Through Jesus Christ, hea­ven on earth has daw­ned. But this King­dom of God is very dif­fe­rent from what we would expect. It is a king­dom that con­sists of the weak­ne­ss of us humans. God choo­ses that which is weak and not that which is strong. God calls men and women into his ser­vice who would not be cho­sen by the stan­dards of the world. In this way, God shows that he has the power to make some­thing out of hope­l­ess cases. Sin­ce we humans often rely on our­sel­ves and our strengths, the good news, the gos­pel, is a thorn in our side. Nevert­hel­ess, part of fol­lo­wing Jesus Christ is giving up on mys­elf and rea­li­sing that it is not my strength that mat­ters, but God’s grace.

Heaven on earth

Through Jesus Christ, the king­dom of God, hea­ven on earth, has begun. This king­dom is mani­fes­ted in many places and shows its­elf to us humans every now and then whe­re some­thing posi­ti­ve hap­pens that we can­not explain. But this king­dom of God here on earth is imper­fect. It con­sists of the ten­si­on of alre­a­dy now and yet not yet. On the one hand, fan­ta­stic things hap­pen, on the other hand, the­re is still a lot of dis­as­ter, suf­fe­ring and dif­fi­cul­ties in this world. We humans wish for a life wit­hout dif­fi­cul­ties. Many find it dif­fi­cult to belie­ve in a God becau­se of all the evil in the world. Becau­se if the­re is a God, then ever­y­thing should be good, then hea­ven on earth should alre­a­dy be ful­ly unfol­ding. But the king­dom of God is quite dif­fe­rent. «To this Jesus repli­ed: My king­dom is not of this world. If it were, my ser­vants would have fought for me when I was arres­ted. But my king­dom is not of this world» (John 18:36 NLB). The king­dom of God is not mani­fes­ted by the strong, the good, the per­fect. Rather, it shows its­elf through weak­ne­ss. God does not build his King­dom of Hea­ven in spi­te of weak­ne­ss, but through weak­ne­ss. More on this in the second sec­tion of the sermon.

First, let us ask our­sel­ves who belongs to this king­dom of God on this earth. Ano­ther word for king­dom would be sta­te. A sta­te is cle­ar­ly demar­ca­ted and the­re are clear gui­de­lines as to who belongs and who does not. Not ever­yo­ne who lives or stays in the coun­try is auto­ma­ti­cal­ly a citi­zen of the coun­try. It is the same with the King­dom of God on earth. This unfolds on the who­le earth, but not ever­yo­ne is a citi­zen of this king­dom. The­re are clear requi­re­ments as to who belongs and who does not. Belon­ging to God’s king­dom of hea­ven, howe­ver, is not based on any earth­ly demar­ca­ti­on cha­rac­te­ristics. The decisi­ve fac­tor is being born again as a fol­lower of Jesus Christ. We would like it to be other­wi­se, but Jesus Christ hims­elf speaks unequi­vo­cal­ly. «Jesus repli­ed: I assu­re you, unless one is born again, he can­not see the king­dom of God.» (John 3:3 NLB). This is pre­ce­ded by tur­ning back from one’s own ways. It is no lon­ger a mat­ter of rely­ing on one’s strengths and thus on ones­elf, but of admit­ting to ones­elf that one’s own strength is not enough. This is cal­led rep­en­tance. Admit­ting to ones­elf and to God that one is depen­dent on Him and no lon­ger wants to rely on one’s strengths. The rebirth then also beco­mes clear through bap­tism. Through immersi­on in water, a dead­ly area for us humans, it beco­mes clear that our old self has died and we are a new per­son in Jesus Christ.

A kingdom of weakness

The Bible is full of sto­ries in which the King­dom of God beco­mes visi­ble on this earth. Yet the­se sto­ries are often quite dif­fe­rent from what we would expect. Per­haps they no lon­ger seem so spe­cial to one or the other, sin­ce they are alre­a­dy known. But when the­se sto­ries are exami­ned more clo­se­ly and any pri­or know­ledge is put asi­de, it beco­mes appa­rent that the nar­ra­ti­ve does not cor­re­spond to what is gene­ral­ly expected.

God choo­ses men whom no one would have chosen
In the cul­tu­re and time in which the bibli­cal sto­ries took place, the­re were very clear social struc­tures. This was not only patri­ar­chal, but also ori­en­ted towards the first­born son. He had extre­me prio­ri­ties, for exam­p­le, he inhe­ri­ted almost all the pro­per­ty. But God often does not choo­se the first­born for his tasks. He choo­ses men who are at the bot­tom of the cul­tu­ral and fami­ly hier­ar­chy. Nor does he choo­se the best men who have ever­y­thing under con­trol. Ins­tead, the dif­fe­rent cha­rac­ters are descri­bed again and again with their faults and weak­ne­s­ses. The bibli­cal text does not try to gloss over or cover up things. Jacob could not begrudge his older brot­her Esau the pri­vi­le­ged posi­ti­on in the fami­ly. So he sto­le the pri­vi­le­ges of the first­born from him and chea­ted Esau out of his bles­sing. Moses, who led the peo­p­le of Isra­el out of Egypt, had a speech impe­di­ment. David, who was cho­sen by God to be king, got a mar­ried woman pregnant.

God includes women in his plan that no one wan­ted to have
The value of a woman at that time was mea­su­red by whe­ther or not she could bear her hus­band an off­spring. That was her most important mis­si­on. A woman wit­hout a hus­band or child­ren could not sur­vi­ve. But here too, God turns to tho­se women whom no one wan­ted. Four out of five women in the fami­ly tree of Jesus Christ have a rather ing­lo­rious histo­ry. They are out­si­ders. They are women who were con­side­red weak and unlo­va­ble. Tamar sedu­ced her own father-in-law into sexu­al inter­cour­se. Rahab was a pro­sti­tu­te and betray­ed her own peo­p­le to the Israe­li­tes. Ruth beca­me the gre­at-grand­mo­ther of King David, even though she came from a peo­p­le des­pi­sed by the Israe­li­tes. Baths­he­ba was forced into adul­tery by King David.

Bible not a book of heroes
The Bible is a book full of sto­ries that bring us clo­ser to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spi­rit. But it is also a book full of sto­ries about peo­p­le that no one would want to expe­ri­ence in this way. The sto­ries are full of para­do­xes. It is about life through death. It is about peo­p­le tri­um­phing through their weak­ne­ss. The Bible is full of sto­ries that ulti­m­ate­ly show only one thing. God has the power to turn hope­l­ess cases into some­thing posi­ti­ve. He does this not in spi­te of all the weak­ne­s­ses the­se peo­p­le have, but through the­se weak­ne­s­ses. The apost­le Paul was instru­men­tal in foun­ding and spre­a­ding the Chris­ti­an faith in the 1st cen­tu­ry AD. Seve­ral let­ters from him are pre­ser­ved in the Bible, in which he pas­ses on beliefs and tea­chings of Jesus Christ. He reco­g­nis­ed that the King­dom of God has other stan­dards. «Each time he [God] said, «My grace is all you need. My power is shown in your weak­ne­ss.» And now I am con­tent with my weak­ne­ss so that the power of Christ can work through me.» (2 Corin­thi­ans 12:9 NLB).

The unwanted good news

I come back again to hea­ven on earth. With God it is quite dif­fe­rent from what we would expect. God’s king­dom is not for the strong, but for the weak. Tho­se who trust most in their own wealth, power and abili­ty and cla­im to live righ­teous­ly do not belong to God’s king­dom. «God has cho­sen that which is low­ly in the eyes of the world, so as to shame tho­se who con­sider them­sel­ves wise. He has cho­sen the weak to humi­lia­te the strong. He cho­se what is des­pi­sed and held in low esteem by the world and used it to nul­li­fy what is important in the world, so that no man can ever boast befo­re God. God alo­ne has made it pos­si­ble for you to be in Christ Jesus. He has made him our wis­dom. Through him we are jus­ti­fied befo­re God and our lives are sanc­ti­fied through him. Through him we are rede­e­med. Scrip­tu­re says, «Let him who wants to be proud be proud of what the Lord has done» » (1 Corin­thi­ans 1:27–31 NLB). It is an abso­lu­te rever­sal. It does­n’t fit at all with how we would like it to be. We are so anxious to arri­ve well and to con­ce­al ever­y­thing in order to look as good as pos­si­ble with peo­p­le. The mes­sa­ge of the ticket for the king­dom of God, the gos­pel, is the­r­e­fo­re an unde­si­ra­ble mes­sa­ge. Becau­se it empha­si­s­es our weak­ne­s­ses and not our strengths.

Timo­thy Kel­ler is a theo­lo­gi­an in New York City. Some of the ide­as in today’s ser­mon are inspi­red by him. He sum­ma­ri­ses the mes­sa­ge of the Gos­pel as fol­lows: «You are a lost sin­ner. You have done much wrong and the good that you have done, you have done main­ly for sel­fi­sh moti­ves. With all your endea­vours, even the reli­gious ones, you have actual­ly only wan­ted to mani­pu­la­te God to put him in a posi­ti­on whe­re he has to ser­ve your inte­rests. In rea­li­ty, ever­y­thing you have is a gift from God. You should love Him and live com­ple­te­ly for Him and you don’t and you can’t do that. But you can be saved if you rep­ent to him, and this sal­va­ti­on is by his unme­ri­ted grace alo­ne.» (Timo­thy Kel­ler). What does this quo­te trig­ger in you? The more powerful, wealt­hy, edu­ca­ted and secu­re a per­son is, the more he feels atta­cked by the gos­pel. The more con­vin­ced I am that man can do any­thing, the more the gos­pel hits me and is not good news, but an affront, back­woods or a direct attack on modern man.

Today is the Fede­ral Day of Thanks­gi­ving, Rep­en­tance and Pray­er in Switz­er­land. The­se three terms have much to do with the Gos­pel. The Gos­pel, unwan­ted by us humans, calls us to rep­en­tance. This means to rea­li­se that I can­not and not only can­not do it on my own, but that I have made a mess of things, becau­se I nevert­hel­ess wan­ted to attain hea­ven on earth mys­elf. One could also ask what is good about the Gos­pel. It is the fact that I stand befo­re God full of weak­ne­ss and yet he accepts me. The Bible calls this grace. God accepts me even though I do not deser­ve it. Pray­er is the logi­cal respon­se of a per­son who has rea­li­sed that he is depen­dent on God. It is a con­ver­sa­ti­on with God and a trust that our words will not go unhe­ard by him.

I would like to con­clude this ser­mon with a Bible pas­sa­ge from the Let­ter to the Hebrews. I have empha­sis­ed many times today that God works through the weak­ne­ss of peo­p­le. But this does not mean that the­se peo­p­le remain­ed weak. Through their faith they accom­plished the uni­ma­gi­nable, but not out of their sup­po­sed strength. But out of the insight that God accepts them in their weak­ne­ss and helps them.

«How many other examp­les could be men­tio­ned! I do not have time to men­ti­on Gideon and Barak, Sam­son and Jift­ach, David and Samu­el and the pro­phe­ts. What have peo­p­le like them not achie­ved through their faith! They brought down king­doms, they ensu­red jus­ti­ce and righ­teous­ness, they expe­ri­en­ced the ful­film­ent of pro­mi­ses made to them by God, they shut the mouths of lions, they remain­ed untouch­ed by fla­mes in the midst of fire, they escaped the dead­ly sword, they were streng­the­ned by God whe­re they lacked strength, they pro­ved to be heroes in batt­le, they put ene­my armies to flight. It even hap­pen­ed that women who trus­ted God recei­ved their decea­sed rela­ti­ves back becau­se God made them ali­ve again. Others, who also trus­ted God, pre­fer­red to be tor­tu­red to death rather than renoun­ce God, even though this would have set them free. They were wil­ling to lose their earth­ly life in order to recei­ve a bet­ter life through the resur­rec­tion.» (Hebrews 11:32–35 NGÜ).

Possible questions for the small group 

Bible text rea­ding: 1 Corin­thi­ans 1:27–31; Hebrews 11:32–35

1. How do you ima­gi­ne the king­dom of God? What is dif­fe­rent from the world that sur­rounds you?
2. How does one beco­me a «citi­zen» of this hea­ven on earth? Is it wort­hwhile to belong?
3. Which bibli­cal sto­ry makes it clea­rest to you that God builds his king­dom through weak­ne­ss and not in spi­te of weakness?
4. Whe­re yours­elf are you in dan­ger of puf­fing up your strength against a weak­ne­ss? What is your weakness?
5. What ele­ment of the good news (gos­pel) do you strugg­le with? What is an unwan­ted mes­sa­ge for you?
6. Refe­rence to the Day of Thanks­gi­ving and Pray­er: What are you gra­teful for? Whe­re is it time to rep­ent, to offer some­thing to God? How about pray­ing to him right now and than­king him and repenting?