The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God

The third Luminous Mystery, the Proclamation of the Kingdom, is the only mystery of the Rosary that does not deal with a discrete event in the life of Jesus or Mary. Rather, it calls our attention to the core message of the gospel:

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15; see also Matthew 4:17)

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God. In fact no one else in the Bible used the phrase as often as he did. The “kingdom of God” appears 122 times in the New Testament, and 90 of those occurrences are sayings of Jesus. (1) What did he mean by this phrase? Is he talking about heaven? The Church? Himself? The Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts? The new heaven and new earth to come at the end of time?

This is not a clear-cut question to answer, perhaps because Jesus didn’t want to give us a simple, “The kingdom of God is x” kind of answer. Jesus frequently describes the kingdom through his parables. Instead of “the kingdom of God is…,” he gives us “the kingdom of God is like…” In doing so, he helps us understand the kingdom in everyday terms even children can understand, while also calling us to contemplate the mysteries contained in the parables. Because the kingdom God is at hand, Jesus calls us to repentance and conversion of our hearts. This work must be preceded by Scripture reading, prayer and reflection, rather than rote answers to simple questions.

So let’s look at a few of the parables.

In the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20; Matthew 13:1-23; Luke 8:4-15), Jesus explains to his apostles that “The sower sows the word” and then goes to explain the various reasons why some seed bears great fruit while other does not – in other words, why some people accept the gospel message and bear great fruit and others do not. It is interesting that Jesus does not identify the sower. I think most of us take for granted that the sower is God, which is true, but we should remember that God chooses to do his work through his chosen ones. When we accept the word and become the seed that bears great fruit, we in turn become sowers spreading the word to all we meet.

And what is the word? It is Sacred Scripture, of course, but more fundamentally, it is Jesus himself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) It is the love of Jesus and the mercy of Jesus we are called to spread to the whole world.

Note too how liberally the sower spreads the seed! A wise sower (you would think) wouldn’t waste the seed on the path, or on rocky ground, or among thorns, where it is unlikely to grow. But God desires the conversion of all and bestows his grace upon all. We must ponder whether the Word (Jesus) has taken root in our hearts, or if he is being choked by worldly cares and anxieties. The latter are a subtle but incessant temptation in our modern world to be distracted and forget that we are children of God, called by our Loving Father to share his Good News, to give our lives in service to others.

In fact, Jesus tells us when we spread the Word, we need not worry about the how or why of the results. “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” (Mark 4:26) Consider the growth of the Church, from a dozen apostles and Holy Mary gathered together on the day of Pentecost, to a flock of more than a billion souls today. Here we can see the Holy Spirit at work, despite all the persecutions and trials and failings of so many ages.

Jesus foretold this when he likened the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, “the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” (Mark 4:31-32) If we follow God’s will in our lives, we can rest in confidence, knowing that God will take care of everything else, for “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5) And when we have the light of the gospel, how can we not share it? “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on lampstand?” (Mark 4:21)

Another point in the parables is that the kingdom of God has a value beyond anything a person can imagine: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.” (Matthew 13:44-46) In both of these examples, Jesus emphasizes the point that the person sells all he has to obtain the great treasure. There is nothing more valuable than the kingdom of God, and no earthly good we should not be prepared to part with for the sake of the kingdom.

Immediately following these parables, Jesus tells his disciples one more: “The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what it is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.” (Matthew 13:47-50)

The kingdom of God is Heaven, of course, but it is not only Heaven. The kingdom of God is the net that is thrown into the sea to catch fish now. It is the sower sowing the Word now. It is, when we say yes to God, when we cooperate with his grace, the pearl of great price we can find and sell everything we have to obtain now. It is the light – the love and mercy of God shining deep in our hearts – we can set on a lampstand for the world to see now. And the light is Jesus, and he is with us now through Sacred Scripture, through the blessed sacraments and through the Holy Spirit at work in his Church. “What came to be through [Jesus] was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5)

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God. He charges all of his disciples, in every age, to carry on his mission to the ends of the earth. And he is with us always, “until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).

Notes:

(1) Jesus uses the phrase “kingdom of God” only in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; the phrase does not appear in John’s gospel. Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), p.47. Matthew frequently uses “kingdom of Heaven” rather than “kingdom of God” out of reverence for the holy name of God, but his meaning is the same.

Pope Benedict XVI’s reflection on the kingdom of God (on pages 46-64 of the same book) very much influenced this post. Here is Benedict’s summation of his reflection: “The new proximity of the kingdom of which Jesus speaks – this distinguishing feature of his message – is to be found in Jesus himself. Through Jesus’ presence and action, God has here and now entered actively into history in a wholly new way. The reason why now is the fullness of time, why now is in a unique sense the time of conversion and penance, as well as the time of joy, is that in Jesus it is God who draws near to us. In Jesus, God is the one who acts and who rules as Lord – rules in a divine way, without worldly power, rules through the love that reaches ‘to the end’ (John 13:1), to the Cross.” (p. 60-61)

Image: Calling of the Apostles by Domenico Ghirlandaio (downloaded from Wikipedia Commons).