Pastor's Corner by Pastor David M. Jahn

Part 11 – the End of the World

As far as we can tell, the return of Christ and the end of things as we know them has been an important part of Christian belief since the beginning. After Jesus had left the scene, his first followers firmly believed that he was going to return soon. They expected that he would bring about the ultimate reign of God well within their lifetimes. The realization that Jesus may not be coming as soon as they thought only began to dawn on them as the eye witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection began to die.

Unfortunately, as soon as it became clear that everyone was wrong in their assumption that Jesus’ return was just around the corner, confusion about what Jesus might have meant in his teaching about the end times became the norm. From the second generation of Christians right up until the present day there has been a huge variety of theories about Christ’s return and about what he and some of his followers after him were trying to say about the last days.

The writings of the early church became especially confusing for us as our sisters and brothers in Christ began to be persecuted for their faith.

Apocalyptic Literature – Since long before Jesus was born, a genre of writing had been developing that helped God’s people express their deepest beliefs, hopes, and anguish during their most difficult times. These writings were intentionally created to be unrecognizable to anyone outside of the author’s faith community. They were filled with symbolic language, bizarre images and fantastic beasts, along with judgment and calamities on a cosmic scale. The writers of apocalyptic literature “saw” these visions and recorded them in great detail, but the things that we find described in this style of writing were never intended to be taken literally. They were symbols and images designed to stir up feelings and to bring hope. They were woven together to communicate powerful truth and ultimate outcomes.

For example, in the book of Revelation (the most popular and well-known of the biblical apocalyptic writings) Jesus is described as, “…one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.”

I think any of us would be terrified to meet someone who actually looked like this (especially the sword replacing the tongue). But the original readers of John’s apocalypse would not have been frightened. They would have been moved and lifted up by the symbolism because they knew how this genre worked. The long robe and the golden sash symbolize Jesus’ high-priestly authority in heaven. The white head and hair symbolize agelessness, purity, and wisdom. His flaming eyes symbolize allseeing, purifying power. His feet are unmovable and would crush anything in their way, but with only the pure motives of heaven. His voice is as powerful and authoritative as anything they could imagine. He holds the fate of the seven churches to which the Revelation was written in his hands. His words cuts through all deception and bring victorious truth. His face is as bright and beautiful as the sun itself. These are powerful images, but they were designed to inspire and teach truth, not conjure up a literal picture.

If you were to sum up the message of most apocalyptic literature in one sentence it would go something like this: “Even though it looks like the world flying apart at the seams and God has completely forgotten about you, God is still in control and, in the end, things will be as God promised they would be.”

Misusing Apocalyptic Literature – So, what does all of this have to do with the end of the world? Well, unfortunately, well meaning Christians have, for over 1500 years, been trying to use apocalyptic literature as a blueprint to figure out exactly what God is going to do and when. The idea is that, if you interpret the symbols correctly, they become clues to warn us about the details of the future and how God is going to ultimately bring about the end of time.

The reason I feel so bold as to say that this method of interpreting apocalyptic writings is faulty is that, for 1500 years, the predictions of these good-hearted scholars has been flat wrong. Adolph Hitler, Gorbachev, and a host of others before them were not, it turns out, the anti-Christ. The end of the world has never come when these people have said it would and the “signs of the times” seem to be there in every generation of believers along with someone saying, “The end is near!”. Someday, one of them will be right, but listening to them is like saying you should take the battery out of your wall clock because that way it will be exactly right twice a day.

“The Late Great Planet Earth” and the very popular “Left Behind” series are just two modern examples (among thousands) of books that attempt to use apocalyptic literature to predict how and when the world will end.

In my opinion, if these ancient texts really were clues about modern times, with symbols and images that would have meant nothing to the people of the first and second century they would never have made it into the Bible. They would have been shrugged off as the visions of a madman and tossed on the trash heap of history. These amazing writings ended up in our Bible because the symbols and visions touched the hearts of the people who first heard them. The Holy Spirit used them to bring comfort in some of the worst times God’s people have ever had to face. Most of the symbols and images were recognized by the author’s first audience as representing people, powers, and events in their present and immediate future. The writings gave them hope about what God was doing and would be doing behind the scenes for them “very soon”.

The fact is, other than the general truth that Christ will return one day and bring God’s ultimate reign to the earth, these writings were never meant to communicate specific events and times and methods to believers living thousands of years after they were written. To use them for this purpose would be a little like using The Song of Songs to figure out human anatomy. (I don’t know of any women who really have necks like ivory towers.) If God really wanted us to know the details of how Christ was going to bring about the end of all things, why would the Holy Spirit be so unintelligible? God didn’t use a poem as the instruction manual for building the temple.

Imagine what we might have accomplished if all of the money, time, and energy that we have spent over the years trying to figure out what God was going to do was instead spent on doing what we know God has called us to do.

Christians have always believed that Christ would return someday. We have always believed that God’s day of judgment will come for all people. To be faithful to the One who has called us and saved us it will have to be enough to say, “No one knows the day or the hour”.

I don’t know who said it, but it seems brilliant to me, “Live each day as if it will be your last and someday you will be right”. You will also be ready. Until then…Serving with you,