So when we come to chapter 5 and 6 (today's reading), it should be no surprise that the topic of the kingdom of heaven is front and center! But what is this kingdom of heaven?
A somewhat well known movie from a few years ago is replaying occasionally on cable channels these day by the name "the Kingdom of Heaven". The story is about a troubled young man (played by Orlando Bloom, who is probably a nice guy in general, but definitely no Mel Gibson when it comes to the art of wartime speech making, a.k.a. William Wallace) who finds a kind of inner redemption by defending "the kingdom of heaven", or Jerusalem during the time of the crusades. So is Jerusalem then the kingdom of heaven that Jesus refers to in Matthew 5&6?
I think not. In Matthew 4 we learn from Jesus that the kingdom of heaven is something that is "at hand" or near. Now John the Baptist had already been proclaiming the nearness of the kingdom of heaven (3:2), which was a definite hot topic among the Jews of that day. Jesus takes up John's basic message because Jesus was actually the one who was ushering the kingdom in! Though Jesus the kingdom had officially dawned, "...on them a light has dawned" (4:16).
So, in chapters 5 and 6 we discover that the kingdom of heaven is really important because it's a place where blessing or happiness happen (5:3,10), a place where entry is apparently very desirable (5:20), a place where reward and blessing can be stored up (6:20) and the place where God is in some special way (5:16, 48; 6:1,9,32).
With all this in mind, how does the dawning of the kingdom of heaven both then and now in Jesus Christ effect all the challenges and troubles we face during this earthly life? The answer according to Jesus: we don't need to worry but to trust our heavenly Father (25-32) and we do need to focus all our energies in the kingdom direction (6:19-21, 33).
That's enough biblical meat to chew today! But do chew on...
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