NOTES for Luk 17:20-21

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.

The account of what the Kingdom of God looks like and how it acts is understandable to any person if, strangely enough, one does not speak about the Kingdom. When we seek emotional comfort for ourselves, other people's recipes rarely work. If we feel very bad, we will of course throw ourselves at the words "there you will feel good." But the situation will not change for the better until we change from within. Once our inner state improves, problems that yesterday caused anguish and sorrow already seem not so hopeless today. Everything becomes easy for us. True, moments of illumination rarely last long and never last a whole life.

The Kingdom's effect on our life is immeasurably stronger, because the Kingdom is eternal and God's presence within us is constant. Jesus described this same fact elsewhere in the words: "Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for My yoke is good, and My burden is light." We fear the Cross, fear submitting ourselves to God's will, fear being with Him. If we let the Kingdom inside ourselves, the Cross, the Will, the yoke, all this will remain. Only we will look at all this without fear, and with joy.

Throughout all three years of His earthly ministry the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about what is concentrated in condensed form in these words, but He finds understanding in few people. Even after the Resurrection and Pentecost this revelation remains one of the most difficult to understand in all Christianity. The fact that the Kingdom of God will not come in an observable way for some reason very often disappoints us, and we try not to think about these words. The reason may be that from these words of the Savior it follows that outside us, in the world in which we live, we will see not stirring and beautiful manifestations of the Kingdom of God, but grief and suffering. Only in our own heart does the Holy Spirit grant us consolation and the experience of the presence of the Kingdom of God. And this is very difficult, and to accept it means accepting Christ's word that whoever wishes to follow Him must take up the cross.

Yet the Lord hardly wanted to disappoint us when He said this. On the contrary, in these words He opens to us an amazing hope. The coming of Christ's Kingdom in power and glory is possible only at the end of time, when God's judgment sums up history. But the Lord says that the very coming Kingdom, which the prophets see as the completion and goal of history, is already given to us today not as a promise, but as an accomplished fact. This Kingdom is within, deep in people's hearts, and often it is unnoticed not only by those around them but also by the person himself, and the Lord warns His disciples about this as well. But it already exists; we are already its inhabitants; it is already manifested in our heart and our life.

The Kingdom of God differs from all earthly states known to us first of all in that all subjects of this Kingdom obey the King directly. In the Kingdom of God there is no place for what our current language calls a "vertical of power," because it is needed only in an earthly state. This immediacy of each person's relations with God is the great gift of the Kingdom, sharply distinguishing it both from the Old Covenant and, still more, from everything pagans could imagine. Precisely because God opens His Kingdom within people, in their hearts, it already here and now becomes for us the source of life, what Christ calls "a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

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."

Today's reading continues the theme of the Kingdom in its eschatological aspect. In this case the subject is not a description of the end of time as the completion, or rather the rupture, of the historical process, but the very moment of the Savior's return and the final triumph of the Kingdom, apart from dates and concrete history in general. But the becoming of the Kingdom takes place in two stages: in the first stage it remains unseen, so that only a few know about it (vv. 20-21), and only later does it become visible to everyone; this visible manifestation of the Kingdom for all is the essence of the second stage (vv. 22-37).

It should be noted that in the first stage the Kingdom abides not only in the hearts of those who remain faithful to it, but also in their gatherings (the corresponding Greek expression can be translated not only as "within you," but also as "among you"). In fact, this first stage is unfolding before our eyes. We live in the age of the coming of the Kingdom, which has not yet revealed itself in all its fullness. And today's reading reveals to us the meaning of the Church's existence, which the apostle Paul calls "the body of Christ": it comes down to bringing the Kingdom into the world. Christianity is not a new religion and not a new morality, and Jesus is not a religious reformer or a teacher of ethics. He created neither a new theological school nor a new religious organization. He left in the world only a community of people who would live one life of the Kingdom with Him. The Church was founded by Him as just such a community. That is why bringing the Kingdom into the world turns out to be the Church's main task, and all its other activity is only forms and ways of solving this main task.

At the end of time, when the invisible becomes obvious to everyone, the Church becomes the spiritual core of the new, transformed world. And this end does not come naturally, not as the logical completion of the historical process, but as its rupture, as a supernatural event and therefore unexpected for everyone. The Kingdom cannot triumph by a natural path in a world spoiled by the fall and lying in evil; it can include that world in itself only by radically changing and renewing it, and such a process cannot pass smoothly, without affecting anyone or causing anyone trouble. Such a thing would be possible only if every person in the world accepted the Kingdom. But a person is free in choosing, and God does not predetermine anyone's fate. That is why the world is divided into those who are "taken" and those who are "left." The triumph of the Kingdom is predetermined, but each person chooses his own fate.

Today the Lord speaks to us about readiness—readiness to meet Him face to Face. On the day when He appears, the world will be occupied with its ordinary affairs. Yet we too have ordinary things that we must do each day—we need to eat and drink, buy and build. How, then, are we to be ready for the final meeting? Here the Lord recalls the rescue of Lot from Sodom (Gen 19)—he too lived in that sinful city, ate and drank, bought and sold. Nevertheless, he was different from the other townspeople. Lot lived there as a sojourner, by his own laws rather than by the customs of the Sodomites. This is what the Savior means when He says, “The Kingdom of God is within you”: although we do not see His face, we live by the laws of His Kingdom already now, in this life. These are the laws of faithfulness to God (so as not to become like Lot's wife, who turned into a pillar of salt), service and self-giving (so as to renounce one's own life and thereby bring it to life), and love for those around us (for Lot was saved because of his hospitality).