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The First Sunday In Lent
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted of Satan; Make speed to help thy servants who are assaulted by manifold temptations; and, as thou knowest their several infirmities, let each one find thee mighty to save; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The First Sunday In Lent
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A Sermon by
Fr. Andrew
✛
Thy Kingdom Come
It was a month or so ago that this course began with a fine foundation-sermon by my colleague Father Victor Austin explaining prayer itself. It was clear, brief to the point of sparseness. I was helped as I listened. And I remembered the simplicity of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who in a three-part broadcast in Britain entitled The Meaning of Prayer laid the bones bare and helped a lot of people. Prayer, he says, is God’s presence and nearness making itself real to you. His nearness elicits your prayer from you.
Between them, they have set us here a fine example. I am required to explain the phrase in the Lord’s Prayer which he uses: “Thy Kingdom come.” (Matthew 6:10)
Remember what Christ says and says again: “I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” (Luke 4:43) That is Christ’s inescapable obligation. “The Kingdom.” What does he mean by the Kingdom? What does the good news consist of? It isn’t a phrase that makes itself easy to grasp. Remember what Christ says of his Father. “The Father and I are one.” That is the claim for all the authority Christ wields. “He spoke with authority,” we are told, “and not as one of the scribes.” But this authority goes far beyond the understanding of the most learned scribes and teachers of Christ’s day. When Christ begins to teach the people he sounds as if he has come from another planet. Well, in a way the scribes might say he has though he hasn’t. So all the learned wisdom, all the accepted wisdom of the history of the People of God is left standing as he moves out into new realms of understanding of what God’s will is for his people.
God’s Kingdom, God’s sovereignty, is where his will which is his love is freely accepted and fully acknowledged by souls grateful for it and strengthened by it, their individual loyalty constantly renewed by it and their joy deepened in response to it. This is what Christ is opening up as he speaks of the Kingdom awaiting them. He himself personifies it in his affirmation of the oneness he enjoys with the Father as he teaches his friends to talk to the Father in what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy Kingdom come” is the cry of welcome and submission from a heart alive and alight to the Creator’s love that “makes the world go round,” “un-resting, un-hasting and silent as light; nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might,” as the hymn says. When we accept God’s mighty love for us, we realize we are born in his image. His will is being done in us as we take up the song of his love to welcome his Kingdom into our lives.
His Kingdom, his realm, his guidance takes hold of us. St. Paul put it like this: “Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect.” (Romans 12:1)
Transformation. It’s what happened to Paul himself. The Kingdom of God is embraced by him. He can shout his acceptance of it by proclaiming, “All I care for is to know Christ, to experience the power of his resurrection, and to share his sufferings, in growing conformity to his death, if only I may finally arrive at the resurrection from the dead….” (Philippians 3: v10-11)
What a challenge for us as we prepare to try to offer something to our loving God this Lent! And to return to the Lord our God in Christ whose Father and Kingdom we pray to embrace us, and make us citizens of Heaven!
