Your Kingdom Come: Mark 9:1
God wants to be with us and His kingdom comes. He literally dwelled with us in Eden. He spoke intimately with the prophets of old. He gave us His Word so we could hear His voice. One day we will dwell with Him. I can’t wait.
The verse that Mark pins between telling people to deny themselves and the transfiguration is intriguing. Some people who are listening to Jesus will be alive to see the Kingdom of God come in power. But, what does that mean?
This verse has been debated for centuries. The very first interpretation ties in with the traditional understanding of the Messiah and is connected to Daniel 7:13-14. This led to the belief that the time when God set up His people as the dominant force in the world was imminent. We know that didn’t happen in the way they believed. The Jewish people never got their dominion. They didn’t even get to see Rome tossed out of their region before that generation died off.
Once the disciples were largely dying off, some literal readers looked to Mark’s writing and decided Jesus was referring to the transfiguration since it happens next in Mark’s story. While that may be possible, it feels funny to me. Most – if not all – the people who heard Jesus speak these words were still alive at the time of the transfiguration. Not many people would have died in the span of six days.
Other people think this verse refers to Pentecost. That’s when the Holy Spirit descends upon the people and the age of the church truly begins. That’s when the kingdom of God undisputedly came in power.
Still others think this verse refers to the point in Acts when the Gentiles are finally included in the church. At that point, all are truly welcomed into the church. The Kingdom of God is finally open to all people in the world.
There is another possibility, and a part of me wants this interpretation to be it. Jesus could be using another parable to speak about a personal relationship with God. Some people didn’t die until after they have received the Spirit and knew the power of having a personal relationship with God. The inverse is also true. Some people listening to Jesus did die before knowing the power that comes from having the Spirit dwell within. Jesus may be a realist. Some will listen and others will reject. Some will die having seen the Kingdom of God in their life; others will die having spent their life searching for other things.
This is such a neat verse. In the end, we really don’t know for sure what Jesus meant. Is He foreshadowing the transfiguration or Pentecost or the Gentile inclusion? Perhaps. Is He talking generically about an individual’s relationship to the Father? Perhaps. We don’t know. We may never know. We do know for certain what can always sustain us: God desires to be with us and His kingdom comes.
