They were coming from all directions, like fans converging on a football ground. They came alone, they came in groups. Husbands brought their wives, mothers brought their children, youths brought their mates. Some seemed to have brought their whole town with them. They came because they were sick and handicapped and thought he might heal them. They came because they were poor and oppressed and thought he might deliver them. They came because they were bored and curious and thought he might amuse them. They came... well, some of them would have had a hard job explaining why exactly they had come, except that everybody else was coming. But with whatever company and with whatever motivation they came, there was one word on Jesus’ lips which intrigued and excited them all: 'kingdom'.
'The kingdom of God has come.' That's what they said he was preaching. For the rural masses of Galilee those words were like sparks on dry tinder.
Every society has its dream of a better world: the classless society, the American dream, Utopia; and first-century Jews were no exception. Down through the latter years of the Old Testament period, as inspired prophets had wrestled with their national experience of tyranny and oppression, a dream of a coming kingdom gained sharper and sharper focus in their minds. It became clear that it would take an extraordinary intervention on God's part to transform this present evil world into the sort of world where God's people would really feel at home. A
