When you look up the phrase “To Kingdom Come…” you find that it’s a euphemism for “into the next world.” So when someone says, “I’m going to blow you to kingdom come…” they are meaning that they are going to make you go to the afterlife.
It is an interesting phrase because of it’s bad theology. When Jesus utters the words, “Kingdom come,” He isn’t talking about the people He is with going to heaven. Instead, He is talking about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. “Kingdom come,” isn’t about “the next world”, it is about this one.
This Sunday we start our final sermon series of the “True Presence” year, a series called “Kingdom Come”. This series will be one where we look a three parables that Jesus speaks to His disciples about their commission while He is gone. They are to be ready, they are to invest well, and they are to allow the Holy Spirit to work in their lives. All of that is to be done here, on earth, in your neighborhood. Luther put it this way: “The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.” (Small Catechism)
Of course, this isn’t OUR kingdom come, it is God’s Kingdom. And His Kingdom is only ours because He has given us salvation and His Spirit to lead us into the workings of His Kingdom. As we work that out, we find that we are still aren’t completely in His Kingdom. We still need to be forgiven and renewed. As we do, we get closer and closer by His grace to the moment when Christ will return and His Kingdom is finally completely here.