Matthew 24:37-44; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 “Advent” means coming, and Advent time celebrates the coming of Christ. Last Sunday I spoke about Jesus’ first coming. We looked at his family tree, we recognised some unexpected women there and we tried to open ourselves to the strange righteousness that was introduced to us with his first coming. A righteousness that included us, whoever and wherever we are, but that also included all other people, and especially those who are often left in the cold.

Talking of Jesus is a dangerous memory. One of my teachers is Eduard Schweizer. He has written many books and articles. He is recognised as one of the world’s most informed and most insightful New Testament scholars. One day over a cup of coffee we were speaking about his contribution to our understanding of the New Testament. I was quite surprised when he said: “You know, what I think is my most original contribution? It is my description of Jesus as ‘der Mann, der alle Schemen sprengt’ (Jesus, the man who bursts all our expectations; Jesus, the man who is different).” That is what we have to learn again and again. That God suspends our expectations and can tell something new.

Today we want to speak about the second coming of Christ. When the church celebrated advent, it has always spoken about two comings of Christ. The first coming and the second coming. The first coming is the one we celebrate at Christmas. For the second coming there is no symbolic day but the Bible speaks about it quite often and the Christian creed, which is recited in many churches around the world every week, summarises the biblical message:

“He – Jesus Christ – will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

What does that mean?

Pictures The first thing you have to do when you speak about the second coming of Christ is to appreciate picture language. In a sense, you speak about the unspeakable. No one has been there, on the other side of death. The end ha s not yet come.

And yet: any meaningful vision of life must say something about death and must speak about the end. Every philosophy, e.g. marxism and every religion has something to say about death and the end.

The early Christians, when they spoke about death and the end, they used picture language from their surrounding culture. And since many of the early Christians were Jews, they borrowed heavily from Jewish language about death and the end.

So when you hear about trumpets sounding and people meeting in the air and judgment and the coming of the Son of Man and a 1000 year reign, there is nothing specifically Christian about it. But they are beautiful pictures that convey to us that our Christian faith speaks to those things that are on our minds and hearts, in this case, death and the end of time.

But you have to appreciate pictures if you want to get at the meaning. Pictures are often more expressive than logical and abstract statement. Take the sayings: “I am riding on a pink cloud”, or “Nelson Mandela is a lion”, or “Mother Theresa is an angel”. Of course, strictly speaking, you were not riding on any cloud, Mandela is not a lion and Mother Theresa is not an angel. But we all know what is meant. Indeed the pictures are much better, much truer, much more expressive, than sayings, I had a hormone change, or Nelson Mandela is strong and noble, or that Mother Theresa helped the poor and needy.

What then do we Christians mean when we speak about the second coming of Christ?

Life in the presence of God

The first thing that we want to say is that our whole life is lived in the presence of God. We live between the first and the second coming of Christ. Christ is that sign of God which says that God is not bad but good, that God is not a slave master, but a liberator, that God does not want to condemn us, but to save us, that God does not want to imprison us, but to reconcile us.

In God we live and move and have our being. To God we are responsible. To worship God with our life is the human destiny that we are all invited to fulfil.

When one of the most famous German scientists and then philosophers, Carl Friedrich von Weizs ¤cker, who at the same time is a committed and confessing Christian, was a student, he struggled with the question whether he as a Christian could and should become a nuclear scientist. He went to see the theologian Karl Barth and asked him that question. Knowing the ambivalence of science, how it has created the means to do marvellous indeed miraculous good, and at the same time and with the same means can cause terrific evil: can and should a Christian become a scientist?

The theologian Karl Barth answered – I hope I got this somewhat right, since I have no means to verify this story – if as a Christian you love science and if you believe in the second coming of Christ, go and do it. I have thought about that advice and I think that it is quite profound.

To me it speaks about our life in the presence of God.

 · It speaks about the delicate challenge of what we use our reason and passion and discipline and commitment for. Do we honour life and show reverence for it? Do we use our reason to think what we see and hear and receive or do we use it to arrogate divinity to ourselves?

 · Don’t remove the mystery.

 · Responsibility for what we do.

That is the first point I want to make. Believing in the second coming means that we live our life in the presence of God, that we recognise God’s mystery in the world and that we are responsible to God for all that we think and do.

The victory of love

The second point that we need to make is that the second coming of Christ stands for the ultimate victory of love.

Love as love is unconditional. To love your friends is easy, Jesus and Paul said. We all can do that! To love your loved ones is even easier. We all do do that! The test case of love is whether it goes beyond friend and family. Whether it includes the “other”, the enemy. “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

That is the reason why there is such an emphasis in the New Testament on relating to God by faith. Not our achievements but God’s gracious reaching out for us in Christ is the basis for our relationship with God. God took the initiative. We responded.

In Thessalonika some Christians were wondering whether this unconditional love will last. Whether it will last to the end. What about the fate of our loved one’s who have died, they asked.

Is it true that “love never ends,” as the Apostle Paul says? Prophecies will come to an end; tongues will cease; knowledge will come to an end. Love will never come to an end. Can we rely on that?

Let me tell you a story the Bible says. It is the story of God’s unconditional love. God made covenant after covenant with the people of Israel to ever again show and renew his commitment. When the time thickened God sent Jesus as the light bearer of God’s love. When the world rejected Jesus, God raised Jesus from the dead.

And on that basis Christians can now celebrate the victory of love. At the end there is not nothing. At the end there is the saviour who is Christ the Lord, the incarnation of God’s unconditional love.

 · For the dead

 · For us who will all have to die.

 · For those who died too early.

The second coming of Christ brings love to its fullness and thereby establishes it finally and once for all.

The triumph of Justice

But what about them? What about the Hitlers and Stalins and Pol Pots and Bin Ladens of this world? Shall the oppressor ultimately triumph over his innocent victim? What about the murderer and the torturer and the warrior and the drug dealer and the rapist – and their victims? Shall the victims, those millions who are often the unsung heroes of humanity, while their perpetrators appear in our history books, shall the victims be victimised again by letting their perpetrators go free? What about the injustice that you and I have dealt out, and the injustice that you and I have experienced?

Trying to answer that question was actually the original intention of speaking about the “day of God”, the “day of Christ”, the “coming of the Son of Man” and the “last judgment”. The injustice of the “now” was to be set right “then”. If God is, and if God is just, then, ultimately, the victims will come to their right. God’s ways will be established. Ultimately the rapist will not triumph over his victim!

“He – Jesus Christ – will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

So we have to relate the second coming of Christ to judgment.

Judgment Judgment means the establishing of justice. How could we believe in a God who is just and who is faithful to himself, if injustice and cruelty will not be dealt with?

Judgment is the rejection of God’s love. It is the unwillingness to live our life in the presence of God. The apostle explains it to the Christians in Rome in this way: “God gave them up to …” their dishonourable passion, to their base mind, to their cold hearts, to their improper conduct, to their pride and to their lust (Rom 1:18-32). As humans created with freedom, however limited, we must accept the consequences of our decisions and actions.

God takes us seriously! We are free and responsible. We have to live with the consequences of our decisions and actions. Instead of worshipping God, we can worship idols. Instead of being faithful to our partner, we can be unfaithful. Instead of looking after our bodies, we can ruin it with drugs and alcohol and tobacco. Instead of caring for others, we can exploit them. Instead of showing respect for nature around us, we can spoil the water and the air and the forest.

And what are the results of such irresponsibility? Pride, marriage breakdowns, mistrust, alcoholism, drug addiction, sicknesses of many kinds, exploitation, war. This is the reality of our life and of our world. How much cruelty, how much blood, how much sickness, how much death is simply the result of our own doing, our irresponsible handling of life?

Is that God’s fault? Is God responsible if we misuse the freedom he has given to us?

What Paul says about his colleagues is true for all people:

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor 3:12-15)

The last judgment will cleanse! It will bring to light. It will show that what we have believed is true. No one will be forgotten. Everyone will be called by their name and recognised by their unique dignity.

Jesus Christ will be revealed as the Lord over the living and the dead: “For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living”(Rom 14:9). On the American Statue of Liberty, welcoming the strangers from Europe to the American continent, the following words are inscribed:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Christ will be revealed for who he is:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

That is the meaning of the second coming of Christ and of the last judgement. Ambiguity will be brought to light. Hidden motives will be revealed for what they are. Those who have allowed the Spirit of God to purify their hearts will see God!

The saviour as judge The judge, therefore, is none other than the saviour! The judge is none other than the shepherd who leaves the 99 who are safe and goes out to seek the one who has got lost in the stony desert of life. The coming of Christ and the last judgment is the climax and the fulfilment of Jesus’ mission of love.

The Bible encourages us to distinguish between persons and their works. Judgment means that the works will be made known before God and then will be purified just as a carefully planned fire can cleanse and rejuvenate the bush, and prepare for new growth. That is what Paul meant:

If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor 3:15)

And is not this our only hope? If our standing before God would depend on our works, where would we be? In moments of insight and humility I realise how great the gulf is between what I confess and what I practise. How mixed my motives are, even for the best of my deeds. There is much to be burned away before the beauty of God’s relationship to me can shine into eternity.

Let us join Christians around the world and through the ages, confessing with joy and gratitude:

“Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

Rev. Dr.Thorvald Lorenzen (reproduced with permission).