Here’s the scandal: not just that Jesus speaks of the new kingdom (although his image of the kingdom is unique and powerful), but that he says the kingdom is at hand , available to be grasped, knocking at the door—not just someday in the future, but here and now . Here and now! To a Jewish hearer in Jesus’ day, “the kingdom of God” may have been an accessible and evocative metaphor, but “at hand” would come as a shock and a contradiction to what everyone thought. Everyone thought that the kingdom