Let’s be honest; we want it to be easy, this spiritual life, this journey to the kingdom. We look longingly for signs that we’re headed the right way; we want more than anything to know we’ll end up in the right place. And so we pay attention, sometimes, when people say, “Look, there he is,” or “Look, here he is.” We let ourselves get distracted by people who seem important or things that promise some kind of easy comfort. But none of that is the Kingdom of God.
In himself, our Jesus has shown that the journey will not be an easy one. He himself suffered greatly and was even rejected by his own generation. If the Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, if even he would embrace suffering and rejection as a pathway to glory, then we have to be ready to do the same. He never expects us to trod a path that he wouldn’t – didn’t – do himself. So we need to be ones who embrace the spiritual life, with all its frustrations, suffering, and pain, so that one day we who have joined our sufferings to Christ, might be one with him in glory.
And Jesus points out that this really should be easy; certainly easier than we’re making it. The Kingdom of God is among us, if we would take the time to observe it, if we would open ourselves up to enter into it. Even if the Kingdom seems cloaked from our current view, we must not give in to temptation. We must stay the course, live in the moment, be true to our calling as disciples. For then we cannot fail to enter into the Kingdom.