Maranatha!
Last Sunday evening, we had quite a...spirited...discussion about the return of Christ and all the sorts of things that brings up...life after death, where you go when you die, etc. It was...interesting to say the least! But it stirred up in me some things I've been thinking about since the ill-fated Mayan prophecy last December.
The "end of the world" predictions last year, while laughable, did cause me to reflect on how my attitudes have changed over the years regarding Jesus' return. I remember as a kid watching the "Christian scary" movies that circulated to many churches and seeing people literally having "the hell scared out of them"—rushing to the altar to make sure they were right with God before Jesus returned. I remember spending time afraid of Jesus' return, wondering if I'd be "good enough" to go with him.
As I grew older and I understood more about grace, I didn't worry about that so much as I worried that Jesus would come back before I had experienced much of life. There were things I wanted to do. I wanted to finish college. I wanted to get married. I wanted to be a father. And the preachers of doom (especially in the 1980's) were trying to rob me of all that!
It took a while to make peace with all of that, which leads me to the latest prediction, the Mayan apocalypse that didn't come to be last year. As we approached that date (not with fear and trembling), I came to realize that I am more ready than ever before in my life for Jesus to come back. As a pastor, I see such brokenness and pain all around me. Some days that's all you get to see, all you can focus on. Some days it's hard to find glimpses of grace. And that's when there's something in me that rises up and cries out, "Maranatha!" Come, Lord Jesus! I can begin to understand the deep longing that underlies the end of the book of Revelation. In the midst of pain, despair, brokenness and hurt—maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
We talked Sunday night about how that longing seems to increase the older we get. Not because we just want to go to heaven, but because that longing to see Jesus and be with him seems to increase the longer we walk with him. And the longer we live, the more brokenness we see. Perhaps that's why it was, as an old man, exiled for his faith, John wrote those words: "Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!" Heal the brokenness. Make things new. Re-create this world the way it was meant to be.
May that be our prayer as well. In the midst of this broken world...
Maranatha!
The "end of the world" predictions last year, while laughable, did cause me to reflect on how my attitudes have changed over the years regarding Jesus' return. I remember as a kid watching the "Christian scary" movies that circulated to many churches and seeing people literally having "the hell scared out of them"—rushing to the altar to make sure they were right with God before Jesus returned. I remember spending time afraid of Jesus' return, wondering if I'd be "good enough" to go with him.
As I grew older and I understood more about grace, I didn't worry about that so much as I worried that Jesus would come back before I had experienced much of life. There were things I wanted to do. I wanted to finish college. I wanted to get married. I wanted to be a father. And the preachers of doom (especially in the 1980's) were trying to rob me of all that!
It took a while to make peace with all of that, which leads me to the latest prediction, the Mayan apocalypse that didn't come to be last year. As we approached that date (not with fear and trembling), I came to realize that I am more ready than ever before in my life for Jesus to come back. As a pastor, I see such brokenness and pain all around me. Some days that's all you get to see, all you can focus on. Some days it's hard to find glimpses of grace. And that's when there's something in me that rises up and cries out, "Maranatha!" Come, Lord Jesus! I can begin to understand the deep longing that underlies the end of the book of Revelation. In the midst of pain, despair, brokenness and hurt—maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
We talked Sunday night about how that longing seems to increase the older we get. Not because we just want to go to heaven, but because that longing to see Jesus and be with him seems to increase the longer we walk with him. And the longer we live, the more brokenness we see. Perhaps that's why it was, as an old man, exiled for his faith, John wrote those words: "Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!" Heal the brokenness. Make things new. Re-create this world the way it was meant to be.
May that be our prayer as well. In the midst of this broken world...
Maranatha!
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