Journey with Jesus #18

Here is the first of the November Bible Studies - the second will be posted shortly -Linda.


NT- Time to Come 11/12/09


There are two ways to look at time. The first way is traditional clock time. Here time is measured movement. Like the movement of sand through the hour glass. The second way is experienced time. For example, time has a different feel for children. Things take more time, and there is always something to look forward to. Time for children is very future oriented. There is an excitement about what is coming, or just arriving. Children don’t have much of a past. Adults construct their own past. It is made up of others’ past, their nation’s past. Part of being formed by a culture is to receive a past. Time is constructed for you by your own experiences and by your culture. A child hardly looks back – they are always looking forward.

Children’s sense of time is closer to the Christian sense of time. The Gospels are full of this future sense of time, and this Christian sense of time has also entered into our culture.

In Mt. 24 Jesus gives his apocalyptic discourse (also in Mk. 13 but it has been expanded by Matthew). In it Jesus teaches about what is coming. There is a powerful, urgent sense of the coming of the new. There have been various interpretations of this text.

In the 19th century a former priest in the Church of Ireland, John Nelson Darby, began to map out a detailed timetable of how the events and tribulations of these end times were going to occur. He promoted what is called “dispensationalism,” a teaching about distinct phases and eras in God’s dealing with humankind, including Darby’s special contribution of a “secret rapture” of the just, leaving the earth behind to tribulation and chaos. His views were promoted in the commentary and cross-references of the Scofield Bible, an enormously popular U.S. bible version through the early part of the 20th century. They thus entered the mainstream of evangelical thinking in the U.S. Darby’s beliefs have become widely accepted as theologically sound and because of them a mythic view of the end times became entrenched. They depict a violent future in which Christians are on the winning side. The basic timetable he described include the secret Second Coming or Rapture; seven years of Tribulation (when God violently defends Israel against, its enemies Gog and Magog – often depicted as the Arabs and Russians); the Thousand Year Reign on earth of Christ and his saints; Satan’s escape from the pit; the Final Battle and the End of the World.

When the present is intolerable and the gospel of compassion is not preached, those who feel abandoned by society and history gravitate to this kind of message. It offers a mathematical control of the future, providing self-vindication buttressed by a kind of fate. Something similar is present in Nostradamus, almanacs and horoscopes. The most current secular version is the Mayan 2012 prediction of the end of the world.

Classical church belief has been a kind of virtual millennialism—the reign of Christ on earth becomes a mystical abstract thing. There is a backing away from any expectation of a real transformation in history. The Church itself becomes the embodiment of Christ’s rule.

It is necessary to read the Matthew passage in a different way. The time of Christ is a newness that we are being pulled toward, both individually and collectively. How it will work out we don’t know, but there is no doubt the pull of the new provokes crisis and challenge.

Jesus uses symbolism to open us to the possibility of something new. He uses several images to symbolize the coming of the end times. The fig tree, the flood, kidnappings, a thief in the night, and slaves waiting for their master’s return. (Interestingly vv.40-41: “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together, one will be taken and one left,” have been used as a reference to rapture by arbitrary connection to 1 Thessalonians 4:17. More traditionally they are linked in the sense of final judgment to the earlier v. 31 where the angels “gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” The nearest sense, however, derived from the image of sweeping away in the flood [v.39], suggests forceful abduction– it is the ones who are left behind who are the lucky ones! In line with this, previous gatherings in Matthew are of the wicked from the earth [13:30 & amp. 40-41—“collect the weeds first,” and the angels “will collect out of the kingdom all causes of sin.”] In other words the “one taken” can be read either positively or negatively, with a suspicion toward the latter. It is mythical to derive literal descriptions from selective verses, rather than a broad description of challenge and crisis.)

Jesus’ metaphors are either from nature or from catastrophic events. They represent both sides of the coming change – it is organic but also shocking and dramatic, totally new. Or, like the images Jesus uses for the kingdom of God, yeast and mustard seed, which are completely natural but bring about huge changes.

Mk 13:32 is the original version of the parable of the slave watching for his master’s return. This includes the classic statement in which Jesus makes it clear that no-one – not even the Son – knows the hour of the end times. (Seems like Darby knew more than Jesus!) The message here is to stay alert and to keep awake. Mt. 24:45-51 expands the theme (the need for watchfulness) to include punishment of the unfaithful slave. Matthew’s audience was the early Christian community, and perhaps reflects a warning to church leaders who have become domineering and exploitative. Matthew’s violent language stems from his desire for authentic Christian community.

Mt. 13:24-30 gives another parable of the end times – the parable of the tares and wheat. Here the harvest gives an image of the end of time – again organic but momentous. The servants offer to pull up the weeds that are growing alongside the wheat – but are told to wait. There is no way to distinguish between good and evil people because we are all interconnected. While theologians like Augustine say this is because you can’t tell at any historical moment who is one of the final elect, the point is rather that we are all so intertwined. Separation is impossible now and must come at the end. As time goes on the choices we make—between goodness and evil, between life and death—will become more and more evident. It will be clearer what we need to do. Those who choose nonviolence, forgiveness and peace will live. In the growing crisis the clarity of choice will grow. Thus these parables are pictures of choice not predictions of outcomes. What is valued and is of the kingdom will last, what is worthless will be lost. The emphasis is on the choice. Matthew’s explanation of the parable at v. 36 (likely an editorial addition and exposition) shifts the emphasis from our interconnectedness and our choice to the final sorting. You can already see happening the temptation toward prediction and pre-emptive division!

A New Testament passage that crystallizes the gospel sense of time and the breaking in of the future into the now is 1Cor. 7: 29. It describes not a physical destruction of the earth, but rather the passing away of the forms of the world as they have been up to now. Not the world passing a way but the present form of the world transforming! What Paul is saying is that what has seemed important and valuable in worldly terms – marriage, mourning, celebration, wealth and dealings with the world are no longer important. What is coming is the key thing.

In the light of all this the thousand year reign of Christ may be understood as the continued pull of Christ on the world, shifting it toward compassion, peace, forgiveness. It is a subversive reign but it is a reign all the same, because it is the root guiding force of all contemporary history. There is no guarantee that the world will submit, and so the outcome remains uncertain. But in the meantime the subversive reign is real and the thousand years is now. It is contemporary with present history, as indeed all the images of Revelation are, including the battle of the Word against the kings and armies of the earth. It is the same movie plot played out again and again! Christians today are called to live into the future-now of the new thing Christ has brought.