Confession of Faith: Reign of God

Our last post about the Mennonite confession is the reign of God.  Mennonites place their hope in the reign of God and in its fulfillment in the day when Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead, gather his church, resurrect the dead, claim and renew creation under God's rule.  We confess that Jesus proclaimed the nearness of God's reign and its future realization, its healing and its judgment.  Yet we also believe that we are called to live out the Kingdom rule here and now, to be a first-fruit of Kingdom life.

As to anything more, we don't affirm or deny what or how God will make the end come about.  Personally, the only thing I will state is, "Jesus Christ is going to return, fulfilling his promise of a new Kingdom rule, of resurrection, of eternal life, and a renewal of all things."  While I grew up extremely interested in the end times, looking for signs of the coming end, tracing prophecies and mapping out the symbols of Revelation with figures of today, something happened that changed all of the searching and longing: I experienced Jesus Christ's love.

Now I am far more interested in how to love Jesus and others now then I am worried about later.  I look towards the end with hope, but am less interested in how it's going to happen than the simple understanding that it will happen.   I spent too much energy and time trying to figure out the how about the end - and missed the point of life: a relationship with Jesus now.  Instead, I find the end to be much more to be about the hope that comes from knowing Jesus will return - this helps me live for God today, to pick up the cross today, to take the journey into the depths of God in order to better love God and the world around me.

Paul expresses this notion in his confession in 1 Corinthians 15:17-34.  He speaks about how the only hope is in the fact that Christ has already risen from the dead and is returning to take the rule of the world, to raise those who live in Jesus.  Then he states starting in verse 30, "And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour?  I die every day!...If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it?  If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" I imagine Paul confessing this with pain and anguish, with a near broken heart glued together by hope and love of Jesus - especially the confession of "I die every day!"

This is the hope, the faith - Jesus will return to rule and renew all things.  The question is, "How will we live today in light of that hope?"

Want to learn more?  Here is Article 24 of the Mennonite Confession of faith:   http://www.mennoniteusa.org/about/confession-of-faith-in-a-mennonite-perspective-1995/article-24-the-reign-of-god/