The End Of The World?
Sermon
I was visiting a 98-year-old lady recently who said to me, "I'm glad I could never see into the future. I've had such a hard life, and if I'd known what was going to happen, I don't think I'd ever have coped with it."
She had lost her son at the age of fourteen, and both her husband and her daughter had died about twenty years later, so that from the age of around fifty-something this lady had been all alone in the world. But somehow or other, through the years she had learned to live with her losses. Although she is now housebound and needs help with the simplest of tasks, nonetheless she is cheerful and content and at peace with herself. And still living alone in her own home!
It's very tempting to look into the future, because if only we knew what the future holds then we could adapt our behaviour and our choices accordingly. Those who claim to be able to predict the future are usually popular, and many people in important positions such as heads of state, have been known to consult soothsayers.
Of course, soothsayers are often either ambiguous like the famous Delphi Oracle, or they reveal only good news, the sort of news their listeners want to hear.
But there are predictions which send shivers down the spine, and the words of doom and gloom read to us today which come towards the end of St. Matthew's gospel, perhaps fall into this category.
Both the disciples and St Paul were utterly convinced that Jesus would return during their lifetime. Some of St. Paul's early letters are full of references to the Second Coming of Jesus, which was expected imminently. But over the years when nothing happened, St Paul gradually changed his mind, and his later letters are much less dogmatic on the topic of the Second Coming.
Here in 2002, it's perhaps difficult for us to appreciate the degree to which people were steeped in superstition around the time of Jesus. Magicians and fortune-tellers and soothsayers and prophets abounded, and were regularly consulted by all and sundry.
Nowadays many people read their stars in the newspaper, but most laugh and carry on regardless. Anyone who actually regulates their life by the advice given in the horoscope columns is perhaps regarded as a little naive. But at the time of Jesus, the majority would probably live their lives according to astrological predictions.
And so the second coming of Jesus was regarded as a racing certainty, to such an extent that people were advised to live their lives as though the end was nigh and Jesus would return at any moment.
2000 years later, some people are more sceptical about the Second Coming, while others are still expecting the predicted end of the age, the day of the Lord.
All of the predictions of Jesus regarding the coming of the end of the age have happened. There have been wars and rumours of wars, there have been earthquakes, there have been famines like never before, and people have been persecuted for their faith throughout two millennia. In our own generation many have turned away from the faith, and the love of most has grown cold. And just about the whole world must have heard by now something of Christianity. So according to all that, the time is ripe.
But the time has been ripe since the very beginnings of Christianity. Almost all of those predictions from Matthew's gospel have been happening since time began, and certainly since the first year of our Lord - AD 1.
And people were quite wrong about the first coming of Jesus, the coming of the Messiah who was to save Israel. The expectations of a great King arriving on a shining white charger and flashing his sword as he cut through all the evil and wickedness in the world, couldn't have been further from the truth. Nobody expected God to appear on earth as a tiny, helpless, vulnerable, human baby, and some were never able to accept that that baby, Jesus, could possibly be God.
So what are the expectations of the Second Coming? We human beings clearly find it difficult to learn from our mistakes, for expectations of the Second Coming seem to be remarkably similar to the false expectations of the first coming!
Expectations seem to be that the Second Coming will coincide with the end of the world, and that at that point Jesus will appear in great glory while God's terrifying judgment and wrath falls upon what's left of the nations.
It's all very scary stuff, but is it true? Nobody knows quite what will happen when Jesus comes again, and God is unpredictable by human standards. But there is nothing in Jesus' life or teachings or actions, which could possibly lead us to expect overwhelming fury and anger from God. Jesus was constantly full of God's love and forgiveness and approachability.
Could it be that we have already experienced the Second Coming? The whole point about Christianity is that God can be experienced through Jesus by human beings in any age. After Jesus died he rose again and was experienced by his friends. But he was also experienced by people who had never met him, people like St Paul and Cornelius and all those thousands who flocked to join the Church in the very early years, and who had a tremendous experience of the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus can be experienced through that same spirit by anybody today. Christians build a living, breathing relationship with God through the spirit of Jesus dwelling within them, because Jesus comes to us.
If he's invited, Jesus will come into the heart of any human being, so perhaps one way of picturing the Second Coming is as something which is constantly happening the world over.
As my elderly friend said, it's a good thing nobody can really predict the future, because bad times as well as good times happen to every human being. Life is made up of a good times and bad times, but if we knew exactly when bad times were going to happen and what would happen, we'd never survive. Our lives would be full of dread and we'd be incapable of enjoying the good times.
Thank goodness the great hope of Christianity is that love always has the last word. Love cannot be defeated, because God in Jesus overcame even death. So however or whenever the Second Coming occurs, we can be sure that God has a wonderful, radiant new life waiting for us.
We can begin to enjoy that new life now, through Jesus living within us. And we'll experience it in all its full glory after death. I don't believe the world will end any time soon. But even if it did, we can anticipate something wonderful, not something to be dreaded and feared.
Because God is love, and nothing is going to change that.
She had lost her son at the age of fourteen, and both her husband and her daughter had died about twenty years later, so that from the age of around fifty-something this lady had been all alone in the world. But somehow or other, through the years she had learned to live with her losses. Although she is now housebound and needs help with the simplest of tasks, nonetheless she is cheerful and content and at peace with herself. And still living alone in her own home!
It's very tempting to look into the future, because if only we knew what the future holds then we could adapt our behaviour and our choices accordingly. Those who claim to be able to predict the future are usually popular, and many people in important positions such as heads of state, have been known to consult soothsayers.
Of course, soothsayers are often either ambiguous like the famous Delphi Oracle, or they reveal only good news, the sort of news their listeners want to hear.
But there are predictions which send shivers down the spine, and the words of doom and gloom read to us today which come towards the end of St. Matthew's gospel, perhaps fall into this category.
Both the disciples and St Paul were utterly convinced that Jesus would return during their lifetime. Some of St. Paul's early letters are full of references to the Second Coming of Jesus, which was expected imminently. But over the years when nothing happened, St Paul gradually changed his mind, and his later letters are much less dogmatic on the topic of the Second Coming.
Here in 2002, it's perhaps difficult for us to appreciate the degree to which people were steeped in superstition around the time of Jesus. Magicians and fortune-tellers and soothsayers and prophets abounded, and were regularly consulted by all and sundry.
Nowadays many people read their stars in the newspaper, but most laugh and carry on regardless. Anyone who actually regulates their life by the advice given in the horoscope columns is perhaps regarded as a little naive. But at the time of Jesus, the majority would probably live their lives according to astrological predictions.
And so the second coming of Jesus was regarded as a racing certainty, to such an extent that people were advised to live their lives as though the end was nigh and Jesus would return at any moment.
2000 years later, some people are more sceptical about the Second Coming, while others are still expecting the predicted end of the age, the day of the Lord.
All of the predictions of Jesus regarding the coming of the end of the age have happened. There have been wars and rumours of wars, there have been earthquakes, there have been famines like never before, and people have been persecuted for their faith throughout two millennia. In our own generation many have turned away from the faith, and the love of most has grown cold. And just about the whole world must have heard by now something of Christianity. So according to all that, the time is ripe.
But the time has been ripe since the very beginnings of Christianity. Almost all of those predictions from Matthew's gospel have been happening since time began, and certainly since the first year of our Lord - AD 1.
And people were quite wrong about the first coming of Jesus, the coming of the Messiah who was to save Israel. The expectations of a great King arriving on a shining white charger and flashing his sword as he cut through all the evil and wickedness in the world, couldn't have been further from the truth. Nobody expected God to appear on earth as a tiny, helpless, vulnerable, human baby, and some were never able to accept that that baby, Jesus, could possibly be God.
So what are the expectations of the Second Coming? We human beings clearly find it difficult to learn from our mistakes, for expectations of the Second Coming seem to be remarkably similar to the false expectations of the first coming!
Expectations seem to be that the Second Coming will coincide with the end of the world, and that at that point Jesus will appear in great glory while God's terrifying judgment and wrath falls upon what's left of the nations.
It's all very scary stuff, but is it true? Nobody knows quite what will happen when Jesus comes again, and God is unpredictable by human standards. But there is nothing in Jesus' life or teachings or actions, which could possibly lead us to expect overwhelming fury and anger from God. Jesus was constantly full of God's love and forgiveness and approachability.
Could it be that we have already experienced the Second Coming? The whole point about Christianity is that God can be experienced through Jesus by human beings in any age. After Jesus died he rose again and was experienced by his friends. But he was also experienced by people who had never met him, people like St Paul and Cornelius and all those thousands who flocked to join the Church in the very early years, and who had a tremendous experience of the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus can be experienced through that same spirit by anybody today. Christians build a living, breathing relationship with God through the spirit of Jesus dwelling within them, because Jesus comes to us.
If he's invited, Jesus will come into the heart of any human being, so perhaps one way of picturing the Second Coming is as something which is constantly happening the world over.
As my elderly friend said, it's a good thing nobody can really predict the future, because bad times as well as good times happen to every human being. Life is made up of a good times and bad times, but if we knew exactly when bad times were going to happen and what would happen, we'd never survive. Our lives would be full of dread and we'd be incapable of enjoying the good times.
Thank goodness the great hope of Christianity is that love always has the last word. Love cannot be defeated, because God in Jesus overcame even death. So however or whenever the Second Coming occurs, we can be sure that God has a wonderful, radiant new life waiting for us.
We can begin to enjoy that new life now, through Jesus living within us. And we'll experience it in all its full glory after death. I don't believe the world will end any time soon. But even if it did, we can anticipate something wonderful, not something to be dreaded and feared.
Because God is love, and nothing is going to change that.
