germane scriptural passages favoring one definition above the other two:

1. an earthly future when God’s order has replaced corrupt, violent, and exploitative human systems;
2. an earthly place where God’s order has replaced corrupt, violent, and exploitative human systems; and
3. Heaven.

There is also a sense of the Kingdom of God being partially manifest in the present; the Regnum Dei has arrived, yet there is more to come.  In a political sense, the Kingdom of God functions as a criticism of violent, corrupt, and economically exploitative human systems.  Thus, for example, any way in which the Judean monarchy or the Roman imperium differed from the Kingdom of God was a way in which it missed the mark–sinned.

One function of divine judgment in the Bible is to prompt repentance.  Judgment has a purifying function, as in Zephaniah 3:8-20, a vision of a righteous time and place.  The restored, purified remnant of Judah will live faithfully in the presence of God.  Furthermore, the passage says, justice will prevail and shame will be absent and unnecessary.

Those who have benefitted from the mercies of God ought to live accordingly, thanking God with their lives, as grace enables them to do so.  The love of God is universal, so the previous sentence applies to everyone.  To respond to perfect love with as close to that as humanly possible does not constitute symmetry, but God accepts it graciously.  The Kingdom of God, the Gospels tell us, is inside us and around us.  It has arrived partially; its fullness will come in time.  May our lives, by grace, indicate something of that part of the Kingdom of God which is present.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, whom the Roman Empire executed, may we remember that he entered a violent world in which he was a target from the beginning of this incarnated life.  Yet:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

–John 1:5, New Revised Standard Version (1989)

The darkness remains, but so does the light.  And God is the King, despite appearances to the contrary.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

OCTOBER 27, 2014 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF ARTHUR CAMPBELL AINGER, ENGLISH EDUCATOR, SCHOLAR, AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT AEDESIUS, PRIEST AND MISSIONARY; AND SAINT FRUDENTIUS, FIRST BISHOP OF AXUM AND ABUNA OF THE ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX TEWAHEDO CHURCH

THE FEAST OF THE VICTIMS OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/the-kingdom-of-god-2/

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