A hundred years ago, Charles Dickens wrote an apocalyptic journey in his well known A Christmas Carol a play in which miserly scrooge is taken on a visionary tour of his life. Scrooge is changed by the final vision when he sees his own lonely grave. Scrooge pleads with the spirit of Christmas future: Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only? Spirit, your nature intercedes for me and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! Dickens writing is no different than those we are reading today from Revelation, Matthew and 1 Thessalonians. They are visions and prophecy about what may be and persuade us to change our lives. A lamb with seven horns. A pregnant women clothed with the sun. A red dragon with seven heads and ten horn. These images might sound like something out of a fantasy novel or the memories of a drug induced coma. But these images make up Revelation. It is a crazy, wild ride to read Revelation and many people have stayed away from it for this reason. It is hard to read and hard to understand. While I don t claim to understand all of the images and writing of John, there are glimmers of a complex and beautiful storyline within poetry and hymns. The most important thing to remember when reading Revelation, and apocalyptic writing in general, is to note the difference between prophecy and predictions. Revelation falls firmly into the category of Biblical prophecy. Just like Scrooge had the ability to change the outcome of his story, prophecies, too are not predetermined. Revelation is written in the same tone as other Biblical prophets such as Jeremiah and Isaiah. This genre of literature is not meant as pronouncement
but words of comfort and or challenge on behalf of God. This is all within a historical context. When people are living in crisis, as they were during the writing of Revelation under Rome s rule, prophets speak words of reassurance that God is there and will end the oppression. Prophecy in revelation also challenges the audience not to give into the demands of the political system. In this way Revelation is also characterized by challenge of empires and the status quo. This is not unique to Revelation however. Jonah wrote to his people urging them to turn their lives around and repent for Nineveh was to be destroyed in 40 days. He was a successful prophet since everyone repented. They put on sack cloth and God was pleased and did not strike down the city. Jonah was a prophet who challenged his people to action, not a predictor. In the same way, revelation is prophetic writing meant to wake people up to the current realities. Another example. Revelation 15 and 16 tell of plagues and bowls of wrath to be poured out on earth. While we could read these as harbingers of destruction in the world, I believe that these are written to parallel the Exodus story. In Egypt the plagues persuaded pharaoh to release the people, and were a message about the injustices of the time. In the same way, revelation speaks prophetically showing that Jesus is the new Moses and that the world today is full of injustices. It is a wake up call showing us that things in our world aren t the way they should be. But Revelation also reminds us that God loves the world and desires liberation for God s people. So I m not convinced that there will really be bowls of wrath poured on top of us that will ruin the world. But I am convinced that the prophetic words written
in 95 CE are still prophetic today. Words of prediction loose their poignancy but prophecy continues to be true. Perhaps my favorite image in Revelation is that of the Lamb. Again the story is not that a literal lamb will come to unlock magical scrolls. The slaughtered lamb is able to do the one thing that no one else could. You might expect a mighty lion with violence to come and shatter the scrolls but it is the lamb whose only weapon is it s words. It is this lamb- the resurrected Christ- that we are called to follow today. Handel s messiah concludes with this image of the lamb that we heard earlier today. It is an inspiring image. For Revelation wasn t written to just tell us what the sci- fi journey to heaven is going to look like. It was written to tell us how God desires to heal the world now. It is not about life after death but about life in this moment inspired by the lamb. Our two texts this morning say a lot about what life in this moment should look like. The two texts have also been used to support rapture theology for the past 170 years. Rapture theology claims that good Christians will be taken into heaven while those who live in sin will be left on earth to suffer. While it is a somewhat compelling narrative with instant gratification for proper living, it is incongruent with the biblical message that is revealed in Revelation, Matthew, and 1 Thessalonians. All of our texts, however, do touch on how we can expect to experience the second coming of Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 This is one of the classic texts when talking about the second coming of Christ. It tells a story of how believers who have died will be brought to heaven.
The lord will descend from heaven. The dead in Christ will rise first. Those who are alive will be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord. This Passage seems to describe a singular event. So is this prophecy or prediction? This verse is written within the context of the early Christian community who were convinced that the second coming would be any day now. Believers were concerned that if their family members had died, they would not be able to experience Jesus return. However, Paul writes to the Thessalonians comforting them. He lets them know that their loved ones will be with them. All will be resurrected. But the point is not what happens to those people who may be left behind in the scenario. This is prophecy meant to comfort the early Christians who were overly stressed about the fate of their loved ones. This narrative is also fitting with the term apantesis which is the practice of going out to meet dignitaries and accompanying them into the city. 1 Thessalonians uses this idea and declares Jesus as a dignitary, one to be praised, who will be met in the air and ushered onto Earth with praise. This reminds me of my childhood Dog, Ben. He and my mom had a special relationship and were very close. Whenever she would leave the house, he would sit by the door and eagerly wait for her to be home. As soon as he would hear the car begin to pull into the driveway, he became energized. Almost buzzing with excitement and when we opened the door he shot out and ran down the driveway to meet her. She would get out of the car and they would greet each other and walk into the house together. My mom never turned
around and walked away from Ben, but would join in his excitement. I think this encapsulates the image that John is trying to portray to the Thessalonians. The dignitaries wouldn t walk away from Earth, nor will Jesus abandon Earth during the second coming. Unlike rapture theologians who use this text to prove that all good Christians will be removed, I see an eager anticipation to meet Jesus in the air and usher him and his Kingdom back on Earth. So Paul is both declaring allegiance to Jesus, as one who deserves our devotion, and comforting the early church in their worries. So prophecy? I think so. Prediction about a rapture and people being swept into the air? Probably not. Our second text for today is Matthew 24:36-41. This again is a classic text when talking about the second coming of Christ. This story is slightly different for it begins with more uncertainty. But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. From the get go this should be an indicator that the timeline of the second coming should not be our priority. Even Jesus, the son, does not know when it is going to arrive. If Jesus doesn t need to know when it will happen, perhaps we don t need to be that preoccupied with it. The narrative continues: People are living their lives normally, eating and drinking and doing their thing, just like they were before Noah and the flood. And just as with Noah, they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away. This too will happen with the Son of Man. People will be working in their fields. One will be taken and One will be left. Two people will be cooking supper together and one will be taken and one will be
left. Matthew concludes, keep awake, because we don t know what day the Lord is coming. Be ready always for the Son of Man is coming in an unexpected hour. A common assumption is that the Good Christians are taken, however, this is a leap in logic. Matthew clearly alludes to Noah and the flood. In that story it was Noah and his family, and animals who remained on earth, and the evil ones who were swept away. It is then logical to conclude that it is not the good ones who will be cleansed from the earth, but the evil ones. This being said, I don t think that the point of this text is really about who will remain and who will go. The majority of the text is about preparation and readiness. Matthew does not seem interested in the exact formula to tell when this will happen. He is interested in the urgent necessity of readiness. To be watchful and awake. To guard your house like a thief is coming. But what does being watchful look like now? There is a sense of real urgency in these passages, I think because the early church was convinced that tomorrow Jesus really is coming back. But now that 2,000 years have passed, it is harder to imagine. If we keep reading our passage, Matthew makes it easy by telling 4 parables in chapter 25 which help us to imagine what the waiting should look like. These are the parables of the 10 bridesmaids, the parable of the talents, the sheep and goats and the feeding of the stranger. These parables immediately follow the urgency in the last text. This placement leads me to believe that the urgency which Matthew is fostering is really all about ethics. As Deborah Rossing writes Whatever traumas befall us, we are to be urgent in loving our neighbor, urgent in caring for the world that God create, urgent in feeding the hungry and visiting prisoners, urgent in living
faithfully as Christ commanded. Matthew isn t telling us to figure out the timing but is motivating us to action. The trouble that arises is that, if these texts are indeed pointing us towards action, rather than timeline, what do we do with the idea of a second coming? What do we actually believe about Jesus coming to earth? This week I transplanted peonies in my garden that were taken from just outside the church. Peonies are slow flowers. They don t like to be moved and take 2-3 years to recover from being replanted. I was trying to choose the spot with the best light while also considering what I will want 3 years from now once they start to bloom. There is much anticipation wrapped up in planting these flowers. I don t know if they will survive. Ultimately I am filled with hope that what I have been told about these flowers is true, just as we wait with hopeful anticipation that something that we have been told about the second coming of Christ is also true. There is one camp of thinking that believes that the urgency and anticipation of Jesus return is slow moving brought on by our actions and kingdom living. This is all within the context that God is with us on every step of this journey towards the second coming. I mentioned to a few friends this week that I was preaching about the second coming and they looked at me as though I was crazy. I was embarrassed to even bring it up with them but once I had said it, I couldn t take it back. One of my friends said emphatically, Krista, you know that it has already happened right?. Which
stumped me for a while. I believe that the Kingdom of God is in breaking, here on earth already, but not yet. But I also believe that there might be more coming. Perhaps we actually do need to anticipate one singular moment of redemption.we are comfortable thinking that we are doing our best to plug along assured that God works through us. But maybe this is not enough? This slow kingdom building permeates Mennonite culture. If we continue to work towards bringing the kingdom of God, then we will eventually help enough people that the earth will begin to look like the New Jerusalem. The problem with this type of thinking is that it assumes that we can actually live like Jesus calls us to. We can try, but I don t think we can ever actually live up to the whole gospel image. Without God s redemption and in breaking, we will be unable to actually fulfill the kingdom of God. We will always fall short without God s help. Otherwise we are in purgatory. Stuck with a vision of beautiful future without the means to achieve it. If only we worked harder to get there, maybe we would achieve it. It seems as though we need to be ready for a moment of redemption and cleansing in the world. I generally just write off the idea of a second coming for the fear of sounding crazy (as my friend thought I did). However, I am caught between thinking that we will slowly build the kingdom, and thinking that we really need a big change to help us bring the new kingdom on earth. Usually we articulate that we are building God s kingdom through peacebuilding, non violence and personal faith. If we only work harder, and believe more, things will happen. But it hasn t happened yet and the world doesn t feel like it is actually getting much better. If we ascribe to
this thinking only, we get caught in a purgatory waiting for something to happen but knowing that we as humans are too flawed to live it out fully. Regardless of how much religious fervor we have regardless of how many relief kits we make, and how many times we serve at the soup kitchens we will always fall short of actually living out the entirety of God s kingdom. I am skeptical that God s kingdom is fully here and that we can bring it to fruition without a bit of help from God (aka the second coming). Maybe we admit that we need an in breaking of something. I am not convinced that it will look exactly like Matthew, Paul or John wrote about but I am convinced that God has promised to return to resurrect and reconcile creation to God s self. This all being said, the point is not the fact that it is a singular moment of redemption. While I believe we desperately need God s help for the new kingdom, the scriptures don t tell us to just wait around and see when Jesus will return. Klauss Epp made this mistake by convincing a large group of Mennonites into a field to wait for the second coming. And they ended up waiting, and waiting, and waiting doing nothing but sit patiently. This is the antithesis of what the apocalyptic scriptures are urging us towards. The images of the lamb, and prophecies of the plagues on earth are intended to motivate us to change. These texts urge us to act and live as Christians. To pledge allegiance to the lamb and do our best to bring about the kingdom until that day that Jesus returns to redeem creation. As Christians we need to accept this challenge to live with urgency and anticipation of a second coming. Even to be open to talking about the end times and
our work to bring about the Kingdom now. If we don t do something while we wait for redemption we are contributing to this purgatory. I m convinced that the world isn t getting better without us trying to speak out against injustices and all systems of violence. This is all good for me to say In a sermon but secretly, inside, I am so embarrassed to be speaking this poignantly about the end times. We have been scared off by apocalyptic fervor and rapture theology and haven t been challenged to actually think through what we believe about the next step in God s plan for humanity and creation. And now that I ve done some thinking about it, I m convinced that these scriptures are calling us to live radical lives. The end of the story is not already written and we have a part in how it will go down. God isn t scripted and predetermined. Instead it is like a chess game. God and humanity are making moves and reacting and responding to each other. We surely don t know where this will take us, and, like Matthew says, not even Jesus knows the date and the end of this story. Just like Scrooge was able to listen to the Christmas Spirit, we have prophets that we can heed, just as those living in Nineveh listened to Jonah and turned around, we can respond faithfully to this call to live urgently. This all sounds a bit too apocalyptic and evangelical to be comfortable. But yet I hear these themes in the scriptures and we can t spend our faith always thinking about things that feel comfortable. I encourage you to wrestle with what you believe about the end of this chapter of humanity s story with creation.
To read the Bible s hardest passages is like wrestling with God you grapple to make sense of the words, you hold on, you struggle for clarity, you seek to wrest answers for all of your questions. What God gives you instead of a system of answers is a blessing, a new name a living relationship. You are forever changed by the encounter. You have seen the face of God. Perhaps you think that there will not be a definitive end and that the second coming is already here. Perhaps you believe that there will be definitive moment in which Jesus will arrive and God s people will usher in his arrival. Ultimately, though, I encourage you to wrestle with these scriptures, to try reading some of this prophetic, apocalyptic stuff, and see where the face of God is revealed. Throughout this process we are assured, as Joe reminded us last week, that God doesn t change. God is loving and constant. And until we fully understand all of this, we pray as the final verses of revelation do: Amen. Come Lord Jesus!