Luke 21:25-26
What’s going to happen in the future?
Ten years ago, as you looked into the future, is today what you saw? Is the person you are now the person you envisioned you would be from back then? Is the world we live in now the world you envisioned 10 years ago? What about 25 years ago? 50 years ago?
What’s going to happen this afternoon? Tomorrow? I try to keep a thorough calendar of future days. I look at my calendar and it tells me what appointments and events will be coming up. I look forward with anticipation to some of those events on my calendar. Not so much anticipation with others. But at least I know. Each item on each day of my calendar is going to happen, right?
My calendar gives me a sense that the future is predictable. Probably about 95% of the time, what I have on my calendar happens. But there are times when things I didn’t expect to happen, happens. Or things I expected to happen get canceled. I get surprises. Some times they aren’t good surprises. I’m sure Betsy and Larry Koontz weren’t happy about coming home this week, surprised to see a huge branch crashed through their roof and into their bedroom. Couldn't have seen that one coming, or had it on the calendar. Most of the time events are just what they are.
We like to have a sense of control over our future. We want that predictability. Whenever we speak a sentence that begins with the words, “I will…” it has to do with what we want to happen in our future.
The futurist Robert Prehoda once wrote:
Unless you believe in a totally fixed and immutable time-stream (in which case it doesn’t matter what you do, everything’s frozen in cement already) then the future must be a series of events that have not yet happened, and therefore can be altered, changed, diverted, moved, shaped by myriad of individual decisions. There is no one certain future; there are countless possible futures, with every moment bringing new opportunities to hand.
But, look back through this statement by Jesus and see how many times the word “will” comes up:
“Strange things will happen…”
“The nations on earth will be afraid…”
“People will be so frightened…”
“Every power in the sky will be shaken.”
“…the Son of Man will be seen, coming in a cloud…”
“You will soon be set free.”
Six times.
Let’s look at that word, “will” and what it infers. Because from what Jesus said, it doesn't appear there are a lot of options. If something “will” happen it means whatever is to happen is expected. Not only expected—it’s supposed to happen. There is no shade of doubt. There is certainty. There aren’t “countless possible futures,” as Prehoda wrote. There is only one.
Also, behind these “will” statements of Jesus is a sense of determination. Determined in two meanings of the word. First, determined as in predestined. If something will happen, and there is certainty about it happening, it means it is fated, or determined and fixed that it will happen. And nothing will be able to derail that fate. If it will happen, it has been set.
Determination also has the sense of volition behind it. If I make an “I will” statement it means I am being deliberate in my choices and actions. I am exercising my own purposes. I am determined. “I will make this happen.”
Coupled with that is fact that in order to say you will make such-and-such happen, you must have the power to make it happen. I can’t say something like, “I will make Donald Trump close his mouth and drop out of the presidential election.” I could show all the determination I want about that statement, but I just don’t have the power to pull it off. So if you say you will do something, you better have the power to make it happen.
One other part of this statement Jesus makes about all the things that will happen has to do with design. Some things will happen simply because that is the way they are designed. That’s the feeling we get when we read Jesus’ six “will” statements—that this is the way the future is designed, and that future can’t do other than how it has been designed to play out. Thus we get back to fate or determinism. We may not like the way certain things about life are designed, but that’s tough. There are some things about the design we don’t get to have a say in.
The ultimate destination of our future, or the future of the world, is one of those. At least according to this statement of Jesus.
The other unsettling part of these six “will” statements is that they are open-ended. We can be sure that they will happen. We just don’t know when. Most of our “I will” statements that we make we try to be close-ended. “I will buy a different car next week.” “I will write a book in 2016.” “I will drink some oolong tea with my lunch today.”
Not so with Jesus’ statements. The Second Coming, and these events, could start happening this afternoon. Or 50 years from now. It’s already been over 2000 years since Jesus made this statement. So when? We don’t know.
I was having breakfast with Alan and Rex Thursday morning at the Servateria. A lady walked up to our booth and started preaching to us. She said Jesus was going to come back soon because of all those blankety-blank Islamatists and what's happening in Jerusalem. She said her husband told her to keep her mouth shut and I told her I might agree with him, but that the guys in the next booth over would love to hear what she had to say. She moved on.
I admit, I was a bit crass. But I get tired of people who say they know stuff about the Second Coming, when Jesus himself said he didn't know when it was going to happen. We don't know.
The timing of either the first or second coming of Christ isn't what's important. What is important is understanding the why of both the first and second coming. And the why has to do with the kind of world that God is entering through Christ.
Look at how the world is described in these verses about the Second Coming. Every power in the sky--sun, moon and stars--will shake. In ancient times people believed the stars to be spiritual powers. So even the powers in the skies, that had once been unmoving and constant, would suddenly become unstable.
The nations of the earth are living in fear and they won't know what to do about their fear. Isn't our world currently being held in fear by terrorists, unstable and unruly nations ruled by unstable leaders? The human-to-human atrocities are mind boggling! We are bombarded with barbaric images from around our world of human cruelty and craziness. Which city will be next? Which innocent person will be next? If we get used to those images or numbed to these inhuman actions, shame on us.
There is fear of climate change. Of scarce water supplies. Of antibiotic resistant bacteria. And on and on. The number one reality of our world is fear, and we have no idea what to do about it.
Fear is so bad, says these words of Jesus, that people will faint because of what's happening. Imagine this prophetic picture portraying life prior to and during Christ's return. As the events of his Second Coming unfold, a sense of dread, discouragement and perplexity closes down upon the world like the lid of a casket.
In one Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy is lying in his doghouse. He is thinking to himself, "It's nice to wake up in the morning with a feeling well-being...to know that even though there's snow on the ground and it's a little chilly outside, basically life is good, and that you personally are..." At that point, Snoopy stopped in mid-sentence and looked up. Above him, hanging from the eave of the house, is one of the largest icicles he has ever seen. Not knowing when it might fall on his little doghouse, Snoopy finishes his sentence, "...life is good, and that you are personally DOOMED!"
We have some of those kind of icicles hanging over our lives and over our world at the present time. The unknowing of when they will fall paralyzes us from action or simple reaction.
As this Peanuts cartoon continues, Snoopy is looking up at the menacing spike of ice poised directly above him and his doghouse. He's thinking to himself, "It's silly to be trapped in a doghouse by an icicle!" Looking out straight ahead of him he continues to think, "I think I'll just make a run for it! Just zoom out of here!" The next frame shows Snoopy with a look of determination on his face as he talks to himself into making a bold move out of his precarious position: "I think I'll just leap up and zoom right out!" Then he looked up at the icicle and settles back down, feeling like a captive to his situation: "I think I'll just lie here for the rest of my life!"
That's the dread that comes through the picture of the world at the time of Christ's second Advent. The people of the world are discouraged and have a sense of bewilderment as to what is happening. There is a certain reality that the people of the world are totally out of control--those who are the victimizers and those who are the victims. The icicles over our lives and over the people of the world loom too large, and our avenues of escape seem to be all dead ends. We give up. We become fatalists. We just lay down under our growing sense of doom.
On top of that is the image in these verses of the chaotic and untamed seas. Throughout the Bible, the sea is a symbol for the troubled world. The Psalmist cried out to God, "All thy breakers and thy waves have rolled over me" (Psalm 42:7). And in another Psalm, David cried,
"Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life.
I have sunk where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and a flood overflows me!" (Psalm 69:1-2)
If anyone has swam in the ocean and felt the waves crash against them, they know what the psalmist is describing. No matter how firmly you think you are standing, when that wave hits, you are down. And you may feel the dangerous undertow tugging you down. It's fun when you are playing with the waves. It is not fun when they hit when you didn't expect it, or when they hit with such a ferocity that can knock the wind out of you for a time.
This is the picture of human life just prior to Christ's second Advent--wave upon wave of battering experiences, making the people of the world unable to get up before the next wave hits. Our news is full of such waves.
This chaotic and untamable sea of human events makes us wonder where history is going. When the rumors and possibilities of the icicle world events loom over us, we have the expectation that the worst is yet to come. We just know it's all going to come crashing down upon us, so we just lay there, cringing, like Snoopy in the doghouse, overpowered by despair.
Is there any hope for us, for the people of our world?
In the final installment of Snoopy's icy predicament, Charlie Brown and Lucy put a pizza out on the snow. Charlie Brown says to Lucy, "I'm doing just what the man from the humane society said to do." Snoopy, laying in his doghouse sniffs the air catching the scent of the pizza. Then, just as the icicle falls and destroys the doghouse, Snoopy zooms out to eat the pizza. Charlie Brown and Lucy cheer, "SAVED BY A PIZZA!" Snoopy thinks to himself, "Good Grief!"
Humanity won't be saved by pizza. But salvation is on the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment