Eclipsed

The scriptures referred to are 1 John 3:1-7 and Luke 24:36-48.

Last Monday there was a total eclipse of the sun. And although this happens every 1 to 3 years, some people were predicting that it was a sign that the end of the world was here, based on some questionable interpretations of the Bible and an inability to count the number of North American towns named Nineveh in the path of the eclipse. So, of course, Facebook and other social media were full of jokes about it. And, once again, for the undiscerning, it looked like all Christians believed this and thus were fools. But not all Christians believed this, just as not all Christians believe in the pretribulation rapture, an idea not held by the early church but which has only become popular in the last 200 years, thanks to John Nelson Darby, the notes in the Scofield Bible, the book The Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series of novels and movies. But in all of this hoopla, people missed the fact that something other than our star, the sun, was also eclipsed by something much smaller than itself: Jesus, God's Son, got obscured by a mountain of silliness and trivial concerns generated largely by a small group of people who claim to be his followers.

That Jesus will return is found in the Bible. Yet it is interesting that 3 of the gospels only devote a chapter each to Jesus' most detailed discussion of the matter (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21:5-36) and John has only a couple of verses (John 14:2-3). Jesus' teaching about his return in the first 3 gospels can be summarized thus: (1) Watch out that no one deceives you, especially false Christs or Anointed Ones (which is what Christ means.) (2) Don't be alarmed by wars, revolutions, earthquakes, famines and plagues. These things are like the beginning of birth pains. The end will not come immediately. (3) Christians will be persecuted. Jesus says nothing about a 2-stage return to rescue Christians from this. “And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” (Matthew 24:22, emphasis mine) (4) Jesus' return will be obvious to all nations. (5) “But as for that day or hour no one knows it—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son—except the Father.” (Mark 13:32; cf Acts 1:7) While he was on earth, not even Jesus knew when the end would take place. Therefore we are not to try to figure it out. We are not smarter than Jesus. (6) In the meantime, other than being alert, we are to be busy doing the work Jesus gave us to do. (Matthew 24:45-47; Luke 12:42-44)

And what is that work? Jesus said we are to love God, love others, including our enemies, and spread the good news about him. (Mark 12:29-31; John 13:34-35; Luke 6:27; Matthew 28:19-20) Which is exactly what the world needs when things are getting bad. It doesn't need false hope in the form of a secret second return of Jesus to pull Christians out of the trials and tribulations the world is going through. It needs the body of Christ, which is what we as his followers are a part of. (1 Corinthians 12:27) It needs the embodiment of his Holy Spirit, doing what Jesus did. (1 Corinthians 3:16; 12:4-11)

Unfortunately, excessive attention to the details of Jesus' return has eclipsed what we are supposed to be doing now. It has eclipsed all other aspects of Christianity. Christianity is about becoming like Jesus. To do that we must focus on Jesus: who he is, what he has done for us and is doing in us and what our response should be. By focusing on the date of Jesus' return, which he told us we shouldn't do, we are ignoring the true end of the story of God and humanity.

Our passage from the first letter of John puts it like this: “Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” The true end or goal of the story is that we will in fact be like Jesus. We were created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27) That image has been marred and obscured by our sins, our destructive and self-destructive thoughts, words and actions that have damaged us and those around us. But as the letter to the Colossians says of Jesus Christ, “He is the image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15) So if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. And because through him the image of God in us is being restored, if you want to know what we can be like, look at Jesus.

Now that doesn't mean we will be transformed into first century Jewish men. Just as the image of God in us is not physical but spiritual, so it will be when we are completely like Jesus. And while, as 1 John says, we don't know exactly what we will be, we do know we will be like Jesus. So what do we know about what Jesus is like spiritually?

We know that Jesus felt compassion for people who were in need. (Matthew 14:14) He healed a leper out of compassion. (Mark 1:40-42) He healed two blind men out of compassion. (Matthew 20:30-34) He fed the 4000 because he had compassion for the hungry. (Matthew 15:32) He had compassion for the widow at Nain and raised her son from the dead. (Luke 7:12-15) He even taught people out of compassion. (Mark 6:34) So to be like Jesus is to show compassion for others.

We know Jesus did not let the traditional interpretations of God's law get in the way of helping others. He healed people on the Sabbath, which the scholars of his time interpreted as work and therefore forbidden. Jesus pointed out that (1) God works on the Sabbath, keeping creation going. (John 5:16-17) (2) Despite all their prohibitions of work, his critics would help an animal or a person who fell into a pit on the Sabbath. (Matthew 12:11; Luke 14:5) (3) He said, “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.” His critics forgot that the Sabbath was about God making us rest regularly. It wasn't supposed to be a straightjacket, keeping us from doing what's good. (Matthew 12:12) So to be like Jesus is to not let a technicality stop us from helping a person in trouble or distress.

We know that Jesus forgave people. He forgave people who thought their illness was the result of sin. (Matthew 9:2) He forgave a woman who had a bad reputation in her town. (Luke 7:36-50) He refused to condemn a woman caught in the act of adultery, though we know he felt strongly about adultery. (John 8:3-11) Spectacularly, he asked God to forgive the men who were in the process of crucifying him. (Luke 23:34) So to be like Jesus is to forgive others and not condemn them.

We know that Jesus knew the scriptures well. He used them to counter temptations. (Matthew 4:1-11) He used them to correct misunderstandings. (Matthew 15:3-6) He used them to show which commandments were the most important. (Mark 12;28-31) He used them to get people to think about who he was. (Matthew 22:41-45) He used them to frame what was happening to him during his suffering. (Mark 15:34) And as we see in our passage from Luke today, he used them to instruct his disciples on what they must teach about him when they preach the good news. So to be like Jesus is to be well acquainted with the scriptures and able to use them appropriately.

We know that Jesus did what he did out of love for us. John tells us that on the night Jesus was betrayed, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end.” (John 13:1) And it wasn't a selfish love. He didn't love them for what they could do for him. He said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) He even washed his disciples' feet, the job of the lowest of slaves. He said, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too should wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you.” (John 13:14-15) Later that evening he says, “My commandment is this—to love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12-13) So to be like Jesus is to serve others and to love them in a self-sacrificial way.

All of this comes from who Jesus is: God's Son, the true image of God. When in Genesis we are told that God created human beings in his image, we are not told just exactly what that means. But in Jesus we see that image in action. And a little later in 1 John, we are told the nature of the God in whose image we are made. “The person who does not love does not know God for God is love.” (1 John 4:8) John is not just being poetic here, meaning simply that God is loving, though that is also true. He says God is love. God is literally a love relationship. God is the Father loving the Son who loves the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. That divine, eternal love is the image in which we are made.

A few verses later, this is confirmed. “Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:11-12, emphasis mine) So no one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us, and so we can see God in the love we have for one another. Jesus said, “Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) They will know it because they will see God in and through us as we love one another.

Notice that Jesus did not say that people will know we are his disciples because we agree on every little thing. One of the most loving couples I ever knew had very different political views. But they didn't let the fact that he was a staunch Republican and she was a strong Democrat diminish their love for one another. They loved one another to the day she died. And he never remarried.

Jesus is the God who is Love Incarnate. And that's what gets obscured by people who obsess over every detail of the end times and who seem to want God to end this world and judge everyone strictly on every point of doctrine that they believe. Though the one who will judge us is Jesus, who lived and died as one of us and who knows our every weakness. (John 5:22; Hebrews 4:15) We are told not to judge others. (Matthew 7:1) That's Jesus' job and he knows things about those he will judge that we don't. And he is both just and merciful. (John 5:30; Luke 6:36)

That Jesus will return is one of the basic beliefs of the faith. But as we've seen, we can't predict when he will return and while we are to stay alert, what we are to do in the meantime is to do the work he has given us to do. And that's to love everyone, not just with our lips but with our lives, and tell everyone the good news about Jesus. And while the sun at the center of this solar system will get eclipsed again and again, we must not let anything eclipse God's Son, Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us and wants us to do the same.