Delivered on August 14, 2005, Melana

talks to us about the End Times.  This is the seventh in a series

dealing with topics requested by the congregation.

 

The End Times                                                   Mt. 24:3-51, Daniel 7:9-14

We continue our summer series of sermons answering questions people have posed for me to preach on.

            Today's sermon is about the end times - we seem to be spending a lot of time this summer on final things - maybe that is just a sign of the times in which we are currently living.  When I was studying in Scotland, I would pray each morning with a fellow student from Germany.  One morning she said she would be glad if the Lord would return right away.  Then she said, "Wouldn't that be great?"

I had to reply honestly that no, I did not think that would be so great.  I have too many things I still want to do for the Lord to return right now.

            As Presbyterians we don't spend a great deal of time talking about the end times.  There are many different words that are used to talk about the end -

            The Parousia, the Eschaton, the Second Coming, the Rapture - How many of you have ever heard a sermon on any of those things in a Presbyterian church?  I have not - in over 40 years of hearing sermons, not one has been on the end times - so this is a rare opportunity for me.

            The first time I really heard about this idea of Jesus coming back, I was already in college.  Several of us at the Presbyterian Student Center had planned to go out for dinner.  We waited for one guy for a while and then left.  When we returned, he had left a note that said, "Did the Parousia occur, or what?  I got here and no one was here.  Was I left behind?"  Somebody had to explain to me that the Parousia was the appearance of Christ on earth at the end of time and that many would be taken up in a moment.  Now, with the Tim LaHay books, everybody knows about this.

The word "Parousia" is actually the Greek word that means "presence."

            Fifteen times in the New Testament the word "parousia" occurs referring to Christ's return at the end of the age.  One of those times is in the 24th chapter of Matthew, the third verse, which we read this morning.  The disciples ask Jesus, "Tell us when the end will come and what will be a sign of your parousia and of the end of the age?"  Jesus then begins a long discourse on the signs of the times that will come.  Many people have tried to interpret these signs to give them an exact moment or at least a period of time when they thought Christ would come again.  So far, every guess has been wrong.

            In Seoul, South Korea, in 1992, Lee Jang Rim, head of one of some 200 Protestant churches in that country, created nationwide hysteria by announcing that the Rapture would take place on October 28, 1992.   The prophecy was based on a vision that came to a 16-year-old boy.   Twenty thousand Korean fundamentalists in South Korea, Los Angeles and New York City took the prediction seriously.

            Hundreds quit jobs, left families, and had abortions to prepare for their trip to heaven. Rim's church paid for costly ads in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.   They urged readers to prepare for their journey through the skies, and to refuse to allow 666 to be imprinted in bar code on their forehead or right hand.  Riot police, plainclothes officers and reporters crowded outside Korean churches, flanked by fire engines, ambulances and searchlights.  Believers took the failure of the prophecy calmly, and there were no reported riots. Only sadness.   In December 1992, Rim was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for having bilked $4.4 million from his flock.   He had invested the money in bonds that didn't mature until the following year!

-Martin Gardner, "Notes of a fringe-watcher," Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, January-February 2000, Csicop.org/si/2000-01/gardner.htm

            We must approach this question of the Second Coming with a sense of humility.  In verse 36 of Matthew 24, Jesus says, "Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."  As we will see in the next two weeks when we talk about Revelation, the purpose of this word about the parousia was not to predict a time for the end of the age, but was designed to assure the early church that God was at work in the world, even after the death and resurrection of Christ.  The Parousia, as I read the New Testament, is about hope, not about condemnation. 

            Many have interchanged the words I used at the beginning of the sermon.  The Parousia refers to what we have translated "the Second Coming of Christ."  The "rapture" refers to the snatching up of believers who are alive at the Parousia, so that they will be with Christ.  It is the rapture that opens the book, Left Behind, by Tim LaHaye.  There is only one clear reference to the rapture in the New Testament, in I Thessalonians 4:17: "then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord."  For those who tend to focus their theology on the end times, there is a whole timeline that goes along with it and people have labeled themselves as premillennialists, postmillennialists, pretribulationists, and posttribulationists.  All of these terms refer to when Christ returns, before or after the millennial reign of God on earth and when the time of trouble will occur, before or after the rapture.  To me, all of this becomes very confusing and of little importance.  What seems to be important in terms of interpreting Scripture is that Christ will return, that we are not left here alone for eternity.

            That is a message of hope.  The things that make for evil in the world will not have the last word.  As Presbyterians we say that we are living in the in-between times.

            Christ has won the victory and God's kingdom has come, but is not yet fulfilled as it will be at the time of the Parousia.  Shirley Guthrie used to say we live in the "already, but not yet."  While that sounds confusing, it is hopeful.  We have to change our focus from fear to hope.

            Guthrie writes:  "The first thought that comes to Christians when they think about the end of history ought not be anxious or vindictive speculation about who will be 'in' and go 'up,' and who will be 'out' and go 'down.'  It ought to be the thankful and joyful thought that we may confidently look forward to the time when the will of the world's Creator, Reconciler, Savior, and Renewer will prevail once and for all - when justice will triumph over injustice, love over hatred and greed, peace over hostility, humanity over inhumanity, the kingdom of God over the powers of darkness.  The last judgment will come not against but for the good of the world.  It means that 'evil will be condemned and rooted out of God's good creation' (Declaration of Faith, 10.2).  That is good news not just for Christians but for everyone!"

(Christian Doctrine, Shirley Guthrie, Westminster/John Knox Press,1994, p.387)

            Last week we talked about grace and about the difference between the free gift of God's grace as opposed to the notion that we can earn our salvation.  It seems to me that much of the focus on the end times and the pre and post ideas have to do with creating fear and guilt that are designed to bring people to Christ - to help them earn their way to heaven.

                I remember when my sister-in-law read Left Behind and talked to me about her fear that she might not be good enough to be taken up in the Rapture.  The book frightened her - and I'm sure, many others.  I think LaHaye's hope was to bring people to Christ before the Rapture occurs.

            My understanding of Scripture and theology is that we are all justified by grace through the work of Jesus Christ.  There is nothing we can do to deserve to be part of God's elect - none of us are "good enough" to make it.  But we are part of God's family because God has claimed us as such through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We come back to grace.  Grace and fear do not belong together.  When Christ comes, we will stand before the God who loved us enough to send his own Son to us - why should we live in fear of that day?

            The Parousia will come in God's own time - we don't need to spend our time thinking about it - we need to spend our time responding to God's love - that means continuing to teach children and youth in LOGOS, worshipping together each Sunday, reaching out to others through Moses' Basket and Angel Food Ministries.

            The end times are about hope and are a reminder of God's grace.  The hymn, How Great Thou Art, says:  When Christ shall come, with shout of acclimation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.  That is what we need to remember as we think about God's kingdom coming -

      The joy of the fulfillment of all God's grace.

© Melana Scruggs 2005

 

 

  

     

    

 

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