What Can We Believe about the End of Time?
Sermon
What Can We Believe?
Second Lesson Cycle A Proper 23 through Thanksgiving
Object:
Today we are going to talk about one of the biggest puzzles in the study of the Bible. What can we believe about the end of time? For Paul and the early Christians in Thessalonica that was no puzzle at all. They knew exactly what they believed about the end of time. "The Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever" (vv. 16-17). There was also an expectation that the Lord would bring in a new era of peace and justice on earth.
This is what is called the apocalyptical expectation. It was widespread among the Jewish people during the time of Jesus. The Essene people, who gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls, were completely caught up in this way of thinking. It was a part of the way in which the Jews saw reality. It became very much a part of the beliefs of the early church. They expected some special things to happen when the Messiah came. Then Jesus, the Messiah, came and died and was raised from the dead, but the new order did not come. The people were confused. Then the early Christians came to believe that Jesus was coming again to finish his work. They expected it to happen soon.
Since this letter was the earliest thing written that became part of the New Testament, it shows the shape of the faith of the earliest church. The belief that Jesus was coming again soon was a part of the faith of the Thessalonian Christians. They thought it would happen in their life time. That theme is scattered throughout the New Testament. It is hard to study the Bible without tripping over it again and again.
But it didn't happen. Time kept going on and it hasn't happened yet. So what can we believe about it?
There are some people who sincerely believe that we should still live expecting Jesus to return at any time and bring history to an end. From time to time, some little sect of people emerges who believe that they know the exact time when Jesus will return. As the date approaches, they abandon their lives in this world and get ready to meet the Lord. But it hasn't happened yet. From time to time, someone will write a sensational book based on a literal interpretation of things the Bible says about the end of time and it will become a best seller. There is a school of theological thought called, "dispensationalism," which takes those expectations literally and seriously. Some of its followers even get involved in promoting political action that is intended to hasten the return of Christ. We are all familiar with the popular series of fictional books called the "Left Behind" series that are based on this way of thinking.
Most of us see that almost 2,000 years have passed since the early church expected Christ to return. So we have decided not to organize our lives around the belief that history as we know it is about to come to an end. But, if we can't believe that, what are we to make of all of the scriptural references to this theme? What can we believe about it?
We can get some guidance from reading the rest of the New Testament. As we do that, we will discover the early church, including Paul himself, gradually began to realize Christ was not going to return as soon as they thought he would. We can learn from the things they did with their beliefs about the end of time.
First, when the early Christians became aware that the end of time was not coming soon, they realized they had to get ready to live a while longer in this world. At the time when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, the church had very little organizational structure. The apostles were the leaders and there were also some natural leaders that emerged in each congregation. By the time he wrote 1 Corinthians 12, structures of congregational life were emerging. By the time the letters to Timothy and Titus were written, something like an ordained ministry was emerging. They were getting organized for the long haul. They also started writing books intended to pass on the memories of Jesus and the witness of the early Christians to future generations. The four gospels, and the book of Acts, and probably even Paul's letter to the Romans were written for that purpose. They were getting ready to stay a while -- and so should we.
We need to organize our lives, and the life of our church, as if we will be living in this world for a number of years, probably a large number of years, and as if we will be participating in human history that is likely to go on for generations to come. That is important. God is at work in our lives and in our world today. We should not let our religion drift off into some spiritual clouds. We are called to live each day of this life as an interaction with God. And God calls us to find ways to serve him by participating in the work that God is doing in this world. But the apocalyptical way of thinking leaves us some valuable lessons we ought to hold on to.
In the passage we have read today, Paul gives the Thessalonians some assurance about those who had died. There was a widespread belief among the Jewish people during the days of Jesus, held by most of the early Christians, that there would be a day of general resurrection. There is a belief all of the saints who have died will wait for one great day of resurrection when all of the dead will rise at once.
In some other parts of the Bible, we find a belief that those who die will be raised immediately after their death and go directly to be with the Lord. As Jesus was dying on the cross, he said to the man who was dying on a cross next to his, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43).
This assurance reminds us of something we sometimes try to forget. Whether or not time is about to come to an end for the world, there will come a time when time will come to an end for each of us. Someday each of us is going to die. Most of us try to deal with that reality by not thinking about it. We like to pretend that we will live forever. Then when someone close to us dies and the shape of reality forces itself into our consciousness, we have a hard time dealing with it. The truth is that we are all mortal. We are all going to die sometime. That is part of who we are. There is a better way of dealing with that than pretending it isn't so or living in dread of it. Our faith invites us to see our mortality in the context of God's immortality.
The important thing for us to remember is that the God who has given us being, the God who has shown himself to us in Jesus Christ, is eternal. The one thing we need to know when our loved ones die, or when we think about the time when we will die, is that the God who loves us will be there beyond this life to receive us. The one who raised Jesus up from death to life can raise us up too. The when, where, and how are not important. The important thing for us to remember is that, beyond this life, we go to be with God. That is a belief that we can hold on to. And that hope will make a difference in the quality of our lives here in this world.
By the time Paul wrote his last letter, the letter to the Romans, he had stopped talking so much about the return of Christ. (By the way, theologians sometimes refer to the return of Christ as the "parousia.") He had evidently come to believe that it would happen some time in the distant future. But Paul still believed that we are living between two ages, an old age of temporary and unimportant and sometimes bad things that is passing away, and a new age that is dawning, an age of things that are eternal.
If you will look around, you will find that is a pretty good way of making sense of the things you will see. There are things that seem like they are made of tickey tackey, things that have no lasting substance or real meaning. Those things make demands upon us, and sometimes we have to put up with them. Unfortunately, some people choose to build their lives on them. There are other things that are real, of lasting importance and genuine substance. Paul would say that those are the things that are of the age to come, God's new age.
This is something that is relevant to our lives. All of us, especially the younger ones of us, make decisions about what we are going to allow to be important to us. We decide what we are going to build our lives out of. Like the three little pigs building their houses, some of us decide to build our lives of flimsy, ephemeral things like material prosperity, social prominence, and shallow pleasure. Others choose to build lives out of things of eternal significance, like loving relationships and commitments to great purposes and enjoyment of the real beauty of life.
Paul says we should live our lives, insofar as we can, in accordance with the age to come. We will still have to put up with the things that belong to the age that is passing away. But we should try hard not to let those things become too important to us. We should try, as best we can, to build our lives of the things that belong to the age to come, things like goodness, justice, beauty, and love. You will find that way of thinking reflected in Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter 8. This is a good way of putting your life together. It is one to the good things we can learn from the biblical teachings about the end of time.
John, and the Christians who were associated with him, began to see the time of an ultimate reckoning with God in a different way. They began to see judgment and repentance and the beginning of eternal life, not as something that is going to happen at the end of time, but as something that can happen whenever we encounter the risen Christ. That can happen here and now, right in the middle of your daily life experiences, whenever you become aware that God is dealing with you through your interactions with life.
Believing that can fill your everyday life with expectancy. John teaches us to take the things that the Bible teaches us about the end of time and let them interpret for us the meaning of the things that are happening in each moment of our present time.
That is a very good way to interpret the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is the biggest and most impressive piece of apocalyptical literature in the New Testament. In every generation, there have been people who have taken the book of Revelation literally, as a description of the count down leading to the end of time. That is what it appears to be. But, in fact, it is an example of a kind of literature that the Jews and early Christians used to encourage people who were living under oppression.
The writer of the book of Revelation was a leader of the church in Asia Minor during a time of persecution. He was arrested by the Roman authorities and, because he refused to renounce his faith, his property was confiscated and he was confined to a prison camp on the island of Patmos. While he was there, he worried about his fellow Christians back on the mainland who were threatened with a fate like his or worse. He wanted to write something to encourage them. He adopted a form of literature that the Jewish people had used in similar circumstances. He used highly symbolic language to escape censorship. If you want to know how this works, listen to a recording of the once popular song, "Bye, bye Miss American Pie."1 If you were a teenager when that song first came out, you would recognize the meaning of all of the highly symbolic images it strings together. If you are from another generation, it is bewildering.
The message of the book is simply this. Tyrants have come and gone in the past. This tyrant, the Roman Empire, will go like the rest. So hang in there. Keep your faith. The future is in God's hands. Ultimately, you will be on the winning side. That is something we can believe. And that belief can give you courage whether you are being oppressed by a political tyrant, an abusive relationship, or a case of depression.
A pastor went to visit a lady who was hospitalized because of a nervous break down. She was a highly motivated person who was dealing with some very demanding situations in life and they had gotten the best of her. The first few times the pastor went by, the lady was sedated. Then finally one day he found her awake and alert. She said, "Pastor I am glad to see you. I've been reading the Bible." The pastor thought, "Good. That is just what she needs: large doses of the twenty-third Psalm." But when he asked what she had been reading, she said she was reading the book of Revelation. The pastor swallowed hard and began to try to explain that she should not let the drastic images in the apocalypse upset her. The lady said, "Oh, no. I have found it a great source of peace." She had heard the real message of the book, and in fact, it is very similar to the message of the twenty-third Psalm.
It may be hard for us to believe that the Bible's vivid images of the last days are descriptions of something that is actually going to happen, at least not any time soon. But we ought not to tear those pages out of our Bibles. Like great works of art and literature, they bear witness to something that can add rich meaning to our lives. There are lots of things in those images that we can believe if we have the courage to claim them. And if we do, our lives will be much better for it. Amen.
__________
1. Don McLean, "American Pie" (Los Angeles, United Artists Records, UAST-7879-A-RE10).
This is what is called the apocalyptical expectation. It was widespread among the Jewish people during the time of Jesus. The Essene people, who gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls, were completely caught up in this way of thinking. It was a part of the way in which the Jews saw reality. It became very much a part of the beliefs of the early church. They expected some special things to happen when the Messiah came. Then Jesus, the Messiah, came and died and was raised from the dead, but the new order did not come. The people were confused. Then the early Christians came to believe that Jesus was coming again to finish his work. They expected it to happen soon.
Since this letter was the earliest thing written that became part of the New Testament, it shows the shape of the faith of the earliest church. The belief that Jesus was coming again soon was a part of the faith of the Thessalonian Christians. They thought it would happen in their life time. That theme is scattered throughout the New Testament. It is hard to study the Bible without tripping over it again and again.
But it didn't happen. Time kept going on and it hasn't happened yet. So what can we believe about it?
There are some people who sincerely believe that we should still live expecting Jesus to return at any time and bring history to an end. From time to time, some little sect of people emerges who believe that they know the exact time when Jesus will return. As the date approaches, they abandon their lives in this world and get ready to meet the Lord. But it hasn't happened yet. From time to time, someone will write a sensational book based on a literal interpretation of things the Bible says about the end of time and it will become a best seller. There is a school of theological thought called, "dispensationalism," which takes those expectations literally and seriously. Some of its followers even get involved in promoting political action that is intended to hasten the return of Christ. We are all familiar with the popular series of fictional books called the "Left Behind" series that are based on this way of thinking.
Most of us see that almost 2,000 years have passed since the early church expected Christ to return. So we have decided not to organize our lives around the belief that history as we know it is about to come to an end. But, if we can't believe that, what are we to make of all of the scriptural references to this theme? What can we believe about it?
We can get some guidance from reading the rest of the New Testament. As we do that, we will discover the early church, including Paul himself, gradually began to realize Christ was not going to return as soon as they thought he would. We can learn from the things they did with their beliefs about the end of time.
First, when the early Christians became aware that the end of time was not coming soon, they realized they had to get ready to live a while longer in this world. At the time when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, the church had very little organizational structure. The apostles were the leaders and there were also some natural leaders that emerged in each congregation. By the time he wrote 1 Corinthians 12, structures of congregational life were emerging. By the time the letters to Timothy and Titus were written, something like an ordained ministry was emerging. They were getting organized for the long haul. They also started writing books intended to pass on the memories of Jesus and the witness of the early Christians to future generations. The four gospels, and the book of Acts, and probably even Paul's letter to the Romans were written for that purpose. They were getting ready to stay a while -- and so should we.
We need to organize our lives, and the life of our church, as if we will be living in this world for a number of years, probably a large number of years, and as if we will be participating in human history that is likely to go on for generations to come. That is important. God is at work in our lives and in our world today. We should not let our religion drift off into some spiritual clouds. We are called to live each day of this life as an interaction with God. And God calls us to find ways to serve him by participating in the work that God is doing in this world. But the apocalyptical way of thinking leaves us some valuable lessons we ought to hold on to.
In the passage we have read today, Paul gives the Thessalonians some assurance about those who had died. There was a widespread belief among the Jewish people during the days of Jesus, held by most of the early Christians, that there would be a day of general resurrection. There is a belief all of the saints who have died will wait for one great day of resurrection when all of the dead will rise at once.
In some other parts of the Bible, we find a belief that those who die will be raised immediately after their death and go directly to be with the Lord. As Jesus was dying on the cross, he said to the man who was dying on a cross next to his, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43).
This assurance reminds us of something we sometimes try to forget. Whether or not time is about to come to an end for the world, there will come a time when time will come to an end for each of us. Someday each of us is going to die. Most of us try to deal with that reality by not thinking about it. We like to pretend that we will live forever. Then when someone close to us dies and the shape of reality forces itself into our consciousness, we have a hard time dealing with it. The truth is that we are all mortal. We are all going to die sometime. That is part of who we are. There is a better way of dealing with that than pretending it isn't so or living in dread of it. Our faith invites us to see our mortality in the context of God's immortality.
The important thing for us to remember is that the God who has given us being, the God who has shown himself to us in Jesus Christ, is eternal. The one thing we need to know when our loved ones die, or when we think about the time when we will die, is that the God who loves us will be there beyond this life to receive us. The one who raised Jesus up from death to life can raise us up too. The when, where, and how are not important. The important thing for us to remember is that, beyond this life, we go to be with God. That is a belief that we can hold on to. And that hope will make a difference in the quality of our lives here in this world.
By the time Paul wrote his last letter, the letter to the Romans, he had stopped talking so much about the return of Christ. (By the way, theologians sometimes refer to the return of Christ as the "parousia.") He had evidently come to believe that it would happen some time in the distant future. But Paul still believed that we are living between two ages, an old age of temporary and unimportant and sometimes bad things that is passing away, and a new age that is dawning, an age of things that are eternal.
If you will look around, you will find that is a pretty good way of making sense of the things you will see. There are things that seem like they are made of tickey tackey, things that have no lasting substance or real meaning. Those things make demands upon us, and sometimes we have to put up with them. Unfortunately, some people choose to build their lives on them. There are other things that are real, of lasting importance and genuine substance. Paul would say that those are the things that are of the age to come, God's new age.
This is something that is relevant to our lives. All of us, especially the younger ones of us, make decisions about what we are going to allow to be important to us. We decide what we are going to build our lives out of. Like the three little pigs building their houses, some of us decide to build our lives of flimsy, ephemeral things like material prosperity, social prominence, and shallow pleasure. Others choose to build lives out of things of eternal significance, like loving relationships and commitments to great purposes and enjoyment of the real beauty of life.
Paul says we should live our lives, insofar as we can, in accordance with the age to come. We will still have to put up with the things that belong to the age that is passing away. But we should try hard not to let those things become too important to us. We should try, as best we can, to build our lives of the things that belong to the age to come, things like goodness, justice, beauty, and love. You will find that way of thinking reflected in Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter 8. This is a good way of putting your life together. It is one to the good things we can learn from the biblical teachings about the end of time.
John, and the Christians who were associated with him, began to see the time of an ultimate reckoning with God in a different way. They began to see judgment and repentance and the beginning of eternal life, not as something that is going to happen at the end of time, but as something that can happen whenever we encounter the risen Christ. That can happen here and now, right in the middle of your daily life experiences, whenever you become aware that God is dealing with you through your interactions with life.
Believing that can fill your everyday life with expectancy. John teaches us to take the things that the Bible teaches us about the end of time and let them interpret for us the meaning of the things that are happening in each moment of our present time.
That is a very good way to interpret the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is the biggest and most impressive piece of apocalyptical literature in the New Testament. In every generation, there have been people who have taken the book of Revelation literally, as a description of the count down leading to the end of time. That is what it appears to be. But, in fact, it is an example of a kind of literature that the Jews and early Christians used to encourage people who were living under oppression.
The writer of the book of Revelation was a leader of the church in Asia Minor during a time of persecution. He was arrested by the Roman authorities and, because he refused to renounce his faith, his property was confiscated and he was confined to a prison camp on the island of Patmos. While he was there, he worried about his fellow Christians back on the mainland who were threatened with a fate like his or worse. He wanted to write something to encourage them. He adopted a form of literature that the Jewish people had used in similar circumstances. He used highly symbolic language to escape censorship. If you want to know how this works, listen to a recording of the once popular song, "Bye, bye Miss American Pie."1 If you were a teenager when that song first came out, you would recognize the meaning of all of the highly symbolic images it strings together. If you are from another generation, it is bewildering.
The message of the book is simply this. Tyrants have come and gone in the past. This tyrant, the Roman Empire, will go like the rest. So hang in there. Keep your faith. The future is in God's hands. Ultimately, you will be on the winning side. That is something we can believe. And that belief can give you courage whether you are being oppressed by a political tyrant, an abusive relationship, or a case of depression.
A pastor went to visit a lady who was hospitalized because of a nervous break down. She was a highly motivated person who was dealing with some very demanding situations in life and they had gotten the best of her. The first few times the pastor went by, the lady was sedated. Then finally one day he found her awake and alert. She said, "Pastor I am glad to see you. I've been reading the Bible." The pastor thought, "Good. That is just what she needs: large doses of the twenty-third Psalm." But when he asked what she had been reading, she said she was reading the book of Revelation. The pastor swallowed hard and began to try to explain that she should not let the drastic images in the apocalypse upset her. The lady said, "Oh, no. I have found it a great source of peace." She had heard the real message of the book, and in fact, it is very similar to the message of the twenty-third Psalm.
It may be hard for us to believe that the Bible's vivid images of the last days are descriptions of something that is actually going to happen, at least not any time soon. But we ought not to tear those pages out of our Bibles. Like great works of art and literature, they bear witness to something that can add rich meaning to our lives. There are lots of things in those images that we can believe if we have the courage to claim them. And if we do, our lives will be much better for it. Amen.
__________
1. Don McLean, "American Pie" (Los Angeles, United Artists Records, UAST-7879-A-RE10).
