Return of Christ

In a recent segment on NPR’s Morning Edition, Rev. Cameron Partridge shared about an idea he developed during his years as a college chaplain. "You know, you've got the end of the semester. You've got finals. Preparation to leave for home. So, Advent barely got to be observed."

Traditionally, the season of Advent is observed in the Christian liturgical calendar during the four weeks preceding Christmas. But Partridge decided to start it a few weeks sooner, in order to draw attention to the necessary, urgent themes of the season. He says the shift gave students "an opportunity to actually really be present together and to observe it together, which could be grounding in a time of great intensity."

And this seems of upmost importance these days, especially given the current extended conflict in the Holy Land. "We can't pretend that everything is fine," he says. "There is tumult in the world, and it is real and it is hard and it is deeply affecting people."

The current move to begin marking the season earlier began in 2005, when the Rev. William Petersen got together a group of clergy, professors, and church musicians who formed something that came to be called the Advent Project.

Petersen believes that Advent for Christians is as much about hope for the Second Coming of Jesus—sometimes called the Second Advent—that will usher in the reign of God as much as it is about commemorating the first coming of God in the person of Jesus in first-century Palestine.

Petersen says that tension is where we all reside, which is why Advent is what we need. "In its dwelling in the already and the not-yet, Advent can ground and strengthen us in all of that uncertainty and help give us an ability to connect."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The good news is not just that God came to the earth as a baby, but that by doing so, he signaled hope for his Second Advent in which the heartache, injustice, and death of our fallen world will be overcome by goodness, truth, and life.

Nearly four-in-ten Americans say we're “living in the end times,” says a poll taken against a stark backdrop of climate change, the pandemic, nuclear brinkmanship, and doomsday cults.

A Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,000 adults, conducted in April of 2022, found that 39 percent called these the “end times,” while 58 percent were assured that humanity was not careening towards catastrophe.

Researchers linked the high number of doomsayers to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed 6.65 million lives globally, and fears about living on a warming planet with fiercer hurricanes and wildfires. They could also add the threat of a war using nuclear weapons and greater political division and unrest.

Researchers added: “Periods of catastrophe and anxiety, such as the coronavirus pandemic, have historically led some people to anticipate that the destruction of the world as we know it — the 'end times' — is near.” Those fears relate to present-day realities as well as looking back to “sacred scripture” and the expectation among Christians that “Jesus will return to Earth after or amid a time of great turmoil.”

While nearly half of Christians say Judgement Day is closing in, there are big differences within the faith—63 percent of evangelicals call these the end times, but only 27 percent of Catholics agree.

There's also a political tilt—45 percent of Republicans see doomsday coming, against just 33 percent of Democrats. College graduates were more skeptical of the looming apocalypse than were those with only high school certificates.

On August 27, 1883, the Earth let out a noise louder than any it has made since. It was 10:02 a.m. when the sound emerged from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was heard 2,000 miles away in Western Australia and even 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean Island of Rodrigues. In all, it was heard in over 50 different geographical locations.

Think just how crazy this is. It’s like being in Boston and clearly hearing a noise coming from Dublin, Ireland. Travelling at the speed of sound it takes a noise about four hours to cover that distance. This is the most distant sound that has ever been heard in recorded history.

So, what could possibly create such an earth-shatteringly loud bang? A volcano on Krakatoa had just erupted with a force that tore the island apart, emitting a plume of smoke that reached 17 miles high. This explosion created a deadly tsunami with waves over a hundred feet in height. One hundred sixty-five coastal villages were entirely destroyed. In all, it is estimated the death toll was between 36,000 and 120,000 people.

The British ship Norham Castle was 40 miles from Krakatoa at the time of the explosion. The ship’s captain wrote in his log, “So violent are the explosions that the eardrums of over half my crew have been shattered. My last thoughts are with my dear wife. I am convinced that the Day of Judgement has come.”

A barometer at the Batavia gasworks (100 miles away from Krakatoa) registered 172 decibels of sound pressure, an unimaginably loud noise. A jackhammer emits about 100 decibels while standing near a jet engine the level is 150 decibels. The human threshold for pain is near 130 decibels. The Krakatoa explosion registered 172 decibels at 100 miles from the source.

Amazingly, for as many as five days after the explosion, weather stations around the globe observed this unprecedented spike in pressure recurring approximately every 34 hours. That is roughly how long it takes sound to travel around the entire planet. In all, the pressure waves from Krakatoa circled the globe three to four times in each direction.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When the Lord returns, the trumpet sound will be heard around the world. Everyone who has ever lived, both alive and dead, will hear and respond to the sound.

Rabbis in Israel have spent many years searching for a qualified red heifer. Finally in September of 2022, a Texas man has delivered five red heifers to four Israeli rabbis so the young cows can be slaughtered and burned to produce the ash necessary for a ritual purification prescribed in Numbers 19:2–3.

Some Jews believe the ritual is a step toward the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Some Christians believe that “third temple” will set the stage for the Antichrist.

Editor’s Note: The red heifers must be monitored for defects by the rabbis until they are three-years-old. At that time, if unblemished, they would be suitable for use as sacrifices in the red heifer ritual. The Mishnah, which is a written embodiment of Jewish oral tradition, teaches that only nine red heifers were sacrificed from the time of Tabernacle worship until the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that it had confirmed two new mind-blowing lightning “megaflash” records. These findings came after careful data-checking and rigorous certification processes.

On April 29, 2020, a sprawling mass of strong to severe thunderstorms produced a 477.2-mile-long lightning strike over the southern United States. It stretched from near Houston to southeast Mississippi. The record beats out a 440-mile-long megaflash that occurred over southern Brazil on Halloween of 2018.

Megaflashes dwarf ordinary lightning strikes. As Earth dwellers, we’re accustomed to seeing what’s going on near the ground, including conventional cloud to ground lightning bolts. Hundreds or thousands such strikes might accompany a run-of-the-mill thunderstorm on a summer’s afternoon.

Megaflashes are different. They’re enormous. They snake through regions of high electric field and can travel for hundreds of miles while lasting more than 10 seconds. Since most storm clouds are fewer than 10 miles high, lightning can’t grow terribly long in the vertical direction. But megaflashes have plenty of space to sprawl in the horizontal.

All megaflashes accompany clusters of thunderstorms that often rage overnight and can occupy an area the size of several states, last for hours, and stretch hundreds of miles or more end-to-end. They’re a staple of the spring and early summer across the southern and central United States, and are also common in South America.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This, and other, record-breaking lightning flashes will shrink into insignificance compared to the most significant lightning display seen by the whole world. It will happen on the Day of Judgment prophesied in Scripture. “For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Matt. 24:27, Luke 17:24).

Many Jerusalem residents believe not only that the Messiah will return, but that his arrival is imminent--so imminent they have taken legal precautions to ensure they can return to Jerusalem immediately upon his return.

In apartment contracts around the city, there are clauses stipulating what will happen to the apartment if or when the Jewish Messiah comes. Using something called a “Messiah Clause,” the contracts stipulate that, in the event of the coming of the Moshiach, or Jewish redeemer, the lease “may be immediately terminated at the will of the landlord.” The owners, generally religious Jews living abroad, are concerned that he will arrive, build a third temple, and turn Israel into paradise--and they will be stuck waiting for their apartment tenants' contracts to run out before they can move back.

It is prophesied in the Jewish scriptures that there will be no more war, murder, or theft, the Jerusalem Temple will be rebuilt, and all the Jews will return to the land of Israel upon his arrival.

There is no count of how many leases in Jerusalem contain such a clause. But although not standard, the Messiah clause is requested enough that every Jerusalem property manager and real estate lawyer contacted by reporters had heard of it, and all except one had dealt with it firsthand.

The fact is, with only biblical prophecy and the conjecture of religious leaders upon which to rely for sketches of the next world, the level of zeal surrounding the associated legal and spiritual preparations is astonishing. Perhaps it’s all a safety net, just in case the scriptural forecast ends up being correct, but what a statement of faith, nonetheless.

The opinion among the property managers and real estate lawyers was unanimous that their clients would know the Messiah when they saw him. Sarah Eiferman, a real estate agent said, “When he comes, we’ll know. It’s in the Old Testament.”

In 2004, the shoreline of Sri Lanka, was devastated by a horrifying and massive tsunami. The destruction caused in just a few minutes was unimaginable, with close to 40,000 lives lost and thousands of homes wiped out. It took months to recover from the devastation.

As the rebuilding process began, one of the strange discoveries found out was that prior to the tsunami, animals in the wildlife reserves close to the sea, instinctively seemed to sense the danger that was approaching. As a result, they moved to higher ground or further inland and escaped the effects of the killer waves. After the tsunami, the people also are now wiser as to what they should do, if a similar disaster threatens to strike again.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sadly, when it involves God's timing in the affairs of the world, most people seem to find it difficult to understand what’s happening! With all that is taking place around us today, it is time to look up, for “our redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).

In the 1880s, if you wanted a good life with a good job, you moved to Johnstown, PA. The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal came through town, so that brought jobs. So did the Pennsylvania Railroad. And the Cambria Iron Works. Families were moving in from Wales. From Germany. Not to mention there are beautiful mountains, covered with forest, all around town. And right through the town runs the Conemaugh River.

In fact, the area is so beautiful, the country’s richest people—Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon—would come out from Pittsburgh to hunt and fish at a private club up above town, where an old earth dam had been modified to make a fishing lake for them.

On May 30, 1889, a huge rainstorm came through and dropped six to 10 inches of rain. Despite that weather, the next day the town lined up along Main Street for the Memorial Day parade. The Methodist pastor, H. L. Chapman, said, “The morning was delightful, the city was in its gayest mood, with flags, banners and flowers everywhere ... The streets were more crowded than we had ever seen before.”

And then the old dam miles above town collapsed, releasing almost four billion gallons of water. When that wall of water and debris hit Johnstown 57 minutes later, it was 60 feet high and traveling at 40 miles an hour. People tried to escape by running toward high ground. But over 2,000 of the 30,000 people in town died. Some bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati, and some were not discovered until 20 years later.

The Johnstown Flood remains one of the greatest tragedies in American history, behind only the Galveston Hurricane and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And in every one of those cases, life was fine. Until it wasn’t. In a moment, in a way that was unexpected and most people were not prepared for, something cataclysmic occurred, and people were swept away.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus tells us when the end comes it will be like this: “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes (Matt. 24:37-39).

On a balmy January Saturday morning, an alert warning of nuclear doom was erroneously sent to millions of people across the state of Hawaii.

"BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." Those were the words that flashed on cell phones and televisions screens across the state, the result of a gaffe by an employee of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency who selected the wrong option in a text-based dropdown menu.

Though the agency eventually issued a correction, residents and tourists, as well as Hawaiian natives tracking the impending disaster on the mainland, in real-time on social media, criticized the government for taking 38 minutes to issue the retraction.

"If it was a mistake and someone pushed a button they shouldn't have pushed, then why the 38 minute delay?" asked Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, in an interview with Fox News. "The next question is, why don't we have a better fail-safe?"

The employee who made the mistake has expressed profound regret for the mistake, but the blunder has since been overshadowed by the obvious, ominous hypothetical: what if the threat had been real?

In July of 2017, news reports confirmed Hawaii as the first U.S. state with an attack-warning system designed to detect nuclear threats. This latest development seems to have shaken the public's trust in its effectiveness.

Potential Preaching Angles: The end can come at any time; will you be ready? What would you do if you had just a few moments left? In times of calamity, to whom can we run?

While waiting in a Nazi prison cell in 1943 a few weeks before Advent, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a friend, "A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent."

Shortly after penning those words, the Nazis executed Bonhoeffer. But he was right: the door of freedom for him and for us today is still opened from the outside by the coming and second coming of Jesus Christ.

When America went to war after Pearl Harbor, many couples married rapidly as men were drafted into the armed services. In a typical scenario, a young woman at the time, became engaged to her beau who subsequently shipped out with the Navy before they could have a wedding. They weren't able to marry until they had enough leave to come home. She and her mother planned the wedding down to the last detail. They even printed the wedding invitations, but the left the date off. They didn't know when the bridegroom would be able to make it, so they waited at the ready. Finally, after eighteen long months, a telegram came that said, "You should get the white dress you've been wanting." The groom was on his way. They wrote by hand and send off the invitations.

We know who our bridegroom is; we just don't know when he's going to appear.

In Fleming Rutledge's new book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, she acknowledges the difficulty that modern people have with the concept of God's wrath. Nevertheless, she writes, "there can be no turning away from this prominent biblical theme." But forget the Bible for a moment: don't we have wrath, too? Rutledge writes:

A slogan of our times is "Where's the outrage?" It has been applied to everything from Big Pharma's market manipulation to CEOs' astronomical wealth to police officers' stonewalling. "Where the outrage?" inquire many commentators, wondering why congressmen, officials, and ordinary voters seem so indifferent. Why has the gap between rich and poor become so huge? Why are so many mentally ill people slipping through the cracks? Why does gun violence continue to be a hallmark of American culture? Why are there so many innocent people on death row? Why are our prisons filled with such a preponderance of black and Hispanic men? Where's the outrage? The public is outraged all over cyberspace about all kinds of things that annoy us personally—the NIMBY (not in my back yard) syndrome—but outrages in the heart of God go unnoticed and unaddressed.

If we are resistant to the idea of the wrath of God, we might pause to reflect the next time we are outraged about something—about our property values being threatened, or our children's educational opportunities being limited, or our tax breaks being eliminated. All of us are capable of anger about something. God's anger, however, is pure. It does not have the maintenance of privilege as its object, but goes out on behalf of those who have no privileges. the wrath of God is not an emotion that flares up from time to time, as though God had temper tantrums; it is a way of describing his absolute enmity against all wrong and his come to set matters right.

Somewhere in Eastern Europe, an SS officer watched languidly, his machine gun cradled, as an elderly and bearded Hasidic Jew laboriously dug what he knew to be his grave. Standing up straight, he addressed his executioner. "God is watching what you are doing," he said. And then he was shot dead.

What Hitler did not believe, and what Stalin did not believe, and what Mao did not believe, and what the SS did not believe, and what the Gestapo did not believe, and what the NKVD did not believe, and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Blackshirts, Gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe, was that God was watching what they were doing.

And as far as we can tell, very few of those carrying out the horrors of the twentieth century worried overmuch that God was watching what they were doing either.

Long after the sun had set on the Boston Marathon, the official clock turned off, and the crowds had all but gone home, 39 year old Venezuelan, Maickel Melamed crossed the finish line around 4 A.M., 20 hours after the race began. What made Maickel's race significant is that he suffers from a disease similar to muscular dystrophy, which meant he didn't so much run the race as walk it. As he reflected on his accomplishment, Maickel stated, "In any marathon, you have to know why you're doing it. Because in the last mile, the marathon will ask you." Part of Maickel's motivation came from wanting to honor Boston Children's Hospital where he was treated as a child.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Endurance; Perseverance; Overcoming—The New Testament compares the Christian life to a race, perhaps much like a marathon. In those times of struggle, we need to know why (or more accurately, for whom) we are in this. Christ is the one we look to; the one we run to; the one we run for. (2) Second Coming; Christ, Return of—Christ's return also gives us hope on the race of life.

Two stories were written in the twentieth century that share the same title: The Door in the Wall.

One of them won the Newbery Medal for children's literature. The ten-year-old son of a medieval knight become ill and crippled. He is separated from his parents by a cruel enemy army and cared for by a friar named Brother Luke. He is ashamed and disappointed by his legs—others call him "Robin Crookedshanks." He feels that his life will always be insignificant with him unable to serve and having no chance to show courage or do glorious deeds. But the friar takes him to his monastery, teaches him to read and swim and carve, and teaches him to pray for the faith that a fine and beautiful life still lies before him, "Always remember," the friar says, "thou hast only to follow the wall far enough, and there will be a door in it."

At the end of the story, it is his disability that leads to his opportunity. His crooked legs cause the enemy to under-estimate him. The resilient spirit he has grown in response to his challenges keeps him going. He alone finds the door in their fortress wall. He ends up against all odds being the rescuer who can steal unsuspected through enemy lines and save the people he loves. It is his faith in the old friar's words that keeps him going.

The other story was written by H. G. Wells, best known for his science fiction works like The War of the Worlds. In Wells' story the promise of the door in the wall is a cruel hoax. A man is haunted all his life by the memory of a door that leads to an enchanted garden that contains all he ever longed for. He searches in vain for that door his whole life. At the end of the story his dead body is found—fallen off a construction site behind a wall marked by a door that looks exactly like the one he has been seeking.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Hope—in this life—When you're going through difficult times, do you know that God has a door of hope waiting to open for you? (2) Hope—in the life to come; Eschatology—Those who hope in Christ know that there is an open door at the end of history and the end of their lives.

It's possible to be so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good. But Professor Todd Whitmore from Notre Dame has also observed how being heavenly-minded can lead to incredible deeds of earthly goodness. After the war in Uganda had dragged on for over 20 years, Whitmore moved into the refugee camps in northern Uganda to hear the stories of the displaced Acholi people. As he observed the Christians who were working among the Acholi, he saw what he called "what real Christianity looks like." Whitmore discovered that the most practical and helpful workers among the Acholi were also the most heavenly-minded. He called them "reasonable apocalyptists," which means that these Christian workers thought a lot about God's intervention at the end of history.

These heavenly-minded Christians believed that no human effort could be relied upon to help the Acholi; it had to come from God. As one of the Christian workers in the camps said, "God is tired [of this war and suffering], and he will intervene." Because they believed that God would intervene, they also believed that it's worthwhile to work for good. In the United States, people who talk about God's future intervention are often accused of being escapists, impractical, or even mentally unstable. But in the refugee camps of northern Uganda they were the most rational people. Whitmore discovered that they were the ones who kept saying things like, "We want to make a difference here and now. We want to help with the orphans."