I remember when I was in Eighth Grade in Mrs. Starner's Geometry Class. One afternoon someone had predicted that Christ would return at noon and the world would be destroyed. A few Sunday's before this our youth leader showed a movie "A Thief in the Night" four our evening youth fellowship. We were all afraid. One of my friends said this would be the day we'd discover if the Bible was true or not.
Well it was noon on that special day that we were sitting in Geometry Class. The old Simpson Street School in Mechanicsburg, PA had an interesting central clock system. If you listened closely you could hear a loud click as each clock in the school in sync would switch from one minute to the next. At 11:59 AM we all started staring at the clock waiting for the loud click. The room became silent.
Similarly at noon the Mechanicsburg Fire Companies would test their fire sirens. One was outside in the school's playground.
My heart pounded with anticipation for that moment. We heard the click of the clock turn to Noon. Then there was a moment of silence -- the fire sirens sounded and our hearts raced even faster. After a minute the sirens stopped. Class continued and 20 minutes later the class bell rang and we all went off to lunch and the rest of our day. That was the first time I remember being affected by an end of the world scare.
Christians often in difficult times look for the return of Christ to take us out of the mess of this world. But as I grew older and studies scripture more closely I discovered that most of the popular "prophetic" stories about the end of the world had little basis in scripture. St. Paul looked for the coming of Christ in his own age. Indeed the prayer of the early church was the Christ would come quickly.
I've often wondered if in our rush through life we miss seeing Christ's return among us. St. Paul taught us that the Church is the body of Christ. Each of us using our spiritual gifts to minister and care for hurting world, each of us using our talents to share reconciliation and grace makes Christ present in the world. Maybe what we missed was that Christ HAS ALREADY returned. Christ is presence in the work of the Church.
As we care for the poor, give comfort to the hurting, help those alienated from God find grace and share God's love we show the face of Christ to others. Our eyes should be Jesus' eyes seeing the needs of the world. Our ears should be Jesus' ears hearing the cries of the oppressed. Our hands should be Jesus' hands offering healing and wholeness. Our feet should be Jesus' feet carrying us to places of need. Our voice should be Jesus voice offering God's amazing grace and infinite love. Perhaps rather perusing scripture trying to predict a date for Jesus' return, we should get about the business of being Christ for others. If we put the effort into trying to predict Christ's return into making Christ present in our life, community and world -- we might just be instruments of making God's commonwealth a felt reality.
The truth of scripture is that just saying you understand the right doctrines so your name can be on the right list so that you can avoid hell is an empty and meaningless faith. Our faith is not best .lived not by talking about empty doctrines but living out Christ's love.
No comments:
Post a Comment