CHRISTIANS ARE A PECULIAR FOLK . We live in two worlds, despising and despairing the one, while both waiting and seeking the other. The world below has had its beauty permanently tarnished and its best hopes stripped away, and all of this by destructive human interaction. This has blemished both the natural world and the world of relationships between peoples at every level. Even as our latest scientific achievements reveal further secrets of the far-flung cosmos, the escalating tensions in all the world cultures seem to push the boundaries of heaven further and further from our needy grasp. We are in paradoxical tension, with the force of something greater than gravity anchoring us to a decaying earth even as the swelling force of the God’s Spirit within our human form, like helium in a balloon, strains upward towards an unrealized heaven
This sense of longing is not new; it is a common thread that works through the people of God in each generation. In Isaiah’s time, those people longed to see the God of deliverance come in power yet once again. Isaiah asks, “Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them, who sent his glorious arm of power?” (Isa. 63:11-12) In Jesus’ time, he is asked, “when the kingdom of God would come.” (Luke 17:20) He responds, cryptically to those asking, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
Jesus then continues explaining how this is, or will be, but only to his disciples. He starts by warning them, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.” (Luke 17:22-24) This warning is not just for his disciples for that time, but literally for all of linear time during this extended epoch of the now-but-not-yet kingdom of God. He continues to describe what this-world circumstances will be like at the actual coming of the kingdom, comparing them to pastimes and past times well-known. Whether in the time of Noah, or the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, when “People were eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, planting and building,” (Luke 17:26-29) says Jesus, “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” (Luke 17:30) On the day when “Noah entered the ark, the flood came and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:27) Similarly, “The day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:29)
And on that day, Jesus warns all disciples: “No one should go back in their house to get possessions. Two people will be in one bed; one will be taken. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” (Luke 17:31-35) We picture the disciples of that time standing at the edge of a village, homes in one direction and fields in the other. Jesus, the master of story-telling and metaphor, has riveted their attention with spiritual insight beyond their natural faculties of vision.
Overcome by the urgency of expectation, they ask a hesitant question: “Where, Lord?” (Luke 17:37a) We don’t know if their question addresses the ones taken, or the ones left behind. Jesus’ answer, however, clarifies a view not of the upper realm, but the lower. “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.” (Luke 17:37b) Clearly, the coming of the Son of Man and the realization of the kingdom of heaven are not a day to be rejoiced in by the people of the lower kingdom. As in Noah’s time, or Lot’s time, or Jesus’ time, or our time, the ancient prophecy comes true at its appointed time.
The ultimate time, however, will be addressed by “an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, ‘Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.’” (Rev. 19:17-18) It will be just like this for the people of the kingdom below.
Not so for the family of God, the faithful followers of Jesus Christ, who are assured of the kingdom above. He speaks of our position in his grace during his Sermon on the Mount, book-ended in the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3, 10) He who spoke this also says, “I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:2-3)
Q. How long will I stand between two worlds?