Sunday 9 November 2008 - Christ will Come Again

This sermon is based on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 with a reference to the day's gospel reading Matthew 25:1-13. It was delivered at a service for Remembrance Sunday.

Introduction

Pity the poor preacher this morning, please.

Our texts for today deal with the subjects of the Second Coming of Christ and the future resurrection of believers who have died in Christ. If you want the very short version of what these texts are about, that's basically it. You can go home now, if you like.

Now, these two doctrines are not quite the hottest of hot topics in the Christian world, but if I'm not mistaken, I think that there are two broad schools of thought about them.

The first school of thought is the literal one: the body that Jesus had in his life was resuscitated and came back to life. And at the second coming our bodies will be resuscitated and come back to life. At the opposite end of this spectrum is the school of thought which seems to see both the Second Coming of Christ and his and our Resurrection as some great metaphor of meaning. These things are not something that thoughtful modern people actually believe in (says the second school of thought), but rather we see them as powerful tools or symbols in the Great Human Search for Meaning.

So what does a thoughtful, modern preacher make of these doctrines? (Well, I strive to be thoughtful, anyway!)

The Thessalonians

First I want to begin by pointing out that the purpose of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians isn't to give them a description of the Second Coming of Christ but rather to encourage them that those who have died prior to Christ's Second Coming aren't going to miss out on any of God's blessings in the coming Kingdom of God.

In this, his earliest letter, it seems that Paul expects to be alive when Christ returns. And I think it's also probable that Matthew also thought that the Second Coming would be something that their generation would see in their own lifetime.  So, although other allegorical interpretations of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins might inspire us and are also perfectly legitimate, I believe that it means what it seems to imply: be on your guard so that you will be ready when Christ returns to earth again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The only problem is that, with the benefit of over 2000 years of hindsight, we know that Christ did not return to earth during the generation of his peers. And we, like every generation since then, have had to grapple with the fact that Scripture seems to believe that Jesus would return in the lifetime of his own generation. So how can we make some sense of these things: of the Second Coming and the future Resurrection of believers?

Describing Colour to a Blind Person

Tom Wright, currently the Bishop of Durham and an internationally-respected bible scholar, provides a helpful framework, I think.

He asks a very interesting question: How would you describe different colours to a person who was born blind with no residual sight?

You might say that Red is a hot, hard colour. You might say that Green is a cool, soft colour. And you might say that Yellow is a dissonant, prickly colour. In describing these colours to your blind friend, both of you would be absolutely aware that these descriptions are extremely inadequate. But we might agree that, as inadequate as the are, the descriptions provide some way of trying to describe the indescribable.

So, just as it would be incorrect for a blind person to insist that yellow does not exist because they can't see it, so too it would be equally incorrect to insist that yellow is 'literally' prickly or dissonant. Yellow exists but cannot be described to a person without sight, nor can that person grasp the fullness of the colour yellow.

Resurrection and the Second Coming

I think that this way of thinking is a helpful tool to use when trying to imagine the resurrection and the Second Coming of Christ.

Because the assurance of resurrection into the Kingdom of God of all who have trusted in Christ is a key doctrine for our faith, so I want to try to grapple with it. It is a key narrative of the Christian faith that when the Kingdom of God finally comes, then God will put all wrongs to rights and grief will turn to joy. But I can't tell you exactly what either of these things mean any more than a blind person can explain the fullness of the colour yellow.

Nevertheless, I have a belief, trust and hope in God that we will some how be transformed into the fullness of what we were meant to be from before the beginning of time. (Resurrection) And with that same belief and trust and faith, I believe that God will bring all creation into the fullness of what it was meant to be (The Second Coming of Christ, The Kingdom of God)

To use the classic symbols, our future resurrection life will be lived in the Kingdom of God.

How God will work his purposes out, I don't know. And I don't think that the apostle Paul knew either - that's why we are disciples of the Christian Faith and not disciples of the Christian Explanation.

Conclusion

Today's scripture readings weren't actually meant specifically for Remembrance Day because they are the internationally-agreed readings for this Sunday.

Yet, I think that there is a connection between these readings and Remembrance Sunday. Whatever we believe about the necessity of war in this world, I believe that the bible tells us that there will be no war in the coming Kingdom.

The bible also most certainly tells us that war and death are not part of who God is.

There are people and regimes in the history of humankind that are willing to use war and murder as tools to gain an advantage over other human beings. They think that it is their willingness to kill and to murder that sets them apart and gives them real power. But, through Christ, God has said that there is actually no power in death because all things will be raised to new life in his Kingdom.

For Christians who watch and wait, this is our joyful hope.

For the forces of evil and those who rely on the power of death to define who they are, the coming Kingdom of God is their ultimate demise.

My prayer this morning is that, as Christians, we are encouraged by the hope that God is a God of life. May we pray for peace, work for peace, and look forward to the coming Kingdom of God. Amen

Sunday 11 November 2007 - Remembrance Sunday

A meditation for the Remembrance Day Service, 2007. Based on 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-5, 13-17 and Luke 20:27-38

===

Introduction

Resurrection and the Second Coming of Jesus. These are the themes of this morning’s readings and they are particularly challenging themes. Especially for 21st century Christians where we have lost all the cultural influences that made texts like the ones we just heard meaningful to first century Christians.

There is no doubt that the very early Church – those believers who were Jesus’ contemporaries – expected him to return in glory in their lifetime and to set up the reign of God on earth. The second letter to the Thessalonians is addressed to a group of believers whose faith has been shaken by the growing realisation that they are not going to see Jesus’ glorious return in their own lifetime.

And our Gospel reading is about resurrection. It’s about the blindness of the Sadducees and their inability to see Jesus for who he is, but it’s also most definitely about resurrection.

So what do we make of these two concepts, so difficult for contemporary society? And what, especially, do we make of them in the light of Remembrance Day?

It was the sentence of one commentator on the Gospel reading that really struck me as tying all of this together. I paraphrase what he wrote: The Sadducees belong to this age and are so preoccupied with the details of the marriage system that they are unable to contemplate something radically new, the miracle of the resurrection.

And so too, it seems to me, that part of what we remember today as Christians is our human inability to see beyond ‘this age’. Today we remember our human inability to imagine something new like the miracle of peace.

Remembering the Sacrifice of Others

We remember and recognise the preoccupation of human society with individual and national honour, and we mourn the fact that 89 years after Armistice Day and the end of World War I, the world is still caught up in a system of greed, revenge and violence.

And, of course, today we also remember all the men and women who are currently serving in the armed forces and who have served in the past. We remember especially those who have been injured and those who died in service of their country.

We remember those people on the home front who suffered hardship, who worked for the welfare of their neighbours and we remember those who died as casualties of war.

We also remember other public servants whose vocations require them to lay their lives on the line for the greater good of society, particularly police and fire brigades.

People who are called by vocation and circumstance to lay down their lives for others are living out the great commandment of Moses and Jesus to love their neighbours, whether or not they consider themselves to be people of faith. And as Christians, we recognise this sacrifice, we respect it, and we thank God for giving these people the courage and grace to consider the welfare of others before their own.

Such actions are not only examples for us, but they must certainly elicit within us a wellspring of gratitude, awe and thanksgiving. And it is for these reasons that today we remember them.

Remembering the Prince of Peace

However, as Christians we are called to remember these people and their sacrifices in the context of the Gospel. We are called to remember those fallen in the service of their country in the context of what Scripture tells us about God’s love for each and every human life.

Our Epistle and Gospel readings this morning remind us that we are also called to remember God’s vision of his Kingdom: a vision of a New Creation where Christ will reign in glory as the Prince of Peace. However we conceive of these difficult biblical notions of resurrection, New Creation and the reign of Christ, we are called to remember that God’s intention for all of his children is life in all its fullness.

As Christians, we remember that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. And we remember that the origins of war and national conflict were the same in Jesus’ time as they are today: greed, empire-building, a desire for revenge and the world’s failure to understand that the person who we call an enemy is also a beloved child of God.

As Christians, we are called to stand back from the values of this age so that we can remember God’s vision of the Kingdom and the reign of the Prince of Peace. We are called to imagine a radical new world where the miracle of peace is made manifest.

However improbable it may seem, however cynical the pundits of the world may be about the Church’s message of hope, the Church is called to keep her light of hope burning until the bridegroom arrives. At the core of our faith is not only our conviction that God’s love is for all of humanity. It is also the conviction that the death and resurrection of Jesus proves conclusively that such an apparently mad and wide-eyed hope for peace on earth is not in vain.

At the core of the Christian faith is the conviction that the sacrifice of Jesus was worth something and that God himself knows exactly what it means to suffer and die at the hand of human sin.

On this Remembrance Day, let us remember the sacrifice made for us – and being made for us - by all men and women in uniform.

Let us remember the sacrifice of all those who went before us so that we – their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters – might enjoy freedom.

But, as Christians, let us most especially remember that the Church is called to keep alive God’s good news of the coming of his kingdom and of the reign of Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Let us not only imagine peace, but I pray that each and every one of us here today may live out peace in our daily lives.

Amen