The Kingdom Comes to you

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There I was, 19 years old in the middle of the night. The air was hot when I got off the airplane in Bombay, it was about 95 degrees and muggy at midnight. Part of the problem was that I was never supposed to be in Bombay. Because of an flight delay, I missed the flight I was supposed to be on, and the only way to get to my destination was through Bombay. In my 19 year old mind, I was on the other side of the world in the middle of the night in a city I was never supposed to get to and nobody knew I was there. I might have been in a city of millions of people, but I felt utterly alone and cut off as I drank my coke in the business lounge of the Bombay airport and prayed, “God, you got me here, and you might be the only One who knows I’m here, so I’m trusting that I’ll make it where you want me to be.”

That feeling of being along and cut off might resonate with some of you today, especially some who are hearing this online. Whenever there is substantial snow, some people are isolated and cut off - unable to leave their homes until the roads are safe. Other people are cut off by sickness or injury and can’t get out. Whenever you are cut off, by weather or travel or loneliness or anything else, it makes you feel far away from others. Living in a small town and having grown up in the country, those feelings of being “far away from everything” are real.

“Far away from everything” is a theme in today’s readings. After John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus withdrew into Galilee, leaving Nazareth and living in Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. In the Old Testament, that country up north was given to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. Far away from Jerusalem, Capernaum was in the middle of nowhere, unimportant and distant. You might be able to think of that area as the boondooks or the sticks or however else you describe the middle of nowhere. When Matthew quotes Isaiah the prophet, this becomes clear. The northern reaches of Zebulun and Naphtali were on the edge of the Promised Land. It was “Gentile country” where people walked in darkness and death. And that’s where Jesus went, to the far reaches of the north. Did God care about the people up north? In the hinterlands and the boonies, was God there?

In the middle of snowstorms and extremely cold weather, in the midst of sickness and injury, when you’re worried and anxious, when things don’t go according to your plans, does God care? Is God there for you? It’s easy to wonder if God cares and how God will act for you. A winter storm is one example, but so is anything else that you face. Millstadt isn’t a big town, but it’s also not quite “the middle of nowhere.” Yet, sometimes you feel like you’re in a spiritual hinterlands, a backwater where you’re not sure that God comes for you and cares for you. It can be easy to feel cut off and alone, not from others, but from God Himself. You might wonder if you are as much in darkness as the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. Where you are and what you’re going through - does God care?

When Jesus withdrew to Zebulun and Naphtali, even as He heard the news that John the Baptist had been arrested, He cared enough for the people on the far reaches of the promised land to announce to them that the Kingdom of God had come near to them. Repent! He called them. “The Kingdom is here!” The Kingdom of God isn’t like a country or a commonwealth that has borders. The Kingdom of God exists whereever God reigns. When Jesus says that the kingdom of God has come to Capernaum and the surrounding countryside, it’s because that’s where Jesus was and He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Far away from Jerusalem, Jesus is king.

People of God, repent! Believe! The Kingdom of God has come for you, even as you gather with a few others in the middle of a snowstorm. The Kingdom of God has come to you, even if you are hearing this sitting on your couch or around your dining room table, because the Kingdom of God is where Jesus is. Where Jesus comes with His powerful word and His effective sacraments, He comes for you. There is no remote area where Jesus cannot or does not come to be your Savior. There is no distant reach of the world where Jesus doesn’t love you. There is no backwater or frontier where Jesus doesn’t find you with His grace. That’s not just true of geography. Whatever is happening in your life, Jesus wants you to know that He draws near to you. Sickness and disease, doubt and fear, loneliness and feelings of pointlessness may be all around you - and in the middle of that experience, Jesus brings His Kingdom for you. Jesus, the crucified, declares that He gave Himself into death so that you have the righteousness of God. The power of God is the cross, where Jesus has come for you.

The cross is far away from God. After all, anyone who is hanged on a tree is cursed. That’s where Jesus went for you, in the loneliness and isolation that made Him cry out, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me?” Jesus gave Himself into death so that you are not separated from God. Hear this precocious words of Romans 8:37–39 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus Christ, your loving King, has come for you. There is no darkness and there is no death for you. Even if you feel like you are spiritually in the middle of nowhere, Jesus is with you. And where Jesus is, there is life. For you. Always. Believe this good news!