Thy Kingdom Come

Oh, how I long for heaven in a place called earth

Where every son and daughter will know their worth

Where all the streets resound with thunderous joy

Oh how I long for heaven in a place called earth

- "A Place Called Earth," Jon Foreman

At the end of the liturgical year in the Catholic Church, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. It is a time for both celebration and solemnity. This Feast Day serves as an opportunity to rejoice in the knowledge that we serve a merciful God who is king over the nations and forever sits on his holy throne (Psalm 47:8). At the same time, this liturgy and its readings remind us of the coming of Christ and his kingdom, which promises to surprise us like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5: 1-3), and demands a sober watchfulness (Luke 12: 35-40) so that we might guard against sin, worldliness, and anything that might tempt us to turn our hearts away from God and reject his offer of mercy.

An unusual but important question was posed to our church’s congregation one Sunday in the weeks leading up to this Feast Day. This part of the sermon drew silence out of restless shuffling and commanded attention from every listening ear in the pews.

Do we long for heaven?

The light gently refracting off a stained-glass window above the tabernacle and the scent of incense in the old wooden building heightened my awareness of eternal, sacred mysteries. Surrounded by such an atmosphere of reverent beauty, it was easy to let this piercing reflection ruminate in my heart. There was a time not so long ago when I would have found this consideration jarring and unsettling. But as a result of many graces over the past year that have led me closer to the heart of God, I felt both peaceful certainty and stirring desire converge; my answer was yes.

It is easy to become swept up in worldly concerns and anxieties, to let our ambitions, dreams, and hopes for this life drown out God’s call to orient all our desires towards a readiness to spend eternity with him. Prior to this year, I had spent most of my life ignorant of the profound joy of living life on earth with eternity in mind. This was partly because I had set my heart on the things of this world. It was not until successes and dreams I had been working towards dissipated or became irrelevant that I was forced to confront the fact that my priorities were out of order. What’s more, I had not yet fully embraced the truth of God’s love for me, and had not experienced intimate friendship with Jesus in a concrete and lasting way. I imagine that many Christians, like myself, are not living with a longing for God’s kingdom because they have not contemplated or allowed themselves to be consumed by the depths of God’s love. For the reign of God’s kingdom will be a reign of God’s perfect, merciful love. If we have experienced the joy of encountering God's love and mercy here on earth, we cannot help but live with a desire for this experience to be magnified and untainted by sin and sorrow in eternity.

Once we experience a longing for the perfect joy of heaven, the way in which we relate to the world around us changes. When we live with an eternal perspective in mind, we see that the whole of human existence appears to be drawing us deeper into the mystery of the kingdom of God. If we allow it, our eyes and souls can be drawn heavenward in both times of joy and times of sorrow. Beauty and tragedy alike turn our gaze away from ourselves as we search for the meaning of events and experiences we cannot explain with our limited human understanding.

Many are the earthly signs of the heavenly kingdom we were made for: the breathtaking beauty of sunrise and sunset, the thrilling adventure of love, the majesty of snow-covered mountain peaks, the privileged awe of observing the cycles of nature, the catharsis triggered by the swells of an orchestra or the soaring, nuanced vocals of a skilled prima donna. The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1). The one who is Love, Beauty, Truth, and Goodness cannot help but be encountered in all created works which point to the transcendent reality of his divine nature. Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1: 17). When we give thanks for the creature, we praise the creator who fashioned it. We also experience an orienting of our souls towards a fulfilment that has not yet come to pass, a completeness of joy that cannot be fully experienced in a broken world filled with suffering and pain.

And yet, even encountering the brokenness of our world and the weakness and woundedness of each person within it can prompt an awakening of our ache for redemption and restoration. There have been countless times in the past year and a half that I have felt the psalmist’s frequent cry well up from within my own soul: How long, O Lord? How long will mankind be left to its own devices, allowed to pave the road to our own destruction as we disregard the gift of life you have entrusted us with? How long must the cross weigh heavy upon the shoulders of your beloved children and faithful disciples as they follow you along the violent road to Calvary? How long must your church suffer ridicule, persecution, and rejection from without and apostasy and scandal from within? How long must injustice be allowed to go unpunished? How long until lukewarm souls are awakened from their sleepiness and dry bones are restored to life? How long until we shall see your face?

This desire for the kingdom of heaven, if we cultivate it by seeking to know and love the King who longs to be united with us in the eternal realm, is naturally manifested as missionary zeal. Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). Every time we pray the Our Father prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, we are proclaiming our desire for the coming of Christ and his kingdom. We are expressing the ache for the bond of unity with God’s perfect will that original sin destroyed. But beyond that, by praying these words we are committing ourselves to go forth and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). We are reminding ourselves of our baptismal calling to build God’s kingdom here on earth, a kingdom where love, mercy, wisdom, truth, and peace reign in the hearts of all mankind. We are proclaiming our intention to live with a kingdom mindset, seeking to make God’s presence known by witnessing to his love, mercy, truth, and justice. We are making a promise to live and pray in such a way that we may lead others to experience the truth of the gospel and, God willing, the grace of conversion through a profound and lasting encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.

This playlist that I am sharing here, “Thy Kingdom Come,” encompasses all of this and more. It was born out of a growing restlessness in my spirit as the world around me becomes less recognizable and less desirable, and as I see more and more the suffering that humanity is enduring because of the wounding reality of sin. But it was also born out of a place of profound hope and confidence in God’s deliverance of his people, and the assurance the he will execute justice, deliver the oppressed, and reward those who persevere to the end and embrace his mercy with the joy of spending eternity with him in heaven.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8: 18-25).

PLAYLIST HIGHLIGHTS

"Thy Kingdom Come" by Rita Springer

Even in the silence

There's a longing

A turning from ourselves

And bowing down

Back to where faith was the foundation

Holy ground

"The Ocean Beyond the Sea" by Jon Foreman

There's a highway beyond the road Beyond where power is bought and sold And the rich man could never find it By the ocean beyond the sea

Beyond the tyrant Beyond the sirens Beyond the silence I heard a whisper As soft as thunder, as cold as fire By the ocean beyond the sea

"All That Lives Forever" by Steffany Gretzinger

We're travelers here, only passing through

And every breath we breathe is coming back to You

We're strangers here, I know it's true

That death is just a door that leads us home to You

"Feel the Night" by Strahan

Friend I know you see it most

The dark before the dawn feels fierce and it feels close

But may you hear the angel's voice

He said "hold on one more hour to me, will you boy"