You know, I think if I still had residual Baptist in me, I'd be caught up in the miasma of rapture fever like the rest of them. I know "there will be wars and rumors of wars" for all time, and maybe I'm just more aware now than I've been in the past, but the world seems rocked to its core. In every way.
Right now, there are a host geological, astronomical, economical, political, environmental, historical and even a brand of spiritual events going on right now in degrees I don't remember ever having seen before. But then, I've also never been an adult in a warring world before, either. Every generation on earth has thought itself to be the last - we can see it from way back. Man has some inborn sense of the end of things - or maybe we're simply reared to be fatalists - but it seems like, collectively, every age has prophets of doom and wise men telling them the end is near. The end is coming.
It stands to reason that some day, eventually, they have to be right.
I think, though, that Christ won't return in the middle of ragingly troubled times, but instead in the midst of the closest thing we've had to peace. When he talks about coming again, he talks about being a thief in the night while the household sleeps. Who sleeps when there are bombs exploding outside? Everyone expects the messiah when the world is going to hell. It's when we try to build our own heaven, though, that God tends to make personal appearances.
The Jews looked for him every time they were captured and carted off to the land of some foreign god - and they're still looking. Every time our men (and now women) are called off to war, when it gets too close to home, we have a spiritual revival. People look for answers. They're still looking, just not for him. They're looking for "peace" as the absence of conflict, not peace as the presence of God -- even in conflict. Our peace is founded in the security of a single fact: Our God reigns.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."
Isa 57:21
2 comments:
Let me try that one again. I reread your post and realized that I had missed your point entirely. Now, if the trash can works, my first comment will disappear.
I had never really thought about what would be the moment we would least suspect him, but what you said makes sense. It seems that at one point he showed up at the tower of Babel when obviously people were involved in a joint effort and building a way to heaven. While his visitation was not final, it was a visitation none-the-less and resulted in a total breakdown of their effort.
Wow! Quiara,
What a provocative thought! I am glad you are recording your insights.
But regardless of what situation will herald his coming, it it good to know that peace can reign in us when it is raining fire all around.
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