Let Thy Kingdom Come!

Once upon a time the earth was a part of the mighty Kingdom of Heaven. In those days earth was a place of love, joy, and peace. All the inhabitants of heaven and earth lived like a family caring for one another. Poverty and sickness were unheard of, and nobody was worried or sad about anything. No one did any crime; there were no prisons, courts, judges or lawyers. Nobody fell ill, and so there was no need of doctors or nurses or hospitals. The earth was a blessed place of plenty and prosperity.

However, this state of affairs didn’t last long. A suspicion about the motive of the Heavenly King crept into the minds of the earthlings like an ugly snake. Eventually, the Heavenly King was grossly misunderstood, and the good, father-like King was seen as a merciless tyrant. Thus a tiny suspicion slowly grew up to become a huge wall of hatred that separated the earth from the Heaven. There also rose walls of hatred among people dividing them based on gender, race, color, caste, class, and what not! Generations passed one after another, and they even forgot that the earth was once a part of heaven.

When life continued so miserable, they blamed it all on the king of heaven. They believed that the King was making them suffer for rebelling against him. If the problem is the king’s displeasure, the solution must be to please the King. From time to time they devised ways to please the Heavenly king in order for him to stop his enmity toward them. The ways they devised differed from place to place and from time to time. The proponents of each way claimed theirs to be the only true and right way to please the king, which only served to create even more walls that further separated the earthlings. They sacrificed themselves and killed others for their beliefs. Thus the earth, which was once a heaven, degenerated into a hell!

When the condition of the earth became so bad, the King of Heaven sent the Prince to the earth to let the earthlings know that he had had no enmity to them. The prince of heaven arrived on the earth as a human child. The angels in Heaven were overjoyed at this cosmic event because they were fully aware of its importance. However, the earthlings, in their blindness, remained asleep in that night when the angels of Heaven flew around the earth and Heaven proclaiming the good news of the Prince’s arrival. They couldn’t imagine that the Prince of Heaven would arrive on the earth as the child of a poor village girl.

The Prince of Heaven grew up among the earthlings as one among them, learning their culture and their language. As he grew up, he told them the truth about the King of Heaven that he had had no enmity toward them. He told them that the King loves them all like His own children in spite of their enmity, and he advised them to love their enemies following the example of their heavenly father. He asked them to communicate to the king of heaven as follows:

Our father in heaven,

Let thy kingdom come, and

Let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

If only they had listened to him, the walls of hatred would have collapsed, and the earth would have become heaven. But their deep-rooted misunderstanding wouldn’t budge so easily. They misunderstood the Prince too. Soon they made false accusations on him, and murdered him. The Prince returned to Heaven, and has been seated at the right hand of the King.

Each time we celebrate Christmas, we remember the golden past of the earth when all people lived as a family. We also remain hopeful that the earth can once again regain such a state by clearing the misunderstandings that still remain deep-rooted in human hearts.

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