The Restoring Reign of God

My advent reading has pointed me to what is my new favorite passage of Scripture. (That will change in a week or two, as it always does, but it's my favorite today.) It's Isaiah's account of the great reversal that will occur when Jesus Christ reigns on earth. Isaiah 11:6-8 talks of things like wolves living peacefully beside lambs and small children making friends with vipers. It's nature the way God intended.

My mind has been running wild with its own pictures of this great reversal. Imagine a world with no failed marriages and no abandoned children. No pimples and no brain tumors. No bullets and no roadside bombs. No immigration battles and no government shutdowns. No lies and no fears. No rejection and no despair. No addiction and no suicide. No guilt and no shame. No starvation and no gluttony. No earthquake, hurricane, flood, wildfire, or avalanche. As Isaiah said, "They will neither harm nor destroy."

The most helpful definition I've heard for the kingdom of God is this: the saving, restoring reign of God on earth. Saving and restoring. In other words, what Isaiah was prophesying. What Jesus came to earth to do. What we so desperately need right now. 

As I ponder my new favorite passage, the thought that has come to my mind at least a thousand times returns again. Why, God? Why did you create the perfect world and then allow it to be corrupted? You knew we'd inhabit a world of brain tumors and starving children and murder. Why did you build that possibility into your glorious creation?

I'm sure the answer is way more complicated than I could ever understand. But I think part of it is that He had something even better in mind for us. The restoration of His creation is somehow better than the original creation. God sending His son to earth to pay for our sin is somehow better than if we had never known sin at all. It's a pale, hollow example, but I think of taking my kids to the ocean. If I'd told them there was an ocean, they would have believe it existed. They might have spent some time thinking about it, and they might have even grown to love the picture of it in their minds. But until we actually took them to the ocean, they never really experienced it. They needed to hear the roar of the tide coming in, feel the sand between their toes and the salt water on their lips, be nearly pulled under by the force of the waves to truly appreciate the ocean.

If I'd never experienced the ugliness of my sin, I would not understand the beauty of forgiveness. If I'd never been burned by my own self-sufficiency, I wouldn't know of my desperate dependence on God. If I'd never tasted grace, how could I possibly conceive of God's goodness? If He'd not sent His son, how would we know the depth of His mercy? Without His most costly sacrifice, how would we know how much we're loved?

My new favorite passage ends this way: "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." As cool as it would be to pet a lion's mane or never again feel rejected, the greatest part of our restoration is the knowledge of the Lord. We weren't made to just know about God. He wants for us an experiential kind of knowing. 

I can't make sense of it--the tree in the Garden, God incarnate in a dirty animal trough, a bloody, humiliating crucifixion. Why did He do it that way? Because it was the best way. The perfect way. And some day, when I see lambs frolicking with wolves, it will all make sense.

"In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious." Isaiah 11:10