“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and the forceful claim it.” (Mt 11: 12)
Such was the excitement engendered by the preaching of John the Baptist, who proclaimed in the wilderness of Judea that the Kingdom of Heaven is “at hand” (Mt 3: 2), that people of all walks of life were taking it “by force.” That is to say, even the people who had been made “outsiders” to the “city” that was the religion of their fathers, fortified by the gate-keepers who were the religious “elites” like the Pharisees and scribes, were now breaking down its man-made walls and taking it “by storm.” John was preaching outside the comfort-zone of the religious authorities, out in the wilderness, and poking holes in their elitist presumptions, saying things like, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” (Mt 3: 9) Because he was paving the way for Christ’s call to “all the nations,” and not just one people or elite group. And this voice of God, this “voice crying out in the wilderness,” was what awakened the long-dormant desire for salvation in so many people in “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan,” who flocked to John in the wilderness, to confess their sins and be baptized.
Still today, we both confront and create obstacles, sometimes unwittingly, to our deep-seated, human desire for “salvation,” which is a “return home,” or a return to wholeness or oneness with God. And the merely-human voices in our “city” might often drown out God’s distant-yet-forceful voice, crying out to us from “the wilderness.” But this morning let me listen up, and tune back in, both to God’s call, and to my desire to “return home.” This morning I don’t just walk, no, I run, back into the arms of my loving God, confessing my sins and letting Him immerse me in His grace. And I do this forcefully, regardless of what anyone, including me, thinks about my “unworthiness.” Because the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and the forceful claim it.
