It’s clear to me that to live in the Kingdom of God, which in the Gospels Jesus mentions regularly as the end-goal, you must look past your temporal environment. To live in the Kingdom and be with Jesus, you start with a spiritual approach to the Holy Spirit—similar to the way you view the image content of a stereogram containing a picture hidden in patterns. In other words, to reach the “heavenly” Kingdom you must “look past” the “earthly” environment—and although you are looking at your immediate position, you focus beyond it.
You start by looking at the Cross—but do not dwell on that repulsive instrument of death and its unspeakable cruelty, like those Paul criticizes who churn about at the door but never go in (2 Timothy 3:7). Remember that Jesus himself didn’t stay at the Cross; he used it for his Father’s purpose, and then proceeded on his journey. We can think of the Cross as the “stereogram” through which we obtain our true goal of citizenship in the Kingdom. Gaze at the meaning of the Cross long enough, focusing on the God that Jesus prayed to and is, and the Cross becomes no longer an object of wood, but a transformative portal to the Kingdom both in heaven and on earth.
In the Gospels, Jesus speaks of his journey—which goes through the Cross, but pointedly it doesn’t end there. Jesus’ journey goes through to his Resurrection and his being with the Father (Luke 13:32). We should take up Jesus’ invitation to follow him on our own journey through (not ending at) the Cross. This journey will take you through to the heavenly Kingdom, and cycle back to the earthly environment after having been spiritually transformed—to tangibly serve in our temporal existence as it is an essential subset of the vast and multidimensional spiritual creation we live in.
The main point of knowing “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” is that we know “spiritual things” as “those who are spiritual” and who are “taught by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:2,13). We thus pursue the Cross, not for the sake of sacrifice in its own right (there’s neither righteousness nor spirituality in that), but instead as a way point on an itinerary to our actual destination: a place in the Kingdom of our Lord, in which we serve God and our fellow created beings in complete joy, receiving affirmation and fulfillment in every way.
It might not be immediately clear why the Cross is required even as a way point. Why can’t we just go straight to the Kingdom, and bypass the part about suffering (mentally and emotionally, if not physically)? I think the answer is our need for transformation, which is required to traverse the portal of the Cross—it is as if we are like “sea creatures” (in our current mortal state) that cannot survive on “land” (the greater spiritual realm of the Kingdom), without first being transformed to be able to breath air (think: breath of God). In other words, mortal life stops at the Cross (literally in the case of Roman Empire crosses), and we must choose immortality if we are to go beyond that.
Who wouldn’t choose to become immortal, if it were believed to be possible? There are multiple examples in novels and movies of different people, good and evil, devising schemes to make themselves immortal. Sometimes the characters in these tales do this by tapping into some power of nature or invoking some entity external to themselves—but most always those forces are not the Son of Man who washes his disciples’ feet and admonishes them not to lord it over each other (Matthew 20:25-27). I think it’s fair to say that any attainment of immortality through a Faustian arrangement would produce a negative return on investment. But then if true immortality is essential to traverse the portal of the Cross, how is this essential immortality obtained so as to enter the Kingdom of God?
The Gospel on its surface is unintuitive. What sense is there in denying one’s self, and losing one’s life for the sake of Jesus? Those not focused through the portal of the Cross are telling things as they see them correctly, when they say such claims are nonsensical. But without the spiritual dimension of the Kingdom, even gaining the whole world is an exercise in futility (Matthew 16:24-27). And unless you focus past the “whole world,” you remain a “sea creature” without the breath of God—even as an active church participant.
It’s essential to not be distracted by the noise in one’s own thoughts, and mistake mental imaginings as spiritual substance. Physical experience with actual stereograms might help in realizing that to “see” the image one needs to stop trying to see and just “let” yourself see. The same approach is needed to spiritually see through the Cross—and to arrive safely in the Kingdom, with all its joyful privileges and duties of heavenly citizenship.
Some thoughts on what we do with that heavenly citizenship are in a separate discussion summarized by the acronym PICHEN.