May Your Kingdom Come

Considering our reading for Lent for today from Luke 22:66-23:1 I want to post the reflections by Tom Wright in his book "Lent For Everyone - Luke."

Hide in the corner as the assembly meets and, if you dare, watch and listen to the most extraordinary exchange. 

They are meeting, let's remind ourselves, because over the course of the previous few days - and, before that, over the previous year or two - Jesus had been doing and saying things that were, frankly, outrageous in terms of the world-views and the hopes of those in power in Jerusalem. 

All of that had come to a head when he had come into the city on a donkey and had challenged their power-base by going to the Temple and throwing out the traders. The best explanation for that is that, like Jeremiah or one of the other old prophets, Jesus was acting out a powerful symbol, which he had then explained to his followers. The Temple was under God's judgment. All its meaning and history, particularly its significance as the place where God met with his people, was now being drawn to a different place. To a person. 

But there's only one person, other than the high priest, who has rights over the Temple. As you hide in the corner and watch the scene, you realize how the connection has been made. It is the king who builds the Temple (think of Solomon), or who has the right to declare its future. And the king means the Messiah, the anointed one. And the Messiah, according to the scriptures, will be the 'son of God'. That's what Psalm 2 had said.
All that, to them, meant rebellion of the highest order. 

These connections would be obvious to them, though we have to think through them to catch their full force. But it all adds up to an explosive cocktail of accusations.
And Jesus does nothing to deflect them. Indeed, he makes matters worse. He alludes to the famous Old Testament passage (in Daniel 7) where 'one like a son of man' is brought to sit at the right hand of God himself. In other words, ins given authority, under God, over the whole world. 

This is the coming of the kingdom of God. 

As Jesus said, he wouldn't be drinking with his friends again until God's kingdom came. This is how he believed it had to happen. 

In the scene in Daniel, four mythological monsters come up out of the sea to attack God's people. The last one is the most arrogant. Then God acts, snatching up the 'one like a son of man' and vindicating him, setting him in authority. 

Jesus had hinted darkly, several times before and in various ways, that all this would come true in his own life story. Now the hour had come.

How often to we misunderstand others? How often do we misunderstand God when we have our own agendas which are not in line with God's plan?

"Lord, today, may Your kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth (right here in our community - and in my life) as it is in heaven."