If any of you are Will Ferrell fans, you may be familiar with the 2006 film, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Ferrell plays the role of Ricky Bobby, a dimwitted daredevil who is also the most successful driver on the NASCAR circuit.
In typical Will Farrell fashion, Ricky Bobby is morally and ethically bankrupt. The only things that matter to Ricky Bobby are winning races and self-indulgence.
But Ricky Bobby is religious, after a fashion. He even prays when it suits his desires. In one scene he is saying grace before a meal. He prays, “Dear Tiny, Infant, Jesus . . .” And he continues to address Christ throughout the prayer as “Lord Baby Jesus.”
Finally, his wife and his father-in-law decide to interrupt him as he prays to the Lord Baby Jesus. Carley, his wife, says “Hey, um, sweetie . . . Jesus did grow up. You don’t always have to call him baby. It’s a bit odd and off-puttin’ to pray to a baby.”
To which Ricky Bobby replies, “Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I’m sayin’ grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want.” (1)
It’s a bizarre sequence, but also quite revealing. I suspect that many of us would prefer to keep Jesus as a baby. Many of us would agree with Ricky Bobby that the Christmas Jesus is best. The Christmas Jesus is no threat to our adolescent views of the universe or our self-serving views about faith. Christmas Jesus is soft and huggable. He says nothing to us about taking up a cross or saving a dying world.
But “Tiny, Infant, Jesus” isn’t the only portrayal of Jesus in the movie. Ricky’s elderly, long-suffering father-in-law Chip has his own ideas about Jesus. Chip describes his Jesus like this: “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt. ’Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I’m here to party too. I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.”
Jesus in swaddling clothes or Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt these are visions of a Jesus who never challenges us, never provokes us, never paints a picture of what we can yet be.
From the very beginning of his Gospel Mark gives us a picture of a grow-up Jesus. Mark says nothing about Jesus’ birth. Instead he begins with Jesus’ baptism at the hand of John the Baptist. Then, Mark says to us, “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”
This is significant. John the forerunner had done his job which was to prepare the people for the coming Messiah. Now his work was done and Jesus’ work was beginning. “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”
The Kingdom of God has come near. That is a message that our generation needs to hear. The reign of God in human life is near. No longer can we act as if God doesn’t matter in our world . . . No longer can we act as if justice and righteousness are irrelevant in our modern society . . . No longer can we act as if life has no meaning and that there is no hope. The Kingdom of God is nearer than it has ever been before.
Here’s something for you to think about. Did you know that there are serious scientists who are saying to us that we are on the cusp of changes in our world that over the next three decades will render our world unrecognizable to earlier generations? For example, advances in medicine and technology, particularly computers and robotics, may produce a world in which human life is extended for hundreds of years. These scientists are saying that many of the limitations on our physical bodies may eventually be eliminated.
For example, did you see that the opening kick of the World Cup last summer was delivered by a man who is a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down? How does this happen that a man who is paralyzed from the waist down runs up and kicks the ball to open this great worldwide competition? It was because he was wearing a contraption, called an exoskeleton that allowed him to move his legs. But here is what is impressive. The exoskeleton was operated by his brain. Mentally he told his legs to move and they moved. Thanks to this new technology, this man’s legs operated almost as if he had been miraculously healed. Doctors tell us in the not-too-distant future thanks to advances in medicine and technology the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk.
You say, what has this got to do with the Kingdom of God advances in science are man’s doing, not God’s? Who’s to say that God doesn’t work through people? Who says that God doesn’t work through scientist and software engineers, as well as doctors and teachers, and even common laborers? I personally believe God does work that way. Who’s to say that the Kingdom of God is not drawing near?
The Rev. Martin Singley wrote a sermon which appeared on the Internet a few years ago in which he shared some of his thoughts about the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven the terms are interchangeable in the New Testament. He wrote, “I used to believe that Heaven was a place to go to when you die. Before I read the newspapers. Before I moved to the Bible Belt. And before I met Dan.
“Dan was 19 or 20 years old. Brilliant athlete who went off to college on an athletic scholarship. Great intellect. Had such a bright future. One day, Dan came home from college on vacation and got together with some old high school friends at the town park. They popped a few beers, told a few jokes, and about midnight decided to go swimming in the town pool. Dan was the first to dive in.
“But in the darkness, he couldn’t see that there wasn’t any water in the pool. In one instant, Dan’s life was changed forever. When I met him, he was a bitter, distraught, wheelchair bound quadriplegic struggling to make it through each day. On the one hand, he feared that he might die, and on the other hand, he feared he might have to live this way forever. How sad it was to watch Dan blow into a tube to make his wheelchair move left or right or start or stop.
“Dan’s tragic circumstances made me re-think my views about Heaven.
“You see, it’s all well and good that some day, when Dan dies, he can experience the freedom and new life of Heaven. And what a beautiful day that will be!
“But what about in the meantime? You see, Dan does not only need Heaven tomorrow!
“And when I understood that about Dan, for the first time I heard the Gospel of Jesus in a different light.” (2)
Pastor Singley is right. Dan needs the Kingdom of Heaven in his life today! Dan needs to know that God cares about him in an intimate and personal way today. He also needs to know that God is at work through dedicated men and women working to reverse his situation. Someone needs to tell him that miracles are occurring every day. He should not give up hope. And he needs to know, above all else, that by the power of God his life can still have meaning today. The Kingdom of God is near to those who will hear Christ’s message and believe that message.
Indeed, the Kingdom of God is not just “here,” it is “now!”
Contrary to the teachings of many, Christianity is not a religion primarily concerned with life after death. Christianity is concerned with life here and now. Its message is not about dying, half so much as it is about living. Christianity is not nearly as concerned about the Last Day as it is this day! “This is the day that the Lord hath made” (Psalm 118:24).
The late Paul Harvey once told a humorous story about an executive in Kilgore, Texas. This executive did much work in England and was constantly going back and forth to Great Britain. He liked the British culture so much that he even imported a British secretary.
Once, when this executive was on a business trip to England his office in Texas received a phone call. His secretary answered the call and told the caller, “Oh, Mr. so-and-so, apparently you haven’t heard Mr. Allen has gone to the United Kingdom.”
The caller said, “I am sorry. Terribly sorry. Is it too late to send flowers?” (3)
Well, the United Kingdom, of course, is another name for Great Britain. But there are many people who think that when Jesus talked about the Kingdom, he was talking about Heaven, some day in the sweet bye-and-bye. He was not. He was talking about a Kingdom of the here and now. On one occasion he told us not to worry about tomorrow. It is today that really matters.
The Kingdom is at hand right now, so don’t put off your living until tomorrow. Experience God’s love in your life right now. The Kingdom is near, and the Kingdom is now. “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”
Thus we see the two ingredients which are necessary to experience this Kingdom.
The first is repentance. If you are not experiencing the Kingdom of God in your life right now, ask yourself if there is anything unhealthy in your life that you need to do something about. Any relationship, any way you spend your time. The Bible is clear; your soul is not big enough for God and sin. One or the other must go.
Ed Young in his book, Been There. Done That. Now What? tells a graphic story about the famous journalist Malcolm Muggeridge. It is a story that Muggeridge himself shares in his autobiography titled The Wasted Years.
Muggeridge was faithful to his wife throughout their marriage. But in the back of his mind he knew that if the right opportunity ever presented itself, he would break his vow of faithfulness, just for the experience. That opportunity presented itself in India where he had been invited to teach, far away from his wife and family. Early each morning, he took a swim in the Ganges River. On one such occasion, he saw a woman a distance away bathing herself in the river. He knew this was the moment. “What could it hurt? Who will know?” As he began to swim upstream to her, he struggled, not just against the water, but against his conscience: “Malcolm,” a voice inside him said, “don’t do it.” But then another voice countered, “This is your chance. It’s now or never.”
He continued to swim toward her, staying underneath the water until he was only a few feet away. When he surfaced, however, it was he, not she, who experienced the shock of a lifetime. He came up out of the water and looked into the eyes of a woman who was . . . a leper. Her nose, he said, was eaten away. There were sores and white blotches all over her skin, and the ends of her fingers were gone. Immediately he thought, “What a wretched woman she is,” but almost at the same moment he was overwhelmed with another devastating truth: “What a wretched man I am!” (4)
The wretchedness of a person with sin in their heart cannot be overstated.
In his book I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that many of us have the misconception “that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior.” He goes on to say, “It is revival without reformation, without repentance.” It is an illusion. It can’t be done. Again, there is not enough room in your soul for God and for sin.
So the first requirement is to repent. The second is to believe the Good News. What is the Good News? It is that “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Everlasting life doesn’t begin in the far off unknown. It begins the moment you give your heart over completely to God. It is then and only then that your guilt, fear, anger and a host of negative thoughts and emotions can be washed away. At that moment you begin living in the Kingdom of God. Then life offers possibilities that you cannot now imagine.
Let me tell you a true story, but a story that can be a parable of the Kingdom.
It’s about a young woman named Eleanor Sass. When Eleanor was a child, she was hospitalized for appendicitis. Her roommate was a young girl named Mollie, who was injured when an automobile hit the bicycle she was riding. Mollie’s legs had been badly broken, and, though the doctors performed several surgeries, Mollie faced a strong possibility that she would never walk again. Quite naturally, Mollie became depressed. Her depression caused her to become uncooperative, and she cried a great deal. She only seemed to perk up when the morning mail arrived. Most of her gifts were books, games, stuffed animals all appropriate gifts for a bedridden child.
Then one day a different sort of gift came, this one from an aunt far away. When Mollie tore open the package, she found a pair of shiny, black, patent‑leather shoes. The nurses in the room mumbled something about “people who don’t use their heads,” but Mollie didn’t seem to hear them. She was too busy putting her hands in the shoes and “walking” them up and down her blanket. From that day, her attitude changed. She began cooperating with the nursing staff and soon she was in therapy. One day Eleanor heard that her friend had left the hospital and the best news of all, she had walked out, wearing her shiny new shoes! (5)
What happened to Mollie that allowed her to walk out of that hospital toward a new life? Those shiny new shoes gave her hope. They became a source of strength and a change of attitude that affected her emotionally and even physically. Repenting of our sins and believing the Good News of God can have the same therapeutic effect on our lives. We can experience God’s Kingdom in our lives here and now.
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
1. Adapted from a sermon by The Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell, http://day1.org/1109-our_first_calling.
2. http://www.tellicochurch.org/Year%20B%20Sermons/030706.html.
3. Paul Harvey’s For What It’s Worth, Edited by Paul Harvey, Jr. (New York: Bantam Books, 1991).
4. (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), pp. 43-44.
5. God’s Devotional Book for Mothers (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 2005), p. 231.