Now But Not Yet

Read Daniel 7:1-28

I don’t know about you, but when I come across these types of passages my mind immediately goes into interpretation mode. I read the images of the beasts, and my mind starts trying to line them up to ancient nation states. But in our particularly difficult season of COVID-19, working or learning remotely, conversations on Race in America, and also an election year, I find myself focusing on a new part of this passage that I normally pass over. In verse 15 Daniel said, “I was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.” And he later says in verse 28, “I was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself.”

I can relate to those words as I see the difficult times that we currently live in, and I now find renewed hope in the main theme of this passage. The truth that no matter what difficulties people or nations can bring to this world, we have an assured hope that God’s kingdom will prevail. That the Son of Man will rule forever, and we will have true peace. But this isn’t a distant hope, one that is out of reach for us and only for the life to come. Jesus himself proclaimed, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” in Luke 4:21 when announcing the breaking through of the kingdom.

So how do we live in this tension? That God’s kingdom has come now but yet we face a reality of fallen humanity still trying to keep control. Do we retreat from the world and create pockets of the kingdom removed from the world? How can we be present in the midst of so many who are asking for our allegiance and asking us to bend to their will that is different than God’s?

This is one of the key mysteries of the kingdom of God. It is now. It is here. But the world remains broken.

For Reflection: Consider how you live in such tension. Are you over- come by this world, or experiencing the hope of the kingdom now?

by Dan Ryan