Reading: Matthew 6,10
Your kingdom come
Reflection: It seems to me that the world is more eager for justice, peace, and joy than ever before. Wherever we look, we see injustice, war, suffering, and pain. Whenever I am overwhelmed by thoughts about this, I end up asking the same question: how did we get to this point? Why am I asking this question again today, as I try to write about this verse from the Lord’s Prayer? Like yesterday, I will say it again: I cannot escape the impression that the text of the Lord’s Prayer aims to put things where they belong.
In one of the stories Jesus tells in the Gospel of Matthew 25:34, the King says to those on his right: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”
The perfect God, in a perfect way, created the being He loved the most – human beings. The perfection of this act was supposed to complement perfect love. The “catch” is that love could not be perfect unless it is a product of the will of the one who loves. To make love perfect, God gave man free will, “the cursed ability to choose,” as a dear thinker puts it. And this brings us to the answer to the question I keep asking over and over again. My question has not been looking for an answer for a long time; it simply expresses my sadness. The sadness that looks back at how it could have been, how it should have been, how it was originally designed, or “since the creation of the world,” as the above verse says.
Humanity has long been tired and exhausted from trying to live the fullness of life in this broken world. We are tired of hoping that new governments and new kings will bring us a better future. We are even more tired of disappointments that are the refrain of human history.
That is why we pray today “…your kingdom come…”, because the deep divine eternity that the Almighty embedded in us yearns from within us to be what the Eternal has envisioned, to put everything in its place, to straighten the twisted paths, to rearrange the disrupted priorities, and to let the only King who is worthy of being called our King reign in us. We pray for the coming of the Kingdom that is not about eating and drinking, but about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. We pray that our tired lives will rest under the mantle of the merciful King whose crown is not golden, but thorny, who does not sacrifice his subjects but gives himself for their redemption.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, Almighty Eternal King, we bow before Your Majesty and marvel as we watch how You reign in love, justice, mercy, and power. We proudly march under Your banner, knowing that we are marching into incorruptibility. We pray for Your Kingdom to come, as it is in heaven, so on earth, so that many may see that there is a King worth following. Amen.
Translated from the Bosnian language by ChatGPT Feb 13 Version