Will He Come Again?
Sermon
In 1989 a report appeared in the local newspaper claiming that by the year 2000, our local city would be "Norwich by the Sea". The report was accompanied by an artist's impression of the postcards we might be sending from this new seaside resort. The article was based on scientific reports of global warming which warned of the local changes which (according to the article) would occur as a result of global warming. I remember being both horrified and very sceptical, for at that time the year 2000 was only around ten years away.
We all know now that the article was more about headline grabbing than about truth, since Norwich is no nearer the sea now than it was then. And although our coastline has eroded to some degree, it hasn't changed beyond all recognition. But back in 1989 we ordinary people had no means of knowing whether what scientists were reported to have said, would happen or not. We had to make up our own minds on the basis of what little evidence we had, evidence which was filtered through newspaper headlines which are often so contrived that they seem to make black white and vice versa.
While the newspaper might have sold a few more copies and the headlines were news for a day or two, I doubt whether many people even remember those headlines today. And I very much doubt that anybody changed their lifestyle as a result of that particular journalistic gem. However, the scientists do seem to be proving right to some degree. Both our winters and our summers are warmer than they were twenty years ago, and both seem to be much wetter. And we've seen more flooding in our country over the past year or two than I can ever remember. But now the debate is not so much over whether our weather patterns are changing globally, but over whether or not the change really is due to global warming. There seems to be quite a body of opinion which says that changes like these have always happened in the natural course of events.
The end result so far of all this is that our seasons which always seemed so certain and so definite, are now less certain and less definite. It isn't as easy as it once was to know when Autumn ends and Winter begins, or whether we're in Spring or Summer. And the harvest which used to be in August, may now be at any time from June onwards.
For Christians in the first century the second coming of Jesus was billed as immediate, and was thought of as something definite and certain. Both St Paul and other letter writers urged Christians to be wary because they never knew quite when Jesus would come again, but they were absolutely certain that he would come again.
The letter of James is thought to have been written around A.D. 90-100, although some scholars argue that it must have been written earlier because the type of Jewish Christianity reflected in the letter was historically earlier than the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Whenever it was written, clearly the Christians were still expecting the imminent return of Jesus to claim his kingdom and overthrow the sinful world, and James reassures them that just as the farmer must wait for the rain before harvesting his crop, so must they wait patiently for the return of the Lord. James exhorts his readers to patience, and promises that "the Lord's coming is near."
But here we are 2000 years later, still patiently waiting! That's a long enough wait to try the patience of any saint. So will the second coming of Jesus really happen, or did the early Christians interpret the signs and the prophecies wrongly?
Just like James, my grandfather was absolutely convinced that the second coming was just around the corner. But he died in 1955, and still no second coming. Since his day many people have expected the second coming at any moment, and in the run up to the Millennium there was almost a frenzy about it from some religious groups. But still no second coming.
Are Christians still required to believe in the second coming today, or after 2000 years of non-event can it be relegated to the status of a myth - a story containing important truths, but never intended to be received as factual?
Not a single person - prophet, priest or any other human being - was correct about the first coming of Jesus. The obvious and most widely accepted belief was that the Messiah would come as an earthly king with great battalions of soldiers and would forcibly overthrow the enemy, in this case Rome, in order to establish his kingdom. Nobody considered that the Messiah might be an ordinary human being born into an ordinary and not particularly wealthy family. Nobody considered that the Messiah might question the existing religious system. Nobody considered that the Messiah might include Gentiles in his kingdom. Nobody considered that the Messiah might advocate peace on earth and goodwill to all. And nobody considered that the Messiah might be the human expression of God himself.
Everyone was wrong about the coming of the Messiah, so it's likely that everyone will be wrong again about the second coming. The early Church certainly got it wrong, for they expected Jesus to reappear at any moment. And all those who have given us dates and times since then have also been wrong.
Maybe Jesus won't come again in quite the way many people expect. Maybe we shouldn't read too literally those texts about the end of the world and the second coming. For Christians, Jesus is already here and has never left, so it's difficult to see how he could come again. Certainly we don't experience his physical presence today in quite the same way they experienced it in the first century, but we do have the Holy Spirit, the God within, and we can glimpse God within other human beings.
The scientists seem to think that the world will eventually come to an end, but that event seems to be millions of years in the future. In terms of the age of the world, human beings have only been on it for a matter of minutes so we probably have some way to go yet before the world grinds to a halt and the human race becomes extinct. Of course, we might prematurely blow ourselves into extinction with the arsenal of lethal weapons we now possess, especially if we continue to "progress" as we've progressed in the past so that our weapons become more and more lethal as time goes on. So we may ourselves get rid of the human race, but all the signs seem to indicate that even if that happens, life itself will continue and eventually our species would probably be recreated. Perhaps God has already made provision for that eventuality.
So will the world come to an end? Probably not with a big bang or even a tiny whimper for all human beings at the same time, but clearly it will come to an end for each of us individually because we all die. That will be the moment when we'll see Jesus again, but we may not see him in quite the way we expect since St Paul tells us that after death our earthly bodies will be transformed in glorious heavenly bodies just as Jesus has been transformed into a being with a heavenly body. (1 Corinthians 15:35-49).
Meanwhile, we're able to experience and appreciate Jesus and God's kingdom right here and now on this earth. We know there's more to come after death, but the more we get to know and communicate with and respond to God now, the more we'll know him in his entirety after death. And that will be both a second coming of Jesus, and heaven indeed.
We all know now that the article was more about headline grabbing than about truth, since Norwich is no nearer the sea now than it was then. And although our coastline has eroded to some degree, it hasn't changed beyond all recognition. But back in 1989 we ordinary people had no means of knowing whether what scientists were reported to have said, would happen or not. We had to make up our own minds on the basis of what little evidence we had, evidence which was filtered through newspaper headlines which are often so contrived that they seem to make black white and vice versa.
While the newspaper might have sold a few more copies and the headlines were news for a day or two, I doubt whether many people even remember those headlines today. And I very much doubt that anybody changed their lifestyle as a result of that particular journalistic gem. However, the scientists do seem to be proving right to some degree. Both our winters and our summers are warmer than they were twenty years ago, and both seem to be much wetter. And we've seen more flooding in our country over the past year or two than I can ever remember. But now the debate is not so much over whether our weather patterns are changing globally, but over whether or not the change really is due to global warming. There seems to be quite a body of opinion which says that changes like these have always happened in the natural course of events.
The end result so far of all this is that our seasons which always seemed so certain and so definite, are now less certain and less definite. It isn't as easy as it once was to know when Autumn ends and Winter begins, or whether we're in Spring or Summer. And the harvest which used to be in August, may now be at any time from June onwards.
For Christians in the first century the second coming of Jesus was billed as immediate, and was thought of as something definite and certain. Both St Paul and other letter writers urged Christians to be wary because they never knew quite when Jesus would come again, but they were absolutely certain that he would come again.
The letter of James is thought to have been written around A.D. 90-100, although some scholars argue that it must have been written earlier because the type of Jewish Christianity reflected in the letter was historically earlier than the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Whenever it was written, clearly the Christians were still expecting the imminent return of Jesus to claim his kingdom and overthrow the sinful world, and James reassures them that just as the farmer must wait for the rain before harvesting his crop, so must they wait patiently for the return of the Lord. James exhorts his readers to patience, and promises that "the Lord's coming is near."
But here we are 2000 years later, still patiently waiting! That's a long enough wait to try the patience of any saint. So will the second coming of Jesus really happen, or did the early Christians interpret the signs and the prophecies wrongly?
Just like James, my grandfather was absolutely convinced that the second coming was just around the corner. But he died in 1955, and still no second coming. Since his day many people have expected the second coming at any moment, and in the run up to the Millennium there was almost a frenzy about it from some religious groups. But still no second coming.
Are Christians still required to believe in the second coming today, or after 2000 years of non-event can it be relegated to the status of a myth - a story containing important truths, but never intended to be received as factual?
Not a single person - prophet, priest or any other human being - was correct about the first coming of Jesus. The obvious and most widely accepted belief was that the Messiah would come as an earthly king with great battalions of soldiers and would forcibly overthrow the enemy, in this case Rome, in order to establish his kingdom. Nobody considered that the Messiah might be an ordinary human being born into an ordinary and not particularly wealthy family. Nobody considered that the Messiah might question the existing religious system. Nobody considered that the Messiah might include Gentiles in his kingdom. Nobody considered that the Messiah might advocate peace on earth and goodwill to all. And nobody considered that the Messiah might be the human expression of God himself.
Everyone was wrong about the coming of the Messiah, so it's likely that everyone will be wrong again about the second coming. The early Church certainly got it wrong, for they expected Jesus to reappear at any moment. And all those who have given us dates and times since then have also been wrong.
Maybe Jesus won't come again in quite the way many people expect. Maybe we shouldn't read too literally those texts about the end of the world and the second coming. For Christians, Jesus is already here and has never left, so it's difficult to see how he could come again. Certainly we don't experience his physical presence today in quite the same way they experienced it in the first century, but we do have the Holy Spirit, the God within, and we can glimpse God within other human beings.
The scientists seem to think that the world will eventually come to an end, but that event seems to be millions of years in the future. In terms of the age of the world, human beings have only been on it for a matter of minutes so we probably have some way to go yet before the world grinds to a halt and the human race becomes extinct. Of course, we might prematurely blow ourselves into extinction with the arsenal of lethal weapons we now possess, especially if we continue to "progress" as we've progressed in the past so that our weapons become more and more lethal as time goes on. So we may ourselves get rid of the human race, but all the signs seem to indicate that even if that happens, life itself will continue and eventually our species would probably be recreated. Perhaps God has already made provision for that eventuality.
So will the world come to an end? Probably not with a big bang or even a tiny whimper for all human beings at the same time, but clearly it will come to an end for each of us individually because we all die. That will be the moment when we'll see Jesus again, but we may not see him in quite the way we expect since St Paul tells us that after death our earthly bodies will be transformed in glorious heavenly bodies just as Jesus has been transformed into a being with a heavenly body. (1 Corinthians 15:35-49).
Meanwhile, we're able to experience and appreciate Jesus and God's kingdom right here and now on this earth. We know there's more to come after death, but the more we get to know and communicate with and respond to God now, the more we'll know him in his entirety after death. And that will be both a second coming of Jesus, and heaven indeed.
