Thy Kingdom Come

As part of my prayer rule, I try to say the Lord's Prayer each day by myself and with the kids. A week or so ago, I was suddenly struck by the phrase "Thy Kingdom come." I remembered back to my Protestant years and how I would stay up late with friends discussing the "end times" and getting completely freaked out through the discussion. Now that I'm Orthodox, my outlook on the Second Coming seems so different - it seems like there's no reason to get worried or upset about it because it's in God's hands, you know? So anyway, it just occurred to me that every time we repeat this prayer Christ gave us, we are praying for the end of the world to come so we can join God in His Kingdom - something that never occurred to me back in those days of worrying so much about it.

I looked up this particular phrase in a little book I have of the translation of a Russian radio program given by Fr. Alexander Schmemann on the Lord's Prayer (called, appropriately enough, "Our Father"). He agrees that the phrase can be taken to mean that the end of the world should be brought about, but points out that Christ also said that the kingdom has already arrived. Fr. Alexander says:

[The Gospel] calls "kingdom" the encounter of man with God, God who is fullness of life and the very life of all life, who is light, love, knowledge, wisdom, eternity. It tells us that the kingdom comes and begins when man meets God, recognizes Him and with love and joy offers himself to Him. It says that the kingdom of God comes when my life is filled to the brim with this light, with this knowledge, with this love. And finally it says for the person who has experienced this divine life, that everything, including his death, is revealed in a new light, for that which he encounters, that with which he fills his life here and now, today, is eternity itself, which is God Himself... we pray that this encounter may take place now, here, and today, in the present circumstances, that in my mundane and difficult life I could hear the words, "the kingdom is near you," and that my life would be filled with the power and light of the kingdom, with the power and light of faith, love and hope.

So there you go - everyday I've been asking God to allow me to experience Him in a way that would leave no doubt as to the degree of His love or mercy for me - I just haven't realized it. This weekend I thought a lot about the image of God as the Good Shepherd who would leave the 99 to find one missing lamb. What would motivate him do that? What makes that one little lamb so valuable to the shepherd that he would leave the rest of the herd to search for it? And, perhaps more importantly for my journey, what will benefit that lamb more - giving into despair and realizing there really is no reason for the shepherd to come rescue it? Or bleating in the faint hope the shepherd will hear it and come? I guess in my own life it makes more sense to bleat, either literally by continuing to ask God to give me His kindgom and figuratively by repenting and crying over my sins.

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32)