The Myth of Jesus' Return

            When Jesus walked from Galilee to Golgotha, he and his followers hoped that the end of the world was just around the corner. That is, they believed that God would one day soon tear open the heavens, come on down, judge both the living and the dead, and bring history as we know it to an end. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Mark 13:28-31).

            Of course, Jesus got it wrong. Perhaps sensing that Jesus’ words were a bit bold, years later the writer of the Gospel of Mark has Jesus temper hopes for his speedy return by having Jesus add, “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (13:32).

            Nevertheless, the earliest Christians continued to hope that Jesus would soon return. To give one of the more humorous Biblical examples, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians concerning virgins considering marriage, “in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are . . . for the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:25-31). Unfortunately, his advice probably made for some very old bachelors and maidens. Jesus did not return in those virgins’ lifetimes.

            The last 150 years have seen a huge upsurge in predictions about the immanence of Jesus’ return. The largest wing of Christian Fundamentalism, Premillennial Dispensationalism, is committed to reading the Bible and newspaper headlines about the Middle-east as if they were secret codebooks that reveal how Jesus will return any minute now.

            Of course, all of such predictions, whether they are found in the Bible or are being made by TV preachers, are wrong. For all their Bible studies on Revelation and their adding and subtracting of millenniums to dates for the State of Israel; for all their book, TV and Christian radio warnings of the end-time battles at Armageddon or Aleppo, for all their Left Behind novels and YouTube movies of Jesus floating down from the clouds, so far, Jesus has not returned.

It is no wonder, really, that from day one Christians hoped for Jesus’ return. Life was tough. From job loss to imprisonment, from slavery to—in some cases—being fed to the lions, choosing Christianity meant choosing for membership in the bottom rung of society. So early Christians directed their hopes towards escape by means of a deus ex machina—the god who sometimes suddenly appeared on a crane at the end of Greek dramas to save the hero. Early Christians hoped for a similar sudden, liberating reappearance of Jesus.

            And many people still hope for Jesus to save them from the trials and tribulations of this world. In a way, we understand. Terrorism. Crime. Taxes. Deficits. The chaos of the Arab Spring, North Korea and Afghanistan. New public values when it comes to sex, being gay, abortion, and on and on—no wonder the world seems out of control to some people. They put their hope in a belief that Jesus will return on the clouds and save them from all this. Soon! Maybe this year!

            The trouble with putting your hope in a miraculous return of Jesus to earth is that instead of trying to do something here and now to make the world a better place, you are mightily tempted to wait for Jesus to do it for you. If Jesus is going to return to judge the world and cleanse it from all evil, then why should we bother to do anything ourselves? The kind of Christianity that focuses on Jesus’ return makes for a week-kneed Christianity that has no energy for social action, unless it is the sort of social action that calls sinners to repent and be saved before the Day of Judgment.

But all such hope for the future is vain, based on wishful readings of the Bible. Whatever mysterious way Divinity works with and among us to make the world a better place, it won’t be Jesus returning on the clouds that seals it. Like the story of Adam and Eve, Biblical texts about Jesus’ return, whether in the gospels or Revelation, are all written in the language of myth. They're important texts, full of meaning and insight, but they're nothing like history.

            So what ought we base our hope on? Well, according to 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” What this text suggests is that we’ll never really understand hope until we understand that love is the greatest. Hope is love's legitimate child.

I don’t mean to be simplistic here. I’m offering a sort of “think global, act local” solution to our feelings of hopelessness. Our hope for overcoming this world’s woes is, naturally, partly rooted in the mysterious presence of God in and among us. But if God is present, much of the mystery of God has to do with how God inspires us against our baser instincts to nevertheless root our lives in love for neighbor. Whether you are a parent, a pastoral care worker, a money manager, a nurse, a CEO of a company that produces useful widgets, each of us can find ways appropriate to our position for putting our neighbors—our children, fellow church members, customers—in a better place tomorrow than today.

It is as the Apostle Paul said, more wisely than with his words of advice for virgins: “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing . . . Love never ends. But as for prophecies they will come to an end . . . for now we see in a mirror, dimly. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

(For more on this theme, see the entry for June 4, 2011, "The End of the World." Feel free to leave a comment, too!)

The End of the World

A few months before Jesus was supposed to return, at least according to Harold Camping, I wrote an article for Northumberland Today about predicting the end of the world. It follows here:

In the wake of the tragic earthquake, tsunami, and reactor accidents in Japan this past week, several people asked me if this portended the end of the world and Jesus' second coming.

I don't think so. Besides, the Bible itself warns Christians that, “about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 10:32).

Still, the history of Christianity is littered with mistaken predictions of Jesus' return. For example the great Scottish Mathematician John Napier, who first worked out the concept of logarithms, predicted Jesus would return in 1688 or 1700. He didn't.

About 100 years later, Sir Isaac Newton, the first person to describe the theory of gravity as we now know it, and perhaps one of the greatest geniuses of all time, predicted that the end of the world would come in 1944. It didn't.

The great Puritan Reformed scholar Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the greatest revival preacher and Christian philosopher in the history of the church, predicted that Jesus would return in the year 2000. In spite of Y2K, he didn't.

Many well-known contemporary prognosticators, including Hal Lindsay, Jack Van Impe, Benny Hinn, and Chuck Smith have been wrong about Jesus' return at least once. They respond to their mistakes by revising their numbers and publishing new books or by cannily substituting "soon," for a specific date, not wanting to be wrong twice. Not so, however, Harold Camping, who has been wrong more than once before. He predicts the world will end this May 21 and now has a fleet of RVs out on America's roads to get the news out.

Of course, end time predictions excite our curiosity and unbridle our appetite for mystery. I wonder how people breathlessly waiting for the skies to roll back can be very motivated to do the hard work of loving God and neighbors or seeking justice. We don't need more Christians getting the end of time wrong; we need more Christians responding to human need and tragedy on time. The right response to the recent tragedies in Haiti, New Zealand, or Japan isn't trying to read these disasters back into the Biblical books of Daniel or Revelation. We ought, instead, pray for those nations' relief and dig deep into our pockets to provide some.

(This article first appeared in Northumberland Today. Click the article title to go directly there).