Malachi 4.1–2a
2 Thessalonians 3.6–13
Luke 21.5–19
Today is the Second Sunday before Advent, which means that there are now only five more Sundays until Christmas. For several weeks now the shops have been emphasising the commercial side of this annual celebration and, in the church preparations are being made to celebrate the story of the baby in Bethlehem who was born to save the world. But as Christians the coming of Jesus in not only an event in past but also an event we look for in the future. Christians believe in two comings of Jesus. His first coming was as child born to suffer, to die and to rise again in order to save world. His second coming will be to gather in the harvest of creation – a coming in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Today’s Bible readings point us to thinking about this topic of the return of Jesus Christ. Malachi, in the Old Testament, speaks of the decisive day of God’s intervention in history; the Day of the Lord, the day when evil and injustice are banished from the world. Paul, in the second letter to the Thessalonians, calls on his readers not to ‘weary in doing what is right’ – earlier in the letter he has written of the coming of Jesus and the troubled times that will lead up to it and it is in the light of this that his hearers are called to endurance. And in the gospel reading Jesus warns of the troubles that Christians will undergo before his return.
One of the greatest teachers of the early church was a man named Cyril of Jerusalem. He lived about 300 years after Jesus and was Bishop of the City of Jerusalem. Each Lent he would gather together those who were to be baptised at Easter and instruct them in the faith that they were accepting. During one Lent his words were written down by one of these who heard them, and that record has been passed down to us today. Cyril spoke each time on one of the clauses of the creed and when he came to the clause:
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end...
this is what he said:
We preach not one advent only of Christ,
but a second also, far more glorious than the former.
In His former advent,
He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger;
in His second,
He covers Himself with light as with a garment.
In His first coming,
He endured the Cross, despising shame[1];
in His second,
He comes attended by a host of Angels, receiving glory.
We rest not then upon His first advent only,
but look also for His second.
And as at His first coming we said,
Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord,
so will we repeat the same at His second coming;
that when with Angels we meet our Master,
we may worship Him and say,
Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord.
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Sadly, since Cyril’s time, teaching about the return of Jesus Christ has tended to be neglected topic in the mainstream of the church and has, instead, become the preserve of extremist sects and heretical groups like Jehovah’s witnesses. These have often claimed to know the exact date and time of Jesus return. Indeed Jehovah’s Witnesses have known the exact year of Jesus return to be 1874, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994. Other groups have made similar predictions, and all have been wrong. None of the dates set were correct – nor should we expect them to have been, because in Mark’s Gospel Jesus tells us “about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” [2]
Nevertheless the antidote to false and deceptive teaching is not to ignore the subject but to teach the truth about it, so – very briefly – let's look at the orthodox teaching about the return of Jesus.
The teaching of the Church is that Jesus will come again. Because it is not possible for anyone to know the date of his coming beforehand, so we need to be prepared for it at any time. It might be today or sometime in the far distant future. In the New Testament both Jesus and St. Paul seem to suggest that Jesus’ return will come following a time of unprecedented trouble for the world and and a time of persecution for the Church. The return of Jesus will, in fact, be God’s ultimate intervention to rescue humanity from the mess it has got itself into. But the day of rescue will also be the day of judgement. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works, and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace.[3]
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What should we do? To be a Christian is to live today in the light of tomorrow, to recognise that the world as it is not the world as it will be. To be a Christian is to live in the here and now, a life that prepares us for the life to come.
Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
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