Kingdom clutch

Your kingdom come,
  your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
- Matthew 6:10, from The Lord's Prayer

OK. Stick with me here, because I'm kind of thinking out loud. Below you will see an interactive example of how a clutch works. You can click on it and it will do stuff. Try it, you'll like it.

Basically, the way a clutch works is that it connects one body that is revolving at one speed with another body that is revolving at a slower speed, and in the process the slower body speeds up to match the speed of the faster body. You with me so far?

What does this have to do with Jesus? Well, think of "your kingdom" (i.e. heaven) as the body that is revolving at the higher speed. In fact, its RPMs are absolutely perfect. Next, think of earth as the slower body. Yeah, it's spinning, but not nearly as quickly as it should be, and it's definitely not spinning anywhere near what heaven is. Jesus' prayer is that earth would speed up and match heaven's speed. What does he need to accomplish this? A clutch, of sorts.

That's where the church comes in. The church is Christ's instrument by which earth is made more like the kingdom. In John 17, Jesus prays for the church. He uses all kinds of relational language, talking about how Christ is in the Father, and that "those who will believe in me through their word" might be perfectly one, and also that Christ will be in them and the Father will be in Christ, and so on. One of the reasons for this interconnectedness is so that "the world may believe that you have sent me" and "they are loved by the Father, even as the Father loves the Son.

The Father is in Christ, and Christ is in the church, and the church exists in the world. These relationships allow the church to be very active in the speeding up of the world. God uses us, the church, to make the earth more and more like the kingdom. It may not be happening as quickly as you or I would like, but it is happening according to the will of the Father. And if, as some believe, we are truly at the dawn of the history of the earth, and that time may go on for another 40 or 50 or 100 thousand years, then it is feasible that this earth will continue to become more and more like the kingdom as time goes by. If that's the case, saints eons from now will look back at our times and see real and wonderful progress, just as we look back at the barbaric Romans and wonder at their violence and wickedness.

This point of view allows us to be very optomistic about what the Father is doing in the world, and where we are all headed. "Thy kingdom come…"

Happy Friday.