When asked when the Kingdom He preaches will finally come, Christ answers in a very strange way. On the one hand, it "will not come in a visible way"; it is "in your midst"; it is already growing in those who share in it. On the other hand, Jesus paints apocalyptic pictures of the end of the world, the day when the Son of Man, like lightning, "will flash from one end of the sky to the other."

What does He want to say through this contrast? How can the hidden coming of the Kingdom be reconciled with the thunder, lightning, and fiery rain of the Second Coming? Before us, it is not simply two different pictures of eternity entering our world, but also two ways of life: one can live in vain, "selling, buying, planting, building," drowning out with one's bustling activity the signs of the coming Kingdom; or one can already live in it, or rather bring it into being in life, in relationships with people and with God, cultivating the Kingdom "in our midst."

In the description of how the Kingdom of God comes, the word "left" looks unfamiliar. It is clear that the life of humanity bears little resemblance to what we know from Jesus' words about the properties and manifestations of the Kingdom. But it turns out that the choice for us will be exactly this: either to go into the unknown, or to remain here, but now forever. Enmity, wars, grief, sickness, and death will be eternal, which will please very few people. And one has to choose one of the two.

It seems that only in this way can today's Gospel reading be understood. But the mention of Lot's wife gives us a kind of instruction about how we must leave. Why did she look back then, despite the prohibition? Perhaps it was simple curiosity: what is happening there after you have left, how do they live, how do they die, what do they cry out when fiery rain falls on them? Perhaps it was one last look at the city where she had lived her whole life, with which so much was connected: home, family, children - everything was there, and she was sorry for everything good that had been there. Or it was the ordinary human desire to experience the past one more time, to replay in one's head several times all the fights after which one still wants to wave one's fists and come out the winner. Perhaps there are other reasons as well, sufficient from our point of view, for turning around and looking at what you will never see again. But walking with your head turned back is practically impossible: even if you do not become a pillar of salt, you will break your legs, or even your neck.

Speaking about the Kingdom, Jesus names no dates and points to no places. He says: the Kingdom is within you. The corresponding Greek expression also permits the translation "among you," but this does not change the matter radically: in any case, He does not promise them the kind of Kingdom that the Pharisees who asked the Savior their question hoped to see.

So then, will there be no Kingdom? Is everything only within us, in our hearts? Or among us, in our assemblies? No, of course not. The New Testament books say quite enough to make us look at the Kingdom as a reality on a universal scale. But the Pharisees were asking about something else. They hoped to see an earthly Kingdom. Well, perhaps not entirely earthly. Perhaps one in which a little heavenly would be added to the earthly, just enough for the Kingdom to be revealed to each and everyone as precisely God's, as something that cannot be resisted because not only human but also superhuman forces faithful to God are on its side.

Still, this Kingdom would appear to the world as something completely objective. As something whose obviousness does not depend on any individual person. And the person would only have to accept this obviousness, or oppose the Kingdom and perish. The Kingdom was expected above all as a manifestation of God's power, so that a person would only have to submit to this power, because resisting it is impossible.

Jesus speaks of another Kingdom. Of one that can enter the world only through a person. It makes strong the one through whom it enters. And by its breath it transforms the world, acting from within it through living bearers of the Kingdom. First, the hearts of people; then, the assemblies of the faithful; and at the end of the path and the end of time, the Kingdom in all its universal fullness. A Kingdom that not only conquers people by its power, but also transforms them by its breath. The breath of God's love.