December 6, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK
Baruch 5: 1-9 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 1: 4-6, 8-11 + Luke 3: 1-6
Christ has died, Christ is risen, CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN! Remember that from last week? Good because I’m not finished talking about it. We believe that Christ will come again, and that expectation has given rise to some really weird ideas. “The Rapture” which we who live here in this part of the country hear a lot about is a perfect example. Before the 19th century no one ever heard of such a thing. The scheme comes from a British Preacher named John Darby and it is the consequence of his mistaken literal interpretation of several passages of scripture. By taking several verses from different biblical sources out of their context he desperately reassembled these bits and pieces in a strangely literal way coming up with the concept of the “Rapture”. Those of us who grew up down here under the buckle of the Bible Belt know only too well what that’s all about. You know how the conversation goes: “Are you saved?” A question which has no interest in salvation. It means: “Do you believe literally in the bible like me?” Right then and there, you’re in trouble because no matter what your answer, the questioner will determine that you are not saved which means that when the end of time comes, and that’s going to be soon, you are going to be punished. It always makes me think of my mother saying to me way too often:”You just wait till your Father gets home.”
The Rapture of course is going to be pretty awful, so they say. The saved, meaning the born again are going to be lifted up, and then seven years of tribulation will set upon the rest of us, especially us Catholics. There is an alarming popularity in this thinking, and there is something very wrong with it. It leads far too many Christians to believe in a kind of “shoot-em-up” “Terminator” type of Jesus who comes back to kill the bad guys and blow up the world. Movie theaters pack in crowds who want to watch the end of the world, and the move violent and bloody it is, the more believable and the possible it become.
Now this kind of thinking has had a serious effect upon our lives and our culture. This kind Jesus who comes in blazing and bloody starts looking like the right kind of Justice. Revenge and punishment start to take over and the God Jesus wanted us to call: “Abba” turns into angry monster who is bound and determined to get even.
This idea of Justice has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. An expectation that the next coming will bring the Lion of Judah who will trample his enemies and spare the elect is twisted thinking that sells a lot books and abandons the Good News.Because those of us who have begun to enter into the mystery of redemption and live in the tradition of our faith know there is something very wrong with this thinking, so we get tempted to not think about the second coming at all. Since the Rapture thinking gets so much press we just stop thinking about Christ’s return altogether. We forget what it is we wait for and instead of getting ready, we stay busy about today and tomorrow and little silly things that suddenly one day are not going to matter at all.
This is costing us a sense of urgency, and the fact that we live in a church that celebrates in cycles only makes it worse, because we forget as we go around from season to season that we are going someplace. This Advent could be a time to reclaim an urgency about our mission, not stir up fear that Jesus is going to come and destroy everything and everyone he doesn’t happen to like. The truth is, sometimes there is not enough fire in us. Sometimes we forget that time is short and we have to be about something important: more important than shopping, football, how we look, and what we can do for fun this afternoon.
Rather than being distracted by silly talk of the “anti-Christ” we might do well to recognize that the enemy is within us, and that we have the potential of destroying ourselves through a catastrophic war with nuclear and biological weapons or through the slow but steady destruction of this beautiful planet.
Think of this: If you look at the history of salvation right down to the Incarnation, nothing happens between heaven and earth without the cooperation of humans: No willing woman in Nazareth, no Jesus of Nazareth.
It still continues just that way. Our mission is to hasten the day of Christ’s coming, and look forward to that day with joyful hope. Living now in this time between the first and the second coming ought to bring us a kind of peace and serenity from living and understanding the message and mission of Christ. It also ought to stir us with a passion for the possible that urges us day in and day out to keep on working to better establish the Kingdom of God to get it right and get it where it’s supposed to be. Even death itself is nothing to fear for those who have lived in expectation of what wonderful things are to come from a healing, loving, merciful God. And so we can proclaim with confidence and joy: Dying you destroyed our Death, Rising you restored our Life, What’s the rest of it? ………. Lord, Jesus Come in Glory.