Rapture Relief

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

November 28, 2010

First Sunday in Advent

Rapture Relief

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 24:36-44

Christmas tries to sneak into town right after Halloween.

Thanksgiving always puts up a good fight,

trying desperately to preserve November as its turf,

but once the dishes are put away after the turkey dinner

and the Tupperware lids are snapped shut on the leftovers

Christmas is off and running.

Stores open on the horribly named “Black Friday”

at 6:00 am, 5:00 am, 4:00 am, 3:00 am,

shoppers eager for the best bargains

for things that will find their way under trees,

wrapped with stickers that say,

“Do Not Open Until Christmas”.

We decorate our houses inside and out over Thanksgiving weekend.

Hopefully there is at least one Nativity

among the lights, the Santas,

the inflatable snowmen and the mechanical reindeer.

We start singing our favorite Christmas carols,

and as busy as the season is,

most of us tend to feel a little lighter

as we sing “Jingle Bells” or “Deck the Halls”.

All this Christmas preparation leaves pastors with a dilemma

on this First Sunday in Advent.

The word “Advent” means “coming”

but it does not refer to the coming birthday party;

it refers to the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christ who came,

is the Christ who will come again,

come again in glory.

We begin a new liturgical year on this First Sunday in Advent,

and the Lectionary assigns texts

that speak to the day when Christ will come again.

We don’t start the liturgical year or the season

with stories of a cute baby in a manger,

or faithful Joseph,

or obedient Mary,

or shepherds abiding in the fields,

or wise men following the star.

No, we begin Advent with the powerful words from our Lord himself

that he will come again in glory:

“Then they will see the Son of Man

coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call.”

(Matthew 24:30ff)

We think of these texts

that speak of Christ’s second coming as apocalyptic,

a word that suggests a coming cataclysm,

days of violence and struggle,

the entire world caught in a massive upheaval.

The word “apocalypse” means no such thing, though.

The word means “revelation” or

“that which is revealed,”

and that’s just what Jesus is doing:

revealing what will happen,

what’s to come in the future.

From the moment Jesus uttered those words

more than two thousand years ago, however,

there has been a furious effort to determine

the precise date and time,

even the place,

when that will happen,

when Christ will come again.

It is baffling why anyone would do this

since Jesus himself said,

“But about that day and hour no one knows,

neither the angels of heaven,

nor the Son,

but only the Father.”

(Matthew 24:36)

That seems about as clear as can be –

if Jesus himself didn’t know,

then why would anyone presume that he or she

could figure it out?

Still, it hasn’t stopped the foolish from trying,

from believing that woven into the pages of the Bible

is some secret code that reveals God’s plan.

Baptist preacher William Miller, as one example,

had no hesitancy telling his followers,

“… that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth,

cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same,

with all the saints,

sometime between March 21, 1843

and March 21, 1844.”

His followers waited with great anticipation,

and then watched each day slip by with nothing happening.

The most common complaint lodged against Miller afterward

was not that he should not have tried to predict the second coming,

but that he got his math wrong.

Many have learned the folly of trying to predict

the time when Christ will come again,

and instead have immersed themselves

in graphic descriptions of what that day will be like,

what will happen to believer and unbeliever alike.

                 

There’s been an industry built around Paul’s words

from First Thessalonians:

“we who are alive will be caught up in the clouds together

…to meet the Lord in the air.” (4:17)

that passage many believe refers to the “rapture”,

a word that does not appear in Paul’s writings.

                                   

When the Bible was translated into Latin in the fourth century,

the Greek word for “caught up” was replaced by the Latin

“rapio”, which means “carried away”,

and from that Latin word came the English “rapture”.

And of course, if some are raptured,

taken up,

then presumably others will be “left behind”.

And that’s the premise on which Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins 
combined rather bad writing with even worse theology

and found a gold mine for themselves,

with their portrayal of the rapture and Christ’s Advent.

All of this is a muddle

and leaves us baffled and confused.

So, it isn’t at all surprising that clergy and congregation alike

prefer to skip over all this Advent stuff,

Second Coming stuff,

Rapture stuff,

and just go straight to “Joy to the World”.

Let’s get on with Christmas!

                 

The problem is, it’s Jesus himself who tells us

we need to pay attention to this.

He himself is the one who says repeatedly in the gospels

that he will come again

and that we need to be ready for that day.

He tells us all this as a call to action.

He calls us to be alert,

to pay attention to our lives as disciples,

to live faithfully.

He calls us to live as he teaches us to live.

If we do that,

then we’ll have nothing to worry about,

nothing to fear;

We won’t be left behind.

If we live as Jesus teaches us to live,

we can find “rapture relief”.

(M. Yurs)

Jesus himself tells us,

“Now when these things begin to take place,

stand up and raise your heads,

because your redemption is drawing near.”

(Luke 21:28)

That’s good news – the sun will shine!

The Isaiah text we heard

portrays the joy, not the sorrow,

that awaits us when God’s kingdom is established:

“In the days to come,

the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established

as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised above the hill;

all the nations shall stream to it.

Peace will reign, not war.

This is what we can look forward to.

        

But there is an “if” to all this.

We can count on the sunshine and the good news,

“if” we are ready.

Jesus makes this so very clear --

that we dare not get lazy,

that we cannot assume that we’ll have

enough advance notice of Jesus’ Advent

that we’ll be able to get ourselves ready

when we have to.

Jesus will not text, “B thr n 15 mins.”

Don’t be like the people who stood by

and watched Noah build the Ark, Jesus tells us,

those men and women who laughed at Noah’s efforts,

thought it was all ridiculous, a waste of time.

Look what happened to them,

Jesus warns us: they were lost

because they hadn’t been alert,

they hadn’t paid attention;

they hadn’t lived as God told them to live.

So what are we to do?

Spend all our time here at church?

All our days on our knees praying?

No, of course that’s not what is expected of us.

The best way to prepare for Christ’s coming again

is both very simple and very difficult:

it is to live as Jesus tells us to live.

        

Living as Jesus calls us to live

begins with Jesus’ two great commandments:

first: we are to love God with all our heart, our strength,

all our mind, all our soul.

Second, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Of course, there is the corollary

to the second great commandment:

that everyone is our neighbor,

including the alien, the foreigner, and the stranger.

How we struggle with that part of Jesus’ teaching!

Jesus teaches us with such wonderful directness and simplicity

how we are to live:

“I was hungry and you gave me food;

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink;

I was a stranger and you welcomed me;

I was naked and you gave me clothing;

I was sick and you took care of me.”

(Matthew 25:35ff)

To be ready is to live according to the Sermon on the Mount:

it is to hunger and thirst for righteousness,

it is to be merciful,

it is to be a peacemaker,

going so far as to love your enemy.

It is not to be judgmental,

remembering the log in your own eye

before you condemn the speck in the eye of another.

As we learned last week,

it is not to store up treasures on earth,

but to store up treasure in heaven.

It is to live remembering that our Lord has taught us:

“in everything do to others

as you would have them do to you.”

(Matthew 7:12)

“Be dressed for action,” Jesus teaches us,

“have your lamps lit;

be like those who are waiting for their master

to return from the wedding banquet

so that they may open the door for him

as soon as he comes and knocks.

Blessed are those servants

whom the master finds alert when he comes.”

(Luke 12:35ff)

The message of Advent is that

the story we love so much at Christmas

was only the beginning.

We live in the middle of the story,

and there will be an end to the story,

an end when Christ comes again.

It will be a glorious day

if we are alert and ready.

        

If we are alert and ready,

living as Jesus calls us to live,

then when he comes, we’ll be able to sing out,

“Joy to the World,

the Lord has come!”

AMEN