Sermons

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He Is Coming
July 14, 2002
Seventh in a sermon series on Peter and his letters
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
2 Peter 1:16-21

We’re continuing our sermon series on Peter, and last week we finished our study of the New Testament book of 1 Peter. This morning we move into 2 Peter.

The two form an interesting combination for a number of reasons, but one of them is this: From its very beginning, the church of Jesus Christ had its existence threatened in a number of different ways. The letter of 1 Peter dealt mainly with how the church is to respond to threats from outside…that is, mainly the persecution or threat of persecution from the culture around it. 2 Peter, on the other hand, will deal more with threats from inside the church…wrong or deceptive teaching. In 2 Peter, the potential for Christians being misled is focused mainly around the idea of the second coming of Christ.

2 Peter 1:16-21

I love bumper stickers. Every once in a while I spot one of my favorites driving down the street. It says simply: “Jesus is coming…look busy”!!

Though I don’t like the theology it communicates…it does seem to be an accurate reflection of how people think of a foundational piece of the Christian faith, one that is unavoidable if you read the Bible: Jesus is coming. Again.

There are a number of words in scripture for this event. The one often used is parousia, a Greek word that means “coming,” or “arrival.” It’s the word used here in verse 16, where it says “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In other places, this event is called “the day of the Lord.” Today it’s often referred to as “the second coming.”

The event of Jesus’ return at the end of time has been an integral part of Christian belief since the time of Jesus. In the first couple hundred years after Jesus’ life on earth, it was extremely important. The New Testament and other documents of the early church usually discuss it as the HOPE of our faith.

But from maybe the 5th century forward, it seems that most often hope in the second coming of Christ has been superceded by a different kind of hope: hope in humankind. There has been a very strong “philosophy of progress” based on an optimistic view of the human being. It reflects a feeling that, especially due to improving education and science and technology, things on earth will gradually get better and better. This certainly was an overarching theme through the Enlightenment period, and well into modern times. [Certainly, every age has had movements or figures who predicted doom and destruction, but in general, “progress” has been the prevailing philosophy.]

In the 20th century, however, there seems to have been a growing uneasiness that this progress was not happening. The reasons are obvious, I guess. History has given us World War I, followed shortly by World War II, the “war to end all wars,” and the frightening technology of an atomic bomb that could level whole cities. The failures of socialism or communism…or democracy... to produce the utopias they had promised, and instead the bloody civil wars and genocides that have resulted: 1 million people slaughtered in Armenia in the early 1900s, 6 million Jews in the holocaust, 3 million Cambodians in the 1970s, ½ million Rwandans less than 10 years ago.

We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of countries capable of using nuclear weapons of unimaginable destructiveness, and we’ve contributed to the gradual destruction of the ecological systems of our planet. Terrorist bombs and hijacking with little regard for human life capture headlines every week.. It’s small wonder that in what we are now calling “Postmodernity,” the confidence in human progress has been shot, and there is perhaps less confidence in humanity’s ability to “fix” itself than ever before. And so there’s renewed interest in taking a look at this idea of the end times.

The Bible speaks a great deal about the end times. The difficult thing is to try and consider ALL that the Bible says in formulating one clear picture of the end times. For example, in Jesus’ own teaching about the end of time:

• Matthew 13 parables, both evil and good will be in the world until the End…only then are they separated.
• Matthew 24 -- times of tribulation and trial will lead right up until Jesus’ coming.
  —the physical world as we know it will have an end.
  (24:30)
  —Jesus will come with “with power and great glory,” and gather his people.
  —there will be a judgment…some will be swept away, others saved.
  
• The apostle Paul also describes the judgment of the second coming…the destruction of people apart from Christ. Both Jesus and Paul talk about the last day happening at an unknown time, and also “in the twinkling of an eye.” Paul describes it as the completing of the kingdom of God. Paul also says that at Jesus’ coming, those believers who have already died will be raised and join those who were still on the earth. In the next two weeks in 2 Peter, we will read through similar thoughts on the end of time.
• And then comes the book of Revelation. In Revelation there is a myriad of pictures, images, metaphors and details woven intricately together. Armies, beasts, fire, judgment, cities, blood, damnation, salvation all intersect in this vision of the end of time, when Christ comes in judgment and for salvation.

It’s here in Revelation where we Christians have tended to bog down the most, trying to shoehorn the images of prophetic vision into a blueprint of the future. Probably nowhere do people disagree more strenuously over interpretation than Revelation’s picture of the end of time. I want you to bear with me for a few minutes this morning as I throw out three words important to these conversations: MILLENIUM, TRIBULATION, and RAPTURE. (We should be able to do these in five minutes or so!)

Revelation 20 is the one mention of THE MILLENIUM, which it describes as a 1,000 year period of time where life on earth is good and Satan is bound up. The exact timing of the Second Coming of Christ in relation to this MILLENIUM is the major place of departure for all sorts of interpretations. Sixty years ago, many Christians in America were arguing rather emphatically over which of these interpretations were correct. Today, the conversation continues, though within a much smaller group.

The vocabulary of this discussion may be familiar to you, or totally foreign. If you were to call yourself an advocate of the AMILLENIAL viewpoint, then you take the 1,000 year period to be a figurative number which may refer to the current age of the church. The second coming will happen, but we have no idea when that is. If you are POSTMILLENIALIST, the 1,000 years is a peaceful period on earth brought about by the positive influence of the gospel and Christians on society. At the end of the 1,000 years (post), Christ comes to inaugurate eternity. If you are PREMILLENIALIST, the second coming of Christ is BEFORE (pre) the 1,000 years of peaceful times. Many of the more conservative Christians, or schools like Dallas Theological Seminary would hold to this view.

So…a-mill, post-mill, pre-mill…Now, at this point, many people get frustrated. With tongue firmly in cheek, they choose yet another option, like PAN-millenialist…because they think everything will “pan out” in the end! Or I had a friend who said he was PRO-millenialist … which meant he was generally FOR a millenium!

The second event of the end times I mentioned is the TRIBULATION. This refers to a time of testing and trial that Christians will undergo. Again, there is disagreement over exactly when it occurs. Some think the tribulation is right now, and will go on as long as the world exists. Probably more believe that there will be a more specific and heightened tribulation as the end time approaches.

Now, as if that wasn’t confusing enough, many blueprint specialists also try to peg the timing of the third end times event, the “RAPTURE” of Christians. Rapture isn’t actually a Biblical word, but a Latin word that means “snatch or catch up.” It’s a translation of I Thessalonians 4:17, where Christians still living on the earth will be “caught up in the clouds…to meet the Lord in the air.” This “rapture” is the idea that believers in Christ will be saved from the worst tribulations in the final battle on earth by being whisked away. It’s the foundational idea behind the series of books and movies called “Left Behind,” which are so popular right now. Jesus gives such a picture back in Matthew 24, “two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.”

There is disagreement (once again) as to the exact timing of this rapture. Some think it comes for Christians before the time of tribulation, “pre-tribulation”…so the church will not experience it. Hence, when we arrived at our church in Minneapolis, I met a man whose most important question for me was not whether I believed in Jesus…but whether I was firmly “pre-trib!” In the same way, others hold views of “mid-tribulation,” which means the church escapes SOME of the tribulation, and “post-trib” which means they must endure it. Are you still with me?

After this scintillating explanation…perhaps you are ready (with me) to ask the question: How do we view the second coming of Jesus in a way that is more significant than this quagmire. The 2 Peter passage is actually quite helpful here by mentioning three tools we can use. Immediately after Peter proclaims the truth of the coming of Jesus, he gives us these tools that help our understanding.

1. Peter wants to remind us that he is not just speculating about the hope that Christ could actually pull this off. He has SEEN the power and glory of God. He was both an eyewitness and an earwitness to the heavenly glory of Christ on “the holy mountain.” He’s talking about Jesus' experience of Transfiguration, where God’s radiance clothed him, and the prophets Elijah and Moses appeared, talking to Jesus, and the voice of God came from heaven saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And just as the gospels tell the story, Peter was there…he saw, he heard. This is a firsthand account…and Peter knows God really could come again!
2. To discern the hope of Christ’s coming… is to search the prophecies of the scriptures…to let them shine like a lamp in darkness… “Thy Word is a lamp…” God uses the scriptures to give us what we need.
3. Even in the reading of scripture…it is not just human intellect or ingenuity that will interpret the scripture…but the Holy Spirit shall cause people to speak the truth of the scriptures. We study, and we read and listen for the Spirit’s voice.

And so we, in fear and trembling, try to faithfully follow the Spirit’s lead in understanding the scripture on the Second Coming. Though much is difficult, some things seem clear from all of the passages:

1. Jesus IS coming again. No matter how you interpret the various positions, all say that Jesus IS coming to bring history to a close. The Kingdom of God ultimately wins out. What we see now are glimpses of the Kingdom of God…the Kingdom that broke into the world when Jesus came out of the womb of Mary in Bethlehem. But one day, Jesus will come back and bring us into his completed kingdom. Life is lived in the expectation that God has not forgotten His people…He will come to us, for us.
2. When Jesus comes…he will set things right. There will come a time when Jesus says, “enough.” The way things are right now is not the way they will always be. Evil is not forever, suffering is not forever, creation does not groan forever. A new heaven and new earth will appear. Jesus will come to comfort, to heal, to be with: “…they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.”
3. But the coming of Jesus…will also bring judgment. It is a side of Jesus we don’t want to think about much, but clearly is part of what Jesus said would happen. The wicked will perish. Jesus who will separate sheep and goats, those he knows and those he doesn’t. Disturbingly, in Matthew 25, that judgment will be along the lines of who carried out ministry to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, sick, naked and in prison. And so we say in the Apostles’ Creed, Jesus “…will come to judge the quick (living) and the dead.”

But there is a word of comfort there as well. The One who comes to judge…is Jesus. The same Jesus we have known. The one who has advocated for us, forgiven us, loved us, treated us graciously and called us to Himself. It’s not a different Jesus.

And so how do we live, in light of this coming of Christ?

“Jesus is coming…look busy.” I have to tell you a story. When I was in college, I lived just six blocks over from here in the basement of a house owned by this great couple, Stan and Olive. I had a roommate, and we were…well, bachelors. The room was never clean. In fact, it was a pigsty! Pizza boxes, newspapers, magazines, clothes everywhere. Well, one day, my roommate came bursting into the room shouting, “Olive is coming, Olive is coming!” You have never seen two guys move faster, jamming things into drawers and kicking them under the bed to get that room picked up…or at least so it looked like it was picked up.

“Jesus is coming…look busy.” How should we live? Should we wait until the last second and try to scramble around to get our lives together? Or should we run and hide from the world? Or should we just throw up our hands and exist until he comes and fixes things?

No…Here’s what 2 Peter says to do with the time we have: “You must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.” We live as people of hope, using the time we have, looking for the signs of the kingdom while never losing sight of what lies ahead.

It’s no accident that after the entire story of the scripture is unfolded…after we have heard of God’s design for creation and humanity, of sin and betrayal, of the downfall of kingdoms and the longing for a real king to return…after the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus for our sake, after we have heard the unbelievable gospel news that God’s love is both personal and boundless. After all of this, it seems no accident to me…that the entire Bible, the last book, the last paragraph, almost the last …would end with Jesus saying, “Surely I am coming soon.” And a voice answering back…maybe your voice: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” Come. Amen.