Thy Kingdom Come.

It’s been four days here in Ballarat, and I must say that it has been a really pleasant sea change from the city. One hour and fifteen minutes through some of God’s breathtaking flatlands brings you into this old gold-mining town. It is really nice when people who don’t know you catch your eye as they pass you in corridors, offer you a smile and help you with directions if you look sufficiently lost (which I do, very often).

This week has allowed me to travel back to the city to share in a really precious moment with a lovely couple back home in Melbourne. We had all taken time off work and travelled to bid farewell to their 20-week-old twin daughters who were born prematurely and did not survive. Words cannot describe how beautiful the occasion was, how touching the speeches, how apt the celebration of their brief lives and how moved we were collectively as a family, as friends and as a church.

All of us milled around at the start, trying to remember the last time we attended a funeral here in Melbourne. For many of us, it was our first time. As my brother aptly pointed out, we are so much more adept at congratulations than condolences.  

Watching the strength and brave good-natured humour of the parents in these difficult times was an encouragement and testimony to all of us present at the funeral. Our tears flowed freely in our collective grief, the hugs long and sustained. I absolutely lost it when they brought the delicate white boxes carrying the girls out of the room. It was just so final.

It was at moments like these when I have to remind myself that we have a God that is good, but He is not safe. That we are not exempt from the trials that face us all, but carry a hope that this is not the end of the story. 

I looked around at the people gathered there that day and I am reminded that church, despite all its flaws and failings, can be an amazing community that rallies in the time of need, both to multiply your happiness in times of celebration, and to lighten grief by shouldering it with you in times of sorrow.

Like many others there that day, I know our lives were touched and would never be the same. How do we live today in the shadow of the very real power of Death, the final enemy that God has yet to overcome?

The Lord’s Prayer says ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Pity us as Christians if all the good we do here is to earn some buddy points with Jesus so that our mansion in heaven one day will be bigger than our neighbour’s. We are the bringers of God’s Kingdom here, today, on earth, as it should be in heaven.

Let us live lives of joy, of encouragement, of generosity, of forgiveness. Let us laugh together freely, weep without reservation, live gratefully. Let us choose community over individualism, trust over worry, meaning over purposelessness, love over intolerance. I can personally say it is easier said than done, but I must try.    

Let us bring life where we can, and usher in God’s Kingdom.