A surprising poem of hope

Perhaps this is in part a response to Mark's post below. It was on Jesus Manifesto (good guys good guys) and was inspired by NT Wright's book Surprised by Hope (I have a spare copy if anyone wants to borrow it?).

The Kingdom of Heaven has captured my heart

the more I feel it’s power take root

the more I yearn for Beauty and Justice

Today, I thought about buying a building

something old, abandoned, ugly

and turning it into a castle for the Kingdom

A sanctuary

stain glass replacing iron bars

a hedge of roses instead of the fence that everyone expects in this neighborhood…

I want to see a sick person get well again

not so they’ll listen to me, or attend my church, or go to heaven

but so they can know, like I know - the kingdom of heaven is near

I want to be a portal to an alternate universe a stitch where the fabrics of heaven and earth are sewn close
I want to write the most beautiful words I can imagine

and paint them on a billboard over ads for beer and cheeseburgers

I want to walk these city streets till all the walls crumble

build porches for all my neighbors

and sit and talk about how great the Kingdom is starting to look.

How long is soon?

In school today, I showed pupils a video in which a Pentecostal teenager explains what Pentecostal believe. Within the list of beliefs she said, "We believe Jesus is soon coming". After the video a pupil put up her hand and asked,
"How long have they been waiting for Jesus to come?"
"About 2,000 years", I said.
"I don't think he's coming!", he replied.
Another pupil put up his hand, "What is 'soon'? Surely 'soon' can't be 2,000 years?"
Finally, a third pupil raised her hand, "How can people believe things that are just not true?"

I thought it was an interesting interchange. The pupils had clearly cottoned on to the absurdity of a belief that Jesus will come soon, when 2,000 years of history appears to prove otherwise. Yet, Paul certainly appears to have believed that Jesus was soon coming. (1 Thess. 4:17) The way we change this to mean that he could come at any time in the future, is altering what Paul believed. How would you respond to these pupils? How do you understand the 2nd Coming after 2,000 years of failing to materialise? What relevance does it have to our lives?