Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.
The comprehension of God’s Kingdom comes to us as the Spirit of the Lord draws our attention to the bases of his nature. The psalmist starts off by pointing out four cornerstones of the Gospel: righteousness and justice; love and faithfulness. Some versions bring: “… love and faithfulness go before your face.”, highlighting that a primary knowledge of God happens to be by his unspeakable mercy and bounty.
When God established to spread his Kingdom to the earth, he first sent out John the Baptist, a voice in the desert announcing: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make paths straight for Him.” John came and couldn’t count on many people’s good will; then the Kingdom came officially with God’s triumphal entrance in his rebelled possessions (he who reads, let him understand), scattering the good seed by the preaching of the gospel, which began much earlier to Abraham, when God said: “In you all families of the earth shall be blessed”.
At that time, when finally the unquenchable fire of the Holy Ghost was given away according to the measure of faith each one showed, God established his Church over the earth, his own body that we have been given. He sent it out with a clear commandment to cast bread upon the waters, in order to find it after many days. Therefore, since Christ rose from the dead, we who are his living body on the earth have received an order to spread the bases of the kingdom, the love and faithfulness which the psalmist foresaw. Our work in this world is to let people know the incomparable mercy and bounty God has given to them, so they can be called his children.
The second face of the His throne – allow me to use this expression -, the righteousness and the judgement aforementioned are yet to come. The Son of Man shall come back as the Prince of Peace, riding a white horse, with a voice of archangel, eyes like a blazing fire, dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and a writing in his thigh: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. The church must comprehend we are in the interstice of both moments, enduring the last pains, proclaiming a foreigner domain that this world cannot understand.
Our days are an analogue to Israel before the Red Sea. In one side, the furious Egyptian army is about to pour its wrath over us – it stands for secularism, incredulity and skepticism assaulting the Lamb’s Bride; in the other, a fierce sea that prevents us from keeping on our walk – a whole world covered by spiritual blindness, pain and sin. There is no time for conjecturing, for God’s Kingdom does not consist in words, but in power. God’s kingdom consists, above all else, in attitude; we live the imperative gospel, the one which states: go, preach, believe, help the poor, guard your faith. Christianity is all about life, action, militancy, not trash talking. When the fullness of times comes, this commanding gospel will be replaced for a non-temporal one:
“See, I make new heaven and earth.”
“… no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
By prayers, and the preaching of the gospel, and the breaking of the bread the Lord’s way back shall be prepared. The Church must stretch out its hand to feed and to preach, to aid and to thank, for men does not live on word alone, but on every bread that comes from the hand of God’s servants. Ultimately, the Church must be active in the day named today, here and forevermore.