variety of ways. Some biblical texts focus on heaven, some on earth. Some verses focus on judgment and others on salvation.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus describes a banquet with the Old Tes- tament prophets while in Matthew he depicts a marriage feast. Other verses describe Christ’s future coming in terms of a paradise or fields of green pastures, while others depict a won- derful city with golden streets. Some passages emphasize Jesus’ coming to us daily in the sacraments, while others emphasize the “not yet” of his future coming. God’s promises about our future hope are rich and varied, more lav- ish than we can possibly imagine. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes in Surprised by Hope: Rethink- ing Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church (HarperOne 2008), what is important is “the entire sense of God’s future for the world and the belief that the future has already begun to come forward to meet us in the present.” Most impor- tantly, God promises a relationship with us that never ends.
Rapture theology can be especially problematic if it leads people to think God plans to destroy the earth. To be sure, Scripture promises judgment and a “new heaven and a new earth,” but this doesn’t mean God will destroy this earth and then give us a replacement. God created this world, God loves it and God will never leave it behind.
Urgency is foundational What will Jesus’ coming be like? What does it mean to “look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come,” as we say in our creeds? The Bible tells us we cannot know. Indeed, Jesus warns us against trying to figure out the details of an end-time chronology that he says even he does not know.
Jesus tells his followers: “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36). Jesus doesn’t intend for us to piece together Bible verses to con- struct a detailed timetable. We are, however, exhorted to be urgent in mission, urgent in our waiting, urgent in caring for our neighbor and for the world God loves.
In my research I found that one reason people are so drawn to end- time predictions and prophecy time- lines is the desire to experience the Bible as coming to life. People long to see connections between the Bible and their lives. End-time preachers and prophecy buffs generate excite- ment by drawing arbitrary correla- tions between the Bible and wars in the Middle East, natural disasters and other events in our lifetimes, claiming these were predicted in the Bible. Scripture is coming to life in our world and in our lives—but not in a series of scripted disasters and wars. The Bible comes to life most of all in life-giving moments of hope and healing. We experience the message of the Bible and Jesus’ coming by opening our eyes to see God at work in the daily events of our lives. As we await Jesus’ com- ing again, we can give our own bold testimony to how God comes to us in sacramental presence and in our day-to-day experiences.
End-time ethics We can learn from early Christians how to live while we wait for the end-times today. Early Christians definitely thought they were living at the brink of the end of the world.
Love of neighbor and SHUTTERSTOCK
hospitality to strangers was early Christians’ surest response to life on the brink of the end-times. They gath- ered and worshiped God. They minis- tered to the poor. They visited prison- ers. They broke bread together, they sang hymns. Early Christians nur- tured community. By their lifestyle of love and welcome, early Christians resisted the claims of the empire. People around them marveled at their joy and boldness. To look for the coming of Christ, and to live in urgency, means to share God’s love for the world. “Thy king- dom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven” is what Jesus taught us to pray. It is not a prayer to take us away from earth or a prayer that God’s reign will come to earth—and that it will even come through us, as Martin Luther explained in the 16th century. Will Christ return before the year 2050? If a pollster asks that question I hope you will respond with con- fidence, “I don’t know”—and cite Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24:36 as proof.
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