"Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is near!'  

(Luke 21:8)

Hey Y’All! Are you ready for the Rapture? Get your t-shirt to leave behind, “Please Recycle Me. My Owner Got Raptured!” Is your Rapture timer set so you’re doing nothing unsavoury when the big moment comes? I don’t mean to mock - well maybe a little - but we get this every so often, don’t we? Someone spends way too much time - usually on the Book of Revelation - looking for hints and signs that the end times are coming. I saw a post on Facebook recently: “Six signs that Donald Trump is the Anti-Christ’ Suddenly they’re convinced that he end of the world is coming and all the faithful are going to be raptured a week on Tuesday. At 3:57 pm. Greenwich Meantime.

Then nothing happens and we wait for someone else to dive into Revelation and proclaim that the time is near. Along with Revelation we have passages like the one we had this morning from the Gospel of Luke. It and similar passages in Matthew and Mark are sometimes called the ‘mini-apocalypse’ which I tend to think is a rather unfortunate because the word ‘apocalypse’ doesn’t mean something like ‘catastrophe’ or ‘the end of the world’. It means ‘revelation’ and the fact is that in this passage Jesus reveals next to nothing.

He says there’ll be wars and disease but it’s all a bit vague. There have been wars and disease in pretty much every decade before and since then. He says there’ll be earthquakes. Ditto. He says there’ll be signs and portents in the sky. Comets? Auroras? Shooting stars? What? It’s all a bit vague and maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re not supposed to know when Christ will return. Maybe even he didn’t know. Maybe the point is to listen to his advice here and ignore those who proclaim with a certainty literally nobody has that “the time is near.”

But do you know what really troubles me about the whole ‘Rapture’ idea? The idea that it happens before all the bad stuff happens: that ‘the saved’ will escape all the times of trouble and tribulation; that they’ll get a free pass to Heaven while everybody else goes through the hard times and that’s the exact opposite of what Jesus says in the second half of this passage’ He says that his followers will go through hard times, will be dragged before the courts, will be mocked and ridiculed. He knew he’d hacked off some very powerful people so this was hardly an unlikely prophecy.

Calling this the ‘mini-apocalypse’ is so misguided. It focuses our attention on the end times. There’s a whole branch of theology called eschatology devoted to that and let me just say it’s not an exact science. The point of this passage isn’t that. It’s the promise of Christ that through the hard times his followers will face he will be with them. Will be with us.

The kinds of things Jesus talks about happening to his followers in this passage may seem distant and unlikely. Chances are you’re not going to be fed to the lions for coming to church this morning. Having to listen to me droning on is as bad as it’s going to get. But right now there are Christian pastors in the United States being arrested, their faces ground into the concrete, pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets for protesting against the treatment of immigrants and proclaiming Christ’s teaching about welcoming the stranger in our midst. Right now there are Christians in parts of Africa turning up to church and proclaiming Christ on a Sunday after the church up the road got fire-bombed. Right now there are Christians facing exactly the kinds of trial Christ speaks of in this passage. What keeps them going? Maybe the message of this passage that through it all Christ is with them. As he is with us.

Maybe worrying about the end times isn’t the point. Maybe that’s what Jesus is getting at here. The thing is we all have an end time in this world. Rather than a rapture the Church has traditionally focussed on the parousia - the coming of Christ. One day Christ will come for each of us. We all of us have only so many days in this world and our only real choice is what we do with those days? Do we allow Christ to speak through us as he says he will do in this passage?

Do we let Christ speak through us in this principles we stand for as followers of Christ? Do we defend the poor and the homeless when the world condemns them as failures and wasters and us as fools for caring? Do we speak up for immigrants and asylum seekers when the world whips up hatred against them and demands that we ship them from our shores? Do we stand beside those the world condemns in their difference of race or creed  or sexuality because each and all are beloved children of God?

This is the gift God offers us in the days we have here: to face a world trials and tribulations with hope and love. To proclaim in all that we say and all that we do, the love of God for all humanity. To paint a picture of a world renewed and remade through that love. To show those around us that kindness is better than coldness. That generosity is better than greed. And above all to demonstrate above all that the most powerful force in this world is love. For love is of God.

For each of us the end of the world is coming. But here and now we can make a difference that remakes the world a tiny little bit where we live. The title of this sermon is a line from a song by REM. “It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.” I feel fine.

Lord this world is fleeting for each of us. Help us to treasure the days we have and to rejoice in them. Help us to speak your word to the world and bear witness to you in times of trial

Preached at Baxter Hall Eastriggs and Annan Old Parish Church

Complete Service