The scriptures referred to are Deuteronomy 18:15-20.
A Baptist preacher named William Miller said that, based on his calculations of the numbers in Daniel, chapters 7 and 8, Jesus was going to return to earth between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When that didn't happen, he used a different Jewish calendar and put the date at April 18, 1844. Wrong again. Then a follower of his recalculated and said Jesus would come back on October 22, 1844. Many Millerites sold their homes and possessions and quit their jobs before that date. Some went up on mountains to be the first who would caught up in the air to meet Jesus. What followed is what historians call the Great Disappointment. Some Millerite churches were burned, some congregations were attacked with clubs and knives, and some groups were tarred and feathered. Some people lost their faith. Some returned to their old denominations. Some reinterpreted the date as a heavenly event and eventually became the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
William Miller wasn't the first person to incorrectly predict the date of Jesus' return and he wouldn't be the last. Radio preacher Harold Camping famously predicted that the Rapture would take place on May 21, 2011 and the world would end on October 21 that year. It wasn't even the end of the world for Camping, though he did have a stroke in June of 2011 and died 2 years later. The Jehovah's Witnesses, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Tim LaHaye (co-author of the Left Behind series of books), and even Archbishop James Ussher, the 17th century scholar who said the world was created in October 4004 BC, have put forth dates that so far have been false. And that's just the Christian contingent of world's end predictors.
One thing you can't blame this on is Biblical literalism. Because in Mark 13:32, Jesus literally says, “But as for that day or hour no one knows it—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son—except the Father.” At least during his time on earth, not even Jesus knew the date. And furthermore, Jesus specifically warns us not to believe people who say the end is here. (Mark 13:5-8) The wars and disasters people think are the end of the world are like the beginning of labor pains. So what should we do when a person prophesies falsely? According to our passage in Deuteronomy, a false prophet should be killed! I find it odd that these fundamentalists aren't literal about that either. But the truth is that fundamentalists do what they accuse others of: picking and choosing what they take literally.
Sadly, these things say more about the persons saying them and the people following those persons than they do about the Bible. The apocalyptic passages in particular seem to act as a Rorschach test for some people, where they read into them their own obsessions. And while I don't think we should kill false prophets—we don't live in Bronze Age Israel, after all—perhaps we should treat them as if they were dead to us. As the verses that immediately follow the cut off point of our lectionary selection say, “Now if you say to yourselves, 'How can we tell that a message is not of the Lord?'—whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it, the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.” (Deuteronomy 18:21-22) And if we need not fear him or her, we need not heed them anymore.
So why is our passage from Deuteronomy relevant today? This church does not have “Prophet” as an official position, nor do we seem to have anyone with the gift of seeing the future. But the word “prophet” in Hebrew does not mean “foreteller” but “spokesman.” A prophet's role is to speak God's word. It is a serious responsibility. And as we've seen there are even today a lot of false prophets whom people follow.
Recently, a lot of folks were paying attention to QAnon, a massive conspiracy theory that had people thinking there was a huge network of politicians and celebrities who, not to put too fine a point on it, were Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic pedophiles. They believe that, among others, Tom Hanks, the rare celebrity who actively attends church and talks about it, eats babies. The supporters of this conspiracy theory were among those who stormed the Capitol earlier this month. They expected martial law to be imposed on Inauguration Day and the mass execution of high-placed people they believed were in on the baby-eating. And when that didn't happen, they went through their own Great Disappointment. And like the Millerites, they are proposing new dates for their day of reckoning.
The surprising thing is how many of the people supporting this theory called themselves Christians. Yet they violated the very principles Jesus laid down in his talk about the end times. At the very beginning of answering the disciples' questions Jesus says, “Watch out that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Anointed,' and they will mislead many.” (Matthew 24:4-5) First red flag: anyone who is called the Anointed, the Messiah or the Christ (they all mean the same) is not the real thing. By his own account, there will be nothing subtle about Jesus' return. (Mark 13:26) And he is definitely not coming back as someone else.
What Jesus emphasized was how his followers should behave during bad times, even if they are not the end of the world. First, we are not to be warriors but witnesses. In the whole of the book of Revelation, Christians are never depicted as fighters. “Lord of hosts” really means “Lord of the armies of angels.” God fights his own battles. We are to be witnesses to the good news about Jesus and if necessary, martyrs. (Mark 13:10-11) In fact the Greek word for witness, martus, is where we get the word martyr. Which is another clue about the end times. Despite what some people say, Christians are not being persecuted in this country. They are not being imprisoned for simply being Christians, nor are churches being closed down by the government, nor are Christians being executed by the government. And, remember, Jesus said that while things will get worse, “these are but the beginning of birth pangs.” (Mark 10:13)
And what is the gospel or good news to which we are to be witnesses? It is basically Jesus. Paul calls it the “gospel of Christ” (Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 9:12; Galatians 1:7, et al.) The gospel is all about Jesus: who he is, what he has done for us and how we should respond.
So who is Jesus? He is God, who created us and who became a human being like us. (John 1:1-3, 14; Philippians 2:5-7) He is the Messiah, the Christ, God's Anointed Prophet, Priest and King. (Matthew 16:15-17; John 1:49; Luke 4:18, 24; Hebrews 5:5) And because God is love, Jesus is the Divine Love Incarnate. (1 John 4:7-8)
What has he done for us? He reveals to us God's grace, love and forgiveness. (Matthew 5:43-48; 6:14-15) He died on the cross for us. (Matthew 26:28; Mark 10:45; Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 15:3) He rose again (John 20; 1 Corinthians 15) And he sent the Holy Spirit to live in us. (John 14:16-17)
What should our response be? To believe in and trust him. (John 3:16; Romans 10:9) To obey his commandments, especially to love God with all we are and have and to love each other, whether friends or enemies. (Mark 12: 28-31; John 15:12-14) To take care of and treat the destitute, the diseased, the disadvantaged, and the despised of the world as we would Jesus. (Matthew 25:34-40) To follow him no matter how hard it is. (Luke 9:23) And to spread the good news about Jesus. (Matthew 28:18-20)
That's the gospel in a nutshell. Notice there's nothing there about building bunkers or overthrowing the government. That's not the way of love that Jesus lived and commanded us to live. When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, he said that the sign that his kingdom was not from this world is precisely that his followers weren't fighting to free him. (John 18:36) When Peter did try to defend Jesus from arrest, by violently cutting off the ear of a servant of the high priest, Jesus rebuked him—and then healed the man whose ear had been cut. (John 18:10-11; Matthew 26:51-52; Luke 22:50-51) Jesus came to heal, not to harm. And his followers are to be like him. (1 Peter 2:21)
We are to be witnesses to the gospel by not only saying it with our lips but also by showing it in our lives. You wouldn't believe a person who told you how great his doctor is at curing his lung cancer if the man was smoking and coughing. How can we expect people to believe that Jesus saved us from our sins if we keep doing the very things he called sins?
It also doesn't help if our message could hardly be called good news, which conspiracy theories never are. They are always about a terrible situation being the result of a secret plot by powerful people or organizations. It sucks people in because it gives them a way to tie in a number of awful events with an explanation that places blame not on them but on certain evil people. But it is a terrible frame of mind in which to live. On a recent broadcast of The A-1, a man said that during the time he believed in conspiracy theories, starting with 9/11, he was always angry and afraid and full of hate. That is the opposite effect of the good news that God in Christ saves us. As James says, “human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” (James 1:20) Paul says, “For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7) And Jesus told us to love, not hate, other people, even those we consider our enemies. (Matthew 5:43-44) What a conspiracy theory produces is the antithesis of what the gospel or good news produces.
And as Christians we are committed to the truth. It isn't hard to check facts these days. And while real conspiracies have existed they don't involve lots of otherwise unrelated groups. They exist within an industry, like the tobacco industry which denied links between smoking and cancer, or the sugar industry, which denied links between sugar and obesity. Or, sadly, they might exist within a department of the government, like MK-Ultra, the CIA's unsuccessful mind control experiments involving giving LSD to unsuspecting johns in brothels. And unfortunately these things have made some people see conspiracies everywhere. But global conspiracies involving world domination by the Jews or the Vatican or the Freemasons or Satan-worshiping baby-eaters aren't real. And we know about the actual conspiracies because someone talked or leaked information. Official investigations were done and the facts were made public. As Ben Franklin said, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” Conspiracies do not last forever.
The gospel does. And rather than spreading fanciful tales that can only exist in spy thrillers and movies, we need to be telling people the truth about Jesus: who he is, what he has done for us and how we should respond to him. Rather than worrying about shadowy supposedly all-powerful evil cabals, we should be following Jesus' advice and not worry about everything. (Matthew 6:25-34) Because we have a God who really is all powerful and who is good and loves us and will never leave us or abandon us. And if that isn't good news I don't know what is.
No comments:
Post a Comment