" Arrived "

(qerev)
 

“… [Jesus] answered them: What you are waiting for has already come, but you do not see it.”

(Gospel of Thomas, saying 51)

The word translated as "Kingdom" appears 109 times in the four gospels. The word translated as church only appears three times. This idea of kingdom must have been an important part of his message. I briefly explored the Aramaic sense of malkuta in the Reflection from July 2024. 

The Aramaic word translated as “arrived” or “come near” is qerev. We can understand the sense that Jesus intended for this word in the quote above from The Gospel of Thomas, saying #51, “What you are waiting for has already come, but you do not see it.” It is already here. It has arrived. We may not know it, but that doesn’t change the situation. It has arrived.

Think about this parable of Jesus to get a sense for how close it has come in this arrival. “‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matthew 13:33 NRSV) Can you look at a bag of self-rising flour and see the yeast? It must be there. Bake with it. It rises. Bake with all-purpose flour without adding yeast. You might get a cracker or a rock! The yeast is there, but you can’t see it.

If the kingdom has arrived do we have to wait for it? It is here but we can’t tell. Our sense experience is not capable of detecting it. Get out your magnifying glass and your tweezers and try to separate the yeast from the flour. It is worse than finding a needle in a haystack.

Next month we can explore what else Jesus told us about this malkuta. Not only has it qerev but there is more. Have you ever thought of what the good news is that Jesus came to teach us? He tells us clearly, then tries over and over to help us “understand.” Next month I’d like for us to go deeper into the good news, the gospel, not they way we often hear it taught. We will look at how Jesus stated it. John the baptizer announced it, and the apostles were charged with sharing it when they were sent out into the countryside.

If it pleases you, take a deep breath and affirm:

We don’t have to wait
For what is already hear
It is arrived
It is as near to us
as the yeast 
is to the flour