The soft rays of sunshine warmed me and I awoke to the beauty of
Resurrection Sunday. The voices of Haitian congregations worshiping God
carried up the hill and found their way past the glass and walls of my
room. What a glorious way to awaken!
I decided to take a couple
of hours and read through John’s account of the events leading up to
Jesus crucifixion, burial, and ascension. It struck me as odd that on
one of the highest church attendance Sundays of the year I was not in a
formal church setting, for the second year in a row. Instead I sat on my
bed with worship music playing in the background and slowly,
deliberately read the Bible. It was a precious morning and as I read
something stood out to me, something I had never considered.
In
John 18:1-11 we find the account of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest in
Gethsemane. Our zealous friend Simon Peter draws his sword and cuts off
the ear of the high priest’s servant, Malchus. As you well know Jesus
rebukes him, tells him to put away his sword, and Luke’s account tells
us that Jesus heals the man’s ear.
Great story, huh?
As I
read it today my mind wandered to, “What does Malchus’ name mean?” Name
meanings in Bible times are significant. They have something to tell us.
So thanks to Google and people more scholarly than myself, I discovered
Malchus can be translated “kingdom“. Hmmm…
Jesus just
told Peter that His kingdom doesn’t confront an earthly kingdom with the
weapons of earth. It is pointless. In Matthew 26:52-53 Jesus said, “Put
your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the
sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will
provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” Good point
Jesus.
Or as Paul states it in Ephesians 6:12-13, “We do not
wrestle again flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rules of the darkness of this age, against spiritual
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole
armor of God…“
There was more happening in the garden than
just an overzealous disciple and Jesus being carried away captive. There
was a facing of two kingdoms: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of
man.
Jesus could have with one utterance destroyed the
kingdom of man, a kingdom that had long ago given over its dominion to
Satan. Instead His Kingdom brought love that manifested here in healing
to the captor Malchus, loving rebuke to His disciple (an ambassador of
His Kingdom), and He allowed himself to be peacefully led to the most
gruesome death in history. His thoughts are not ours and His ways are
not ours either (Is 55:8).
Not only did these two kingdoms come
face to face that night, but Jesus’ last miracle before the cross was to
bring healing to Malchus’ ear, healing to an earthly kingdom.
The
fact that we know the servant’s name means that he probably became a
believer, part of the early church. He would be someone that people
would know as they heard the Biblical accounts. And having his ear
healed gives a little bit of a new perspective to the phrase, “To him
who has ears to hear…“
But what I really love about this
picture of an earthly kingdom being healed is knowing that Jesus has
always desired for earthly reality to mirror that of the heavenly
reality. We see this in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come. Your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The beginning of seeing
this was Jesus coming to earth, fully human and fully God, and further
in His death and resurrection where He took back the keys of Death and
Hell (Rev 1:18) In Revelation 22 we are given a picture of the Tree of
Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations – earthly
kingdoms. And in Revelation 21 we see that Jesus will make all things
new, including a new heaven and a new earth.
Will I submit to The
King of Kings to see heaven come to earth as reality, in whatever way
He chooses for that to happen?
I am an ambassador of the
Kingdom of God. Will I let God use me as an instrument to bring His
healing to earthly kingdoms or will I stand in His way by trying to
fight with the wrong armor?
