Show Notes
Key events of the Easter story happen in gardens. Coincidence? Maybe. But the Gospel of John invites us to consider that the resurrection of Jesus in the garden is the beginning of Creation 2.0, the new world God is making through his new-creation co-gardeners.
More from Ngāruawāhia Village Church Podcast
In John 14, Jesus assures his disciples that his departure is not the end of the world. Its the changing of it.
Jesus frequently ran into people who were looking for a kingdom of heaven that could be seen and touched. He had news for them: the kingdom is the reign of Jesus in a life that has seen Jesus, and to crave a physical entity is a return to the shadowlands.
The parables of Jesus teach the surprising maths of the kingdom. The religious heart will discover that things don't add up as expected, which is part of what makes this kingdom's arrival good news.
Jesus told short puzzling stories to explain the arrival of the kingdom, and the unravelling of the old order. But they wouldn't mean much unless a person has "ears to hear." That is, the stories would not make things easy. These parables, like puzzle pieces, accumulate to give us a composite picture of this strange kingdom Jesus is announcing. Every piece tells us something, and without all the pieces, our understanding of the Kingdom of God will be truncated, or worse, mistaken.
The message of the Bible involves the idea of "kingdom" and it comes into sharp focus in the preaching of Jesus. To us, it is complex, and a bit vague. But for the first people who heard the news that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" it seemed to be the best news ever. Why?