The Rev. Dr. Patricia Ramsden First Presbyterian Church
When Is Jesus Coming Back? Mt: 24:1-8; 36
The world will end on Dec. 21, 2012. There’s even a movie that says so. The Mayan Calendar ends. The entire Milky Way is predicted to be aligned on the galactic equator causing an entire shift in the magnetic poles, and there is a mysterious planet X that is supposed to infiltrate our solar system and cause the earth to be destroyed by fire if not an outright collision. The internet says so. And if it’s on the internet it must be true, right? You can even sign up for bulletins that will keep you updated on everything that happens to confirm the date.
Such predictions are not new. The news that Christ was returning at any moment started 30 years after His resurrection and have consistently continued since then. At times with disastrous results. In the year 1000 the church waged war against all infidels In order to convert them to Christianity before Christ returned. People gave everything they had to the Church and supposed heretics were burned at the stake.
Time marched on without Armageddon but the predictions continued on a regular basis. In 1669 20,000 Christians in Russia burned themselves to death to protect themselves from the Anti-Christ.
I personally like the Jehovah’s Witness approach because when their first prediction of 1914 didn’t come to pass they just kept changing the date. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.
Think that was only in days long ago and today’s people would not fall for such foolishness? Think again.
In 1981 a group of Christians sold everything they had and went to a mountaintop to wait for Jesus to show up. Then there is, of course, that 2012 thing.
What motivates these predictions? Too often it is fear, fear of what is happening all around them. The kind of fear we frequently hear today. Look at the earthquakes, tsunamis, and famine across our globe they say. What about the economic collapse we’re still experiencing? Then Obama-care was said to threaten our entire way of life while the Republicans being elected will throw us into another Great Depression.
The signs are all around us, or so they say. What do we believe as Presbyterians? Well, for the most part we believe that Christ was right. No one is going to know the day and time and our job is not to sit and wait for the end of the world but to build God’s kingdom now.
We fight against fear and panic and those who predict the end of civilization as we know it. We reach out to those longing for hope in a world that seems, in their eyes, to be falling apart around them.
We provide food and water to those who are starving. We develop programs for those who have lost their jobs, setting up support groups and providing food and shelter as well as retraining for new careers. We rebuild countries and cities hit by natural disasters and we do not to leave until the job is done. We know our job is to demonstrate the presence of our living God among us now, today, as He works through our hands, our words, our acts of mercy. I like a pin I have that declares “Jesus is coming. Get busy!”
You see, our job truly is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind and our neighbors as ourselves, not just in theory but in very real, very practical ways.
Yes, Jesus may come tomorrow. He may come today. These may be the end times, but our task remains the same, as the translation The Message reminds us in Micah “what does the Lord require of us but to do what is fair and just to our neighbors, be compassionate and loyal in our love, … and to take God seriously.“
Do this and you shall live, truly live life to its fullest, whatever the future may bring.
