NOTES for Luk 13:20-21
Before the coming of Christ most of the Jewish believers expected that the Kingdom will come immediately the day of the arrival of the Messiah, that it will be seen by all and each, such that nobody can any more doubt of its reality. Jesus speaks differently: He compares the Kingdom with the leaven, the presence of which is imperceptible at first, and the action takes time. He speaks about the history of the Kingdom, which has already with Him entered the world, but did not yet reveal itself in it to the end, then at the beginning of its history one can completely not notice it at all, as if nothing changed with the arrival of the Savior. For many, His words seemed probably strange and incomprehensible: why, If He Himself has already brought all the fullness of the Kingdom in the world, a certain time was still needed for this Kingdom to reveal itself. Why not to reveal it all on the very day of His arrival?
If the Kingdom that Christ brought into the world was such as expected to see it most of the believers, everything would have really happened that way. Indeed, most of those who waited for the Messiah and for the Kingdom, waited for something completely earthly, even if built differently than the heathen States, but existing by the same earthly laws, by which exist all human societies. The laws of the messianic Kingdom had to correspond to the Torah, the Messiah Himself had, unlike the heathen rulers, to be a righteous King, and for the rest nobody waited for anything particular from the Kingdom, if of course we do not consider the miracles, which, as expected many believers will spill abundant flow on the Messiah and His Kingdom. Such a Kingdom could have really appeared, if it is not suddenly, then fast enough, within the life of a generation.
But Jesus spoke about another Kingdom, which had to cover the whole world, having beforehand transformed it in a way that it receives the possibility of living according to other laws. Time is needed for this transformation, that is why the Kingdom has in our world being transformed its own history, about which speaks the Savior comparing the Kingdom with the leaven. Is it possible that there was an immediate transformation of all the creation the day of the arrival of the Christ? Probably, yes: because for God nothing is impossible. But the chance to enter the Kingdom would then have been only to very few chosen ones. But God wants to save if possible everyone, and thus, the chance must be also given to each of those who are destined to be born on earth. And time is needed for that, about which says the Savior. Time, which in such a situation becomes the practical manifestation of God's love to each of us.