The following is an excerpt from Larry Parsley’s new devotional, The Living Color of Luke’s Gospel.
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them.” (Luke 17: 20-23)
The theologian Kosuke Koyama wrote a book with a beautiful title: Three Mile an Hour God. The book claims that God, who is love, chooses to walk slowly, to walk the speed we walk, to show love to us. This, Koyama says, is the “speed of love.” This is the speed at which Jesus walks throughout the gospel of Luke, pausing, digressing, serving up new teaching and healing to reveal that God’s Kingdom is now “in your midst.”
It is not only religious sophisticates (v. 20) who lack patience for strolling with Jesus. So many of us want to race toward the cataclysmic “signs” that validate our faith (yet negotiate daily life on our own). The problem with signs is that we often mistake them (v. 23), and when God’s judgment falls “like lightning,” it is too late to prepare for it (vv. 26-27). Even those who are given the grace of warning and space for repentance often, like Lot’s wife (v. 32), turn our faces away from an escape and try to save an old life not worth rescuing (v. 33).
The words of this passage are frightening for those who care more about manipulating signs than spending time with the Savior. But still Jesus walks, three miles an hour, sharing His kingdom in our midst.
Jesus, let your daily grace be “sign” enough for me.
