Coming Soon

The scriptures referred to are 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13.

How do you explain the unfamiliar? That's at the heart of one of my favorite Green Lantern stories. In each sector of space, the guardians of the universe have selected a sentient being who is honest and fearless to act as a sort of intergalactic police officer. They equip him with a power ring, which channels the collected willpower of the universe and turns it into a non-lethal beam of light which can take the shape of whatever the individual Green Lantern chooses. Thus it can be a shield or a big shovel to scoop up the bag guys or a cage in which to keep them. Every 24 hours the ring must be recharged by a power unit that looks like a green lantern. As he recharges it, the ring's bearer recites the following oath: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil's might beware my power—Green Lantern's light!”

Though the comic book chiefly concerns the adventures of earth's Green Lantern, we often see his colleagues in the Green Lantern Corps. The artists and writers have had a field day inventing all kinds of alien Green Lanterns. One is a plant, one is living lava, one is a robot, one is an energy being who inhabits her ring and one is a virus. But my favorite Green Lantern origin story concerns Rot Lop Fan, who evolved in a pitch black region of space. He has no eyes. So how can he understand the concept of light or color? The task of recruiting him seems impossible. And then it dawns on another Green Lantern to recast her explanation of the ring and its powers in terms of sound rather than light. She reshapes the ring into a bell and reinterprets the oath. So now when Rot Lop Fan, protector of the Obsidian Deeps, recharges his bell he recites the following oath: “In loudest din or hush profound, my ears hear evil's slightest sound. Let those who toll evil's knell beware my power—the F-sharp bell!”

In today's New Testament readings, Jesus and Paul have a similar problem. How do you explain something people were unfamiliar with—Jesus' second coming—using images and concepts they already grasp? The problem is that both then and now folks too often get so hung up on the specifics of the images and details that they miss the point. That's akin to Rot Lop Fan deciding to use his bell only to make music, rather than to fight for justice.

In Thessalonica, the Christians were anticipating Jesus' return, which they thought would happen very soon. But they were worried about those in their church who had died before Jesus' reappearance. How would they be saved? So Paul tries to comfort them by explaining something outside human experience: the breaking into this world of the other. In doing so he uses familiar images from scripture combined with the symbolism of an imperial visit.

The picture Paul paints of Jesus coming on the clouds comes from the book of Daniel: “As I gazed in visions of the night, I saw one like a son of man, coming with the clouds. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion, glory and kingship, that all the peoples, nations and languages will serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14)

To this Paul adds the language and the imagery of a royal visit. A herald would announce that the king is coming, trumpets would sound upon his approach and the citizens would come out to meet him and escort him into the city. The Greek word for that kind of meeting is precisely the one Paul uses when he describes the resurrected dead, along with those still living, coming together with their Lord. When Jesus comes to establish her kingdom, its citizens, both the living and the dead, will be reunited in greeting him.

Much has been made of this passage by proponents of dispensationalism. This is a method of Bible interpretation popular in fundamentalist and evangelical churches. It divides up scriptural history into 6 or 7 dispensations, or periods of time in which God deals with people in different ways. The attraction of dispensationalism is that it organizes the sprawling saga of scripture into nice neat epochs that operate according to clear rules. (here) It also gives a schematic presentation of progressive revelation. The problem is that it is so determined to make everything fit neatly that it tends to ignore all nuance, subtlety and ambiguity in the Bible. It is so concrete it takes things that are obviously meant to be symbolic as literal. And it has systematized the various visions of the end times into a rigid timetable that has become enshrined in most evangelical eschatology. (here)

This passage from 1^st Thessalonians is at the heart of of the idea of the “Rapture” that figures into structure of the Left Behind series of novels. It comes from the Latin word “rapio” used in the Vulgate to translate part of verse 17. It literally means “to be caught up.” It was John Nelson Darby, the guy who systematized dispensationalism, who came up with the unique idea that this rapture would occur before the 7 year period of tribulation mentioned in Revelation 7:14. Darby posited that Jesus would make a 2-stage return. First he would secretly return to rescue believers from the tribulation, all the plagues and disasters mentioned in Revelation. After they sat things out in heaven, Jesus would return a second time with the raptured saints in tow. He would win the battle of Armageddon, hold the last judgment, and inaugurate the kingdom of God. The way this ties together difficult-to-understand passages from Daniel, Revelation, Thessalonians and others appeals to the orderly mind. The problem is that there are passages in the gospels that indicate believers will suffer through the end times. (Matthew 24:9-13; Mark 13:20; John 16:33) Most non-dispensationalist scholars do not see any reason to insert a secret rapture before or even halfway through the final tribulation. It smacks of reading into the scriptures something you want to see.

Part of the problem is the language used here. Though in other passages, Paul speaks of Jesus “appearing,” here he writes of Christ “descending from heaven” and of believers, living and resurrected, being “caught up” to meet him in the air. So lots of folks think he is describing a physical event. But as psychologist Dr. Steven Pinker points out, all languages use a kind of internal geography and geometry. We talk of bringing a subject “up” or letting someone “down” or talking something “out” or “going further into” a matter. We even talk of people “coming down” to the Keys as if mainland Florida was mountainous. Similarly we speak of “God Most High,” or of “lifting up”our hearts in praise, or of the “descent” of the Holy Spirit. Now we are talking of real things and events but that doesn't mean they literally involve physical movement or locations. The return of Jesus is real but to insist he must re-enter the atmosphere from outer space, using not the space shuttle but water vapors, is like thinking that because God says Israel is the apple of his eye, he must have fruit in place of eyeballs. (Zechariah 2:8)

Remember the context: Paul is trying to comfort a church going through persecution. He is not laying out a definitive order of endtime events but reminding this parish that transformation and resurrection applies to all Christians.

In our gospel Jesus is discussing his return with a different end in mind. He, like Paul, is using something familiar to explain something that is not. In this case, Jesus is using the sequence of events preceding a wedding at that time. After a day of dancing, the bridegroom and his party would process through the streets so everyone could wish him well. The bridesmaids would leave the bride, take torches and wait outside for him to appear so they could take him to his betrothed. It might take him a while to wend his way through the whole town so he might arrive quite late. In the parable, 5 of the bridemaids know this and so they prepare for the possibility by bringing extra oil to dip their rag-wrapped torches into. 5 don't make any preparations. They all fall asleep while waiting. When they hear someone shouting that the bridegroom is near, the wise bridesmaids are ready. The foolish bridesmaids are unable to get their torches going. Sharing the oil would mean no one would have enough to accompany the couple for the whole procession. When the foolish bridesmaids return after finding a late-night merchant to sell them some more oil, they find out that the party has passed them by. The bridegroom has claimed his bride from her parents house and taken her under a canopy to his house for the wedding feast. The unprepared are shut out of the celebration.

People argue about what the torches or the oil represent but the point is simply to be ready for the Messiah to return or you will be left out. Whereas Paul is using the Second Coming to comfort Christians in distress, Jesus is using the same event to wake up complacent followers. And those are the two main reasons that the Bible tells us what God is planning to do in the future: to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Prophecy is not included in the Bible so the curious can work out the date of Armageddon or to decode who the beast in Revelation is. It is there to give hope to the suffering and a warning to the slumbering.

What do we do in the meantime? We carry out the mission God has given us: proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God in all we say and do. That means living as citizens of the incipient kingdom, modeling its principles, and spreading Jesus' reign by inviting others to follow him. We are to teach and to heal, to rebuke and to reconcile, to love and to forgive, to help and to guide, to listen and to understand, to create and to welcome. The wrong response to the delay in Jesus' return is to sit back and just wait. In other parables, while waiting for the master to return, the servants are to invest money left in their stewardship, or to nurture and harvest crops, or to simply continue with their tasks. The last thing you want to be doing when the boss comes back is goofing off.

Contrary to popular eschatology, Jesus isn't returning on a cosmic bungee cord, to grab us out of the world when it needs us most, and then pull us back up to heaven. The 2 images used in our readings are of a king visiting a city and of a bridegroom coming for his bride. Those who go to meet him then accompany him back to their city or back to the bride they left at her home. He's not turning around to take the people away from their city or to leave the bride behind. 

Nor is Jesus simply returning to destroy the world. He is coming to establish heaven on earth and to renew both. And the good we accomplish in his name will be incorporated into the new creation. That means we must be invested in renewing, rehabilitating, restoring and recreating the world and the society we live in.

Every Sunday in the creed we mention Christ's coming again. In the Eucharistic prayer we not only look back at the glorious things Jesus did for us in the past but we also look forward to his return. Jesus never intended us to spend a lot of time trying to imagine just how he would return. And he forbids us to speculate on exactly when he would come. Only the Father knows that. (Matthew 24:36) Our job is to proclaim that he will come and that he will set things right. That should warn those who do wrong, comfort those who have experienced wrong, and awaken those who have been asleep to the fact that things have been going wrong.

If the presiding bishop were coming to Big Pine Key, you better believe we'd be getting prepared for the visit. We use every form of communication to tell folks she or he was coming and what everyone needs to do first. If your CEO was coming to your workplace, you'd make sure everything was working properly and that everybody was doing their job. If either were coming to your house, you would make needed repairs and take out the trash and invite everyone you knew.

Well, the King of the universe is coming to earth to see what we've done with the place since that last painful visit. Isn't there something we should be working on?