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This Advent series is highly unconventional. Instead of retelling the nativity story and hoping its events cause you to feel more favorably about the Church Industrial Complex, I have endeavored to bring you a personal experience with the Advent which is similar the historical one. The Advent is the fulfillment of a longstanding anticipation. Examining Luke chapter 3, we learned that the Advent of God’s Kingdom on earth was inaugurated by John the Baptist inviting people out from the temple and all it’s rituals, to a wilderness area 21 miles away at the Jordan river.

Think about this. Jews, gentiles, and all comers were forsaking the purification ritual of Judaism (Mikveh), and walking 5 1/2 hours to receive forgiveness, not by a priest, but instead by a homeless guy claiming the Advent has come and someone even greater will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire (v.17). It’s interesting that God’s Kingdom had come…a long way from religion…and joining it required an excursion into the wilderness. I believe the same is true today. Any and all comers who would seek the Kingdom of God, will find it pressing through solitude far easier than it does through ritual and religion.

The ritual of “Mikveh” required people to be “immersed” or ceremonial cleansed in order to come into the temple and be anywhere near God. By contrast, John’s “Good News” is that God has come to everyone…all nations, tribes, tongues, and traditions….in the desert, not in the temple. The baptism of John was a response to being cleaned, not the antecedent to it (v.3), and it caused people to (metanoia- rethink or reconsider, repent) religion. Instead of countless laws, the only command was to bear fruit (live) in step with this new way of thinking (v.3,8,15).

I keep belaboring this because some of you will simply not be convinced. The fact that Jesus, who did not need cleansing, willingly joined all comers in this baptism….outside of religion…should be sufficient for any Christ follower to relocate their faith in Christ rather than tradition and institutional religion. Yet, just as in John’s day, many listening to this simply cannot do it. Perhaps you are over-identified with your religious practice, rituals and tradition, or maybe you are fearful. Perhaps religion gives you all you need. It certainly gives people a sense of being slightly better than other people. Such religious minds would have joined the temple leaders in their reconnaissance of the situation and interrogation of John. the Bible tells us that these despised their own Messiah, and sought his death.

Religion or Kingdom. If our false self or pseudonym (fake ID) gets religion, it doesn’t become less false, it only becomes a religious false self, which is a state far worse. If religion can prevent its devout from recognizing their own Messiah, then religion can do it today. One example is how (65%) of Christian believers today are waiting for Jesus to come again and re-establish his Kingdom. Most see God’s world as belonging to Satan, and seek evacuation from it by rapture or by death. If a Christian can’t see God’s Kingdom here and now, how can he or she lay claim to its King?

“Jesus told the Pharisees that “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Luke 17:20-22)

We must extract ourselves from religion and rituals if we are to experience the Kingdom of God. We have to get to “no-thing.” The Kingdom is not religion. The Church is not the Kingdom, but is an aspect of it. The Kingdom isn’t a business. Nor a transaction. People quote the above passage about the Kingdom residing “within us” or being “what is inside” us, as if it the it’s intrinsically geotagged. While true, the Kingdom is not so straightforward because not all that is within us is the Kingdom, but it is “in” the Kingdom. If I’m to help you experience the Kingdom, we must first understand a few things.

The Kingdom is not what we assume. For this reason, Jesus taught more about His kingdom than any other subject. Only Matthew mentions the Kingdom of Heaven and the term is used in exactly the same way as Kingdom of God…they are synonymous. Matthew’s account claims the Kingdom of Heaven “is here“, “has come“, and “is at hand” and that it’s parallel to, transcends, yet includes the Kingdom of the world. The Kingdom consists of “things not seen,” and is entered through faith. We don’t see it first then believe it, but believe first then we see it.

Scripture tells us that we “enter“ or “receive” the Kingdom, and that doing so is difficult. This difficulty is historically understood as a barrier to entry, thus religion has conveniently excluded some people from the Kingdom. Religion goes on to remove this barrier by rituals which purify us or prepare us to enter the Kingdom, but that is inconsistent with the biblical revelation. Matthew 13:30 proves that both wheat and weeds are within the Kingdom, and within each of us. The barrier to the Kingdom then is also within us. No ritual, no matter how sacred, can change this. Religion teaches that the Gospel gets us into the Kingdom, the Bible shows teaches that the Gospel awakens the Kingdom within us.

“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” (Matthew 13:33)

This brings us back to Luke 3 and the crowds on a pilgrimage to the Jordan: “And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?”” (Luke 3:10)

What then are we to do?

Solitude is the best posture I can offer you if you seek to be taken over by the Kingdom of God. We are all so different, but we all understand stillness, quiet, and silence. Isolation can be anywhere the heart is in Advent, be it a crowded subway or a bustling city. Solitude is conscious awareness, and since so many of us are constantly swiping and overstimulated, the Kingdom is difficult to enter. If you resist solitude, sitting quiet in stillness can feel like torment as it evokes our demons to rise up. This means the Kingdom is close….but then it’s always been close to us…close but far.

If you desire the experience of the advent of the Kingdom of God, stillness and solitude are its gatekeepers. We are all in the Kingdom, and the invitation is for each of us to join it from the inside. The way to life is constricted, we cannot take our baggage with us. None of us are worthy enough…let that go…self righteous ego’s cannot fit through the eye of a needle…and no ritual can ferry us to the other side which doesn’t exist. Give them up. The Kingdom comes when we get to no-thing.

“For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25)

Silence, stillness, and solitude are without noise, without movement, and without others, but these are not nothing. These are not negations of “a something.” Stop scrolling and let the portal open through which the Kingdom makes us real and alive. The agenda is what surfaces next. Priorities are finally discovered. The Kingdom is the epicenter where the beloved beholds the Lover. The real Advent of the soul is its homecoming, where the Kingdom comes…through us…as it is in heaven.