The Second Coming of Christ
Beverly Gaventa, one time Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary, and at Columbia Theological Seminary, writes about the apocalyptic language in Luke 21:25-36 saying, ‘One way of summarizing this passage might be to say that “things are not necessarily what they appear to be.” To look only at things that seem to be close at hand is to miss the larger picture.’ [i]
The larger picture being what all four Gospels recall Jesus’s primary proclamation was, is, and will always be, “The Kingdom of God is at Hand.” Which I have always taken to mean that if one places one’s arm outstretched in front of one’s face, where your hand ends up is just how close, or far away, the kingdom of God is from us at any given time. Suggesting, of course that it is nearby, much closer, than we might imagine; closer than even folks like Jeremiah and Luke could possibly imagine.
What Jesus and Ms. Gaventa are saying is that so many other “things” like family issues, political issues, nations at war, what Jesus describes as “dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,” tend to dominate our day-to-day consciousness. The result being that it becomes all too easy to forget what is perhaps the most important truth Jesus proclaimed, proclaims,: the kingdom of God is at hand. Lower case, as I am thinking that making kingdom of God upper case leads to our putting off much thinking about this core proclamation to some other day, some later or latter day, with so many other concerns pressing in on us literally begging for our full attention.
We may notice that Jeremiah, that sixth century BCE reluctant prophet of the Lord, who upon learning that he was to be a prophet replied, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” [ii] No my son, says the Lord, since before the birth of time I have appointed you, and “you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you… Now I have put my words in your mouth.” This seems to be a “Day of the Lord” for Jeremiah, who later writes in 33:14-16 says, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”
Two things we might take away from this: It is the Lord himself who promises “days,” not a day, but days of the Lord when the promises of God’s kingdom will become manifest. And that Jerimiah addresses a divided country, for at the time of his speaking on God’s behalf Israel was still divided into two regions, Israel in the north, and Judah in the south. Just as Jesus addresses a divided Israel, Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees and others all claiming to know for sure what God desires from all of us.
For anyone asking what all this apocalyptic language means to us today, we might just need to admit that much of the world is as divided as Israel was at the time of Jeremiah. Think of Israel vs Gaza and the West Bank, Global North vs Global South, Ukraine vs Russia, Red US vs Blue US, just to name a few. This is not to forget the divisions between and within the Church of Christ itself. We may want to pay closer attention to Jeremiah and Luke’s “little apocalypse” than we do to the “dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” Things are not simply as they appear to be, there is a larger picture that Jesus has in mind when he says elsewhere that he will come again, and when he insists that the kingdom of God is a lot closer than we think. If we think of it at all.
In some committee decades ago, it was thought that these musings on the days of the Lord and the second coming of Christ are just the texts with which we need to grapple on the First Sunday in Advent. A season fraught with misunderstandings since it is not just a season to prepare us to remember that first advent of the Christ Child lying in a manger, but to also look forward to what has been called his second coming as well. All of the preparations of the next four weeks have become devoted to making a big deal out of his first advent, with scant attention at all in our decorations, manic purchasing of gifts beginning not just on Black Friday, but even the weeks before that have become Black Friday addenda! How does one even decorate for the Second Coming? What kind of gifts are appropriate to point us toward that Second Coming Jesus himself proclaims is “at hand.”?
Borrowing, as I often do, from Fredrick Buechner, an author of over a dozen novels, and himself a seminary trained Presbyterian minister, we might begin where the Christian Bible ends: a prayer, in Revelation (Not “revelations”): “Come, Lord Jesus.” [iii] Quite possibly the shortest prayer in our tradition, and one that ought to be prayed every day at least once among the dissipations, drunkenness and worries of this life. [iv] Buechner first observes that Jesus’s first advent was rather unobtrusive. Except for Mary and Joseph of course, and perhaps a handful of shepherds, “nobody much knew or cared.” So how will we know when he comes a second time? What, when, or where will he appear? Even he says, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). People in search of a timetable try to crack the coded language of the Book of Revelation are on a wild goose chase. People who claim that only those who join their sect will be “saved,” whatever they may mean by that, and all others lost are wrong. Jesus himself says in Matthew 25:31-46 that those who will know are those of us who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and prisoners. “If you love, in other words, you’re in. If you don’t, you are out.” It does not matter to him if you are a Jew, Muslim, Christian, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholic, Episcopalian, Taoist, or an Atheist! No one can say what will happen when those “days” come, but that it will be a day to remember. These days come upon all who live upon the face of the Earth.
“Things are not necessarily what they appear to be.” Beverly Gaventa remarks that the signs of the future Jesus speaks of have become, in fact, signs of the present day. Just as the coming of new leaves always and inevitably indicates that summer will soon be at hand, so it is that the kingdom of God, indeed, lies close at hand. I wonder. In a world in which so many well-meaning Christians believe they have broken the code, if the fact may be that Jesus always comes to us a second time here and now, if, when he knocks on our door, as depicted in the third chapter of Revelation, we for once open the door and let him in. What it is like when we do that is no doubt difficult to put into words – words which inevitably begin to sound strange to others. In trying to do so myself, I find I get lost in metaphor every time. Yet, when Jesus comes to Paul on that road to Damascus, who had spent a career arresting followers of Jesus, he says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made great in weakness.” [v] I take that to mean, if Paul can be saved, there’s hope for me. For all of us. For it will come upon all who live upon the face of the earth. If only we watch. Wait. Be alert. Open the door. It is in that hope only that we dare say, “Amen,” to the prayer that brings all scripture to a close.
[i]
Texts for Preaching Year C, Cousar, Gaventa, Brueggemann, et.al. (Westminster
John Knox Press, Louisville:1994) p. 8-9
[ii]
Jeremiah 1:6-10
[iii]
Revelation 22:20
[iv] Buechner,
Fredrick, Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized (Harper & Rowe, San
Francisco, 1988) pp.101-102, with apologies to the author!
[v] 2Corinthians
12:9
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