Thursday, November 20, 2008

'It May Be at Morn'

The texts for the last few weeks leading up to Christ the King (formerly Judgment) Sunday November 23 have all centered around Christ's Second Coming. It has been good to both hear my colleagues preaching and preach myself on that topic--too little emphasized these days.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, the epistle text for last week, we are reminded that it will come "like a thief in the night," unexpected and sudden, the time unknown to all but the Father himself, as Jesus taught. The warning is clear: Jesus is coming soon for each of us--whether in our own death, the time of which is also unknown, or at the end of time when Scripture tells us "he will come in great power and glory."

We know for sure that he is coming, and Scripture says it is soon. But we don't know when. '"It may be at morn," a hymnist writes, but it could be in the dark of night as well. What matters is not to know when, but to be ready whenever. My late brother Zenos put it as succinctly as I have ever heard it put, in a question requiring simply a yes or no from us: "Are your bags packed?"

Earlier this week my wife and I stood in awe as the sun came up outside our back porch (photo above). Was it a forestaste of Christ's coming at the end of time--a reminder of our own need to be ready, our bags packed? As Christians we need not fear that coming, the Apostle writes, for we are "children of light ... children of the day." Whoever has accepted Christ and is living by grace through faith in him will be saved on that day.

"Amen!" belongs there, loud and clear--or as the Germans say with outstetched arm, "Ja!" Let all believers be comforted that Christ is coming for them. And let those not yet living in grace through faith in him make this day their day of submitting to reality, coming to Christ and thus be ready, even expectant.

Those interested in how all this was woven together last Sunday may find the sermon I preached in the Pentecost heading under the Home Page link to Sermons (Audio).