A "Glimpse" of a Teaching and Its Fulfillment

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He teaches about the coming of the Kingdom
Luke 17:20-37

LATER, JESUS WAS ASKED by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he gave them this reply: “The kingdom of God never comes by watching for it. Men cannot say, ‘Look, here it is’, or ‘there it is’, for the kingdom of God is inside you. . .”

*     *     *

Not so many days later…

PETER STEPS OUT THROUGH the doorway into the bright Jerusalem sunlight. The whole crowd below turns and looks up. From this parapet, he can see across the rooftops to the Mount of Olives. The gnarled trees of Gethsemane are visible. The foot-trail that winds up from the Kidron, past that run of untended grapevines, is visible too. He can see the place their feet trod together: he remembers the feeling of going up…and then going back down.
     He looks down at the crowd beneath him. 
     A strange, uncity-like silence is ascending.
     A warm west wind is blowing out of the wilderness, carrying scents he smelled on those days when he and the others once baptized…
     The silence below awaits…
     And as he steps to the rail, in harness now to the Presence that lives inside him, clearing his throat, letting the words within him arise and coalesce, Peter is suddenly conscious of one final thought—like a whisper to his spirit on this morning of the day of Pentecost:

“The Kingdom of God is within you, Peter.”