The Impossible Kingdom

2 Kings 15 tells how the northern kingdom of Israel had 6 kings in a span of about 30 years. One of these kings, Shallum, reigned only for one month. Israel was politically and spiritually chaotic throughout it’s separation from Judah; but especially during this time. This chaotic period ends with the total domination and scattering of the northern kingdom by the empire of Assyria.

It got me thinking about how amazing Jesus’ claims of the kingdom of God were. Jesus comes on the scene 700 years after the northern kingdom of Israel falls to Assyria, and he proclaims that the kingdom of God is at hand; and that this is “good news.” To better understand why this is such a radical statement, let’s rewind a bit.

God gives Adam and Eve the responsibility to rule the world as his perfect image bearers. They don’t get very far. In fact, things get really, really bad. Mankind is judged and the earth is flooded. God is going to start over again with Noah and his descendants. They also don’t make it happen. Rather than covering the whole earth and building many nations under the gratefulness of God’s salvation and living under his greatness, man decides to just stay in one place and build one huge city with one even huger tower and make himself great. And so out of the biggest kingdom of that time, Ur (Babylonia), God chooses one man - Abram, descended from Noah (and particularly from Noah’s son, Shem), to go inhabit a land and become the father of a new nation that God himself will dwell with and bless among all the other nations of the world. It takes a long time for this to happen. In fact, it doesn’t happen in Abram’s lifetime. Abram gets a new name, Abraham, and has a son, Isaac. Isaac has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob gets a new name, Israel. Israel has twelve sons. One of them, Joseph, is secretly sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers, who becomes second in command at an important Egyptian’s home then goes to prison but eventually becomes second in command to Pharaoh, also an important Egyptian. Pharaoh thinks Joseph is the bomb and provides for his entire family, including Israel and Joseph’s eleven brothers and their wives and children (that’s a lot of people), recognizing that Joseph was used by God to save Egypt from certain collapse, but the next Pharaoh forgets that important detail of Egyptian history. Then 400 years go by and the house of Israel becomes Egypt’s official plumbers, janitors, pyramid carpenters, statue builders, taxi drivers, and royal tomb builders; AKA, slaves.

At this point, dead Abraham is probably wondering “what about the great nation that was supposed to come from me?” It doesn’t say in the Bible that dead Abraham had these thoughts but there’s no reason to think he probably maybe might have; even though God told him that his offspring would be “afflicted servants” in a land not their own for four hundred years. Apparently, we start to see that God has a plan and seemingly knows what he’s doing (what a concept!).

Moses comes on the scene and escapes baby genocide and gets to go to Egyptian private school. His mom even gets paid by Pharaoh’s daughter to raise him (the first and only mother in history to actually get paid for the job of “full-time home-maker). He graduates with honors but then runs away to be a shepherd in a foreign land after a burst of Hebrew pride overtakes him and causes him to kill an Egyptian and build a sand castle over the body (slightly misconstrued). God uses Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt and into the wilderness where he reveals himself in awesome glory and miraculous deeds and begins teaching them how to be a kingdom that will become a light of blessing to a fallen world. Egypt is sad because bugs have eaten their crops, their cows have died, hail and fireballs have caused some property damage, the male population has drastically decreased; and there aren’t any dirty Hebrews to help them clean up the mess. The dirty Hebrews also aren’t dirty anymore because they took all the Egyptian’s upper class gold and jewelry, and their clothes and sandals are miraculously not wearing out even though they don’t have a portable laundromat. That’s pretty cool. Almost as cool as having mystery bread delivered to your tent at dawn for six days of the week, and miracle water that comes out of a rock in the desert. Despite having all these things and hearing God explain in great detail how to be the most blessed and just nation in the world, the Hebrews decide it’s not cool enough and get really grouchy and rebellious. It gets so out of hand that they give an old guy (Moses’ brother) a whole bunch of gold and he makes a baby cow out of gold. Apparently it was the most awe-inspiring baby cow ever to be fashioned out of gold that the people decide a golden baby cow is cooler than God, so they worship it and have a rave around their new God-Almighty. Did I mention that their new god of choice is a baby cow made of gold? For obvious reasons, God says that these people probably shouldn’t enter the Promised Land and be the kingdom of blessing he has been training them with divine patience to become. Now it’s up to the Hebrew kids and goonies (for an eye-opening definition of “goonies,” check out this link: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091020200854AAqLCx8). Twelve of these Hebrew goonies lead a Spielberg-ian goonies mission into the land of Canaan. Giant grapes are everywhere. Score! Sadly, it logically follows that giant grapes are eaten by giant warrior-people. Ten of the goonie-spies decide now is not a good time to try and take over the land. Moses passes the baton of leadership to Joshua, one of the twelve Jew-goonies. A very modern notion, since at this time, it was still acceptable to have a leader who was a 120-year-old man. Joshua leads the people into the land and with miraculous military success, most of the land is occupied and settled.

Joshua kind of forgets to raise up a leader in his place. The people of Israel now go through a long period of turf wars and cry out to God when they need him but then forget about him after he saves them. FYI, that’s not what a kingdom that is supposed to be a blessing to the entire world is supposed to look like; although, during this turbulent period some pretty cool people kill a bunch of bad guys with a cow-poker stick, tent pegs, left-handed swords (?), and donkey face-bones. In the midst of this era, also known as Israel’s “Scorsese Mobster era”, a really nice foreign lady marries a really nice Hebrew man and have kids, grand-kids, and great-grand-kids. One of these great-grand-kids is a boy with a slingshot named David.

Israel decides to pick a king for themselves. They choose the tallest, handsomest guy in the land named Saul and realize a bit later that it may have been one of those “I just got caught up in the moment” mistakes. Case in point: Saul, being stressed out, needs music to help him relax but ends up trying to impale a boy harpist. The boy who plays harp happens to be David. To make up for playing the harp, he knocks out a professional warrior-giant with a rock and cuts of his head. All other male harp players feel good about themselves on that day. Saul loves David but also hates him pretty intensely and David spends a lot of his life on the run from a bi-polar king, living in caves with a bunch of misfits who fight good. David is so cool that he plays the harp for them and they like it. Saul dies and David becomes king. He unites all of Israel and puts an end to their mobster era and is a national hero. David is the man. But then a really hot lady decides one night that it’s a good night to take a bath on her roof. David gets a free show. He then has his own “I just got caught up in the moment” mistake. One of his sons drives him out of the city and sleeps with all his concubines but dies humiliatingly by getting his head stuck in a tree branch and becoming a human piñata . David’s son, Solomon becomes king, as well as the wisest and wealthiest man in the world. He writes hundreds of fortune-cookie strips and builds a temple so epic that God actually sends his presence to live in it. Everyone gets a chance to see that event.

The kingdom of Israel is finally rockin’ and rollin’! Or is it?

After Solomon, the kingdom splits in two and no king that follows is able to bring harmony back. This also, is not exactly the picture of a kingdom who blesses the world that God had in mind. Some kings are good, most are bad and corrupt. God sends many prophets to help the kings set everything straight again but they tend to not listen. Assyria conquers the northern kingdom. Assyria is conquered by Babylon. Babylon conquers the southern kingdom. Persia conquers Babylon. Miraculously, a young Hebrew woman becomes the queen of Persia and stops an evil plot to exterminate all the Jews. Actually, her uncle does a lot of the work.

The people are eventually allowed to return to Israel and rebuild their cities. Even so, a king is never set up again and the whole Sparta, Greek, Alexander the Great thing happens. Other nations with unmemorable names come and go and eventually the Italians run the show through the Roman Empire. Jewish politicians, religious leaders, and Scripture experts all get promotions and start enjoying upper class life in Jerusalem. And this is the scene that Jesus arrives on.

After all this time, God’s chosen people had never been able to do what God trained them for in the desert under Moses. They’d never been able to successfully become that kingdom that would be radically blessed by God and in turn, bless the world and turn the world to worship God and be united under him. The kingdom of God had not yet become a reality. And after centuries of failing in this responsibility, the son of a carpenter from Nazareth is baptized by an insect-eating guy who lives in the desert wearing a camel toga, and declares that God’s kingdom is very near.

It’s so amazing to think that God built up a nation from one man under the most unlikely circumstances, which became a kingdom, that kingdom split in two, and both were conquered; The kingdom that was supposed to come through Abraham's offspring got continuously smaller and smaller. The probability of this kingdom to be the light and blessing of the world became more dismal and hopeless with each generation yet Jesus’ church has spread throughout the world and millions, if not billions, of people strong.

It's the impossible event, that actually happened.

Booya.