"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Mark 13:28-31

During recent weeks we have been using some religious statements that are found on bumper stickers. We are using those sayings as the occasion to agree, disagree, correct, add, subtract, to understand more deeply our faith. Today we tackle a

really big one. It says, "Warning! In Case Of Rapture This Car Will Be Unmanned." And immediately when I shared the words of this bumper sticker with my wife she said, "I know a correction: this car will be unwomanned or unpersonned."

I think it may be helpful to talk about something we do not talk a lot about in the church. There are some things you need to know. There is some language we use that we are not familiar with, for instance the word rapture. The word rapture refers to the belief associated with the second coming of Jesus. It is a belief that believers will be caught up into the clouds and transported directly to heaven. If you cannot quite understand what that is all about, all you have to do is watch Star Trek,when they say, "Beam me up, Scotty." That is a kind of rapture, a transporting up. Paul uses that language in 2 Thessalonians: "We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." Then there is the whole doctrine of the second coming in which the rapture is a part in at least some people's belief. It is the belief that Christ will physically return to earth at the end of the present age and set everything straight. Now let me share with you that as I was growing up I was not excited, enthused or enamored in any way about the idea of a second coming. It scared me to death. I literally had dreams and nightmares about it. I do not really believe my parents or anyone else in the world knew that it bothered me. I had dreams at night that the Lord returned and returned with a cosmic kind of fireworks display that scared me to death. So as a result as I was growing up, in my study in Sunday school and church and later in seminary, I put that whole thing on the back burner. I believe we cannot do that. I think we have to take a fresh look at this whole doctrine of the second coming.

I would like to do it by doing it in three main chunks. I really have to simplify but at least trust me that when I simplify that I do know it is a little more complex than this. I will paint the big picture. Let us look first at what the New Testament has to say on this matter of the second coming. You cannot read the gospels, the letters of Paul, some other epistles, the Book of Revelation

without realizing that the overwhelming message of the New Testament is that of the imminent return of Jesus and the imminent embarking of God's reign on earth. Now not all of that written by the different writers agree in all the details and with their descriptions. But the overwhelming message is that Jesus will return and God's kingdom will be restored within the lifetime of those who lived with, saw, and heard Jesus.

The other thing you notice when you read these stories about the second coming is that the language describes this event in very poetic, enigmatic, and sometimes troubling imagery called apocalyptic. It was in existence before Jesus was here on earth; he used some of that language to talk about himself. It is a language that is troubling, it is not easy to understand, and sometimes it is even difficult to accept.

One other important thing that we should note is that obviously the imminent return of Jesus did not take place in the lifetime of the early believers. Therefore the church was left with a problem of how to respond to the reality of something that Jesus said was going to take place, something that Paul said was going to take place and something that the writer of Revelation of John said was going to take place, but did not take place in the lifetime of Paul and John. It is interesting that there has been a whole variety of responses down through the ages in dealing with this failure of the imminent return of Jesus. One response was that God's kingdom was equated with the church. Therefore the people believed that as the church gained in control and influence, God's kingdom thus made inroads in the world. That is the way that God would bring about his kingdom. Sometimes the church forgot or completely ignored the teaching of the second coming. Since the teaching was mistaken in the sense that it did not happen exactly as predicted, therefore one could say that you could put it aside and just ignore it. The other response was that from time to time there would be groups of believers that would rediscover the doctrine of the second coming in the New Testament. They would lift up that message and emphasize it. These were called Millenial Groups. They knew that there was something that was missing in the interpretation of the Christian faith and they tried to bring that truth to the fore. They reinterpreted the second coming to speak to their situation.

It is interesting that the conditions about which Jesus speaks in the book of Mark could have been understood as applying to the various situations down through the ages in which believers found themselves. Wars and rumors of wars and all the other things that happened have been conditions that believers in any age could look at and say that the time is right for Jesus to return. Another response of some people was a more secular outlook that developed over the years that as human beings made progress, that progress was equated with the spread of God's kingdom. That view was particularly prevalent at the end of last century andbeginning of this century. Then we saw that so-called kingdom human progress is not always steadily in the right direction. It is hard to make a case that we are steadily progressing toward God's kingdom. In some cases there was another response that is woven through all the responses and that is the belief that Jesus had already returned in the life of the Spirit. If you read the Gospel of John, you find that this is a belief that in some sense God's return in Jesus might be understood to be through the Spirit.

Now after we said all of this about what is in the New Testament and examined some responses to the message of the second coming down through the age, the real question is: Where are we now? We cannot ignore or mute the teaching about the second coming. It is too much a part of the New Testament. It is too much a part of our historic creeds. It is too much a part of our liturgy to cross it out and just go with what remains. So the question this morning is: What does the message of the second coming have to do with us today? Let me share with you a few of the main themes.

The doctrine of the second coming teaches that God will bring to completion in Christ what God has begun in Christ. I think all of us realize that even with all that God accomplished in Christ there is still unfinished business in our world. And God has been working through the Spirit with us to bring that work to consummation. The doctrine of the second coming says there is a goal out there, there is a point at which God will bring it all to fruition. Now God is the initiating agent of human redemption. God initiates. Humans respond. This being clearly understood, and this has to be clearly understood, I point out that our Christian faith teaches that humans have an important part to play in the whole matter of God's purpose for creation. God shares responsibility for his creation with human beings. All the talk about the second coming should never take away our responsibility in the here and the now for caring for all of creation and sharing God's message, the message of redemption.

Further, we do not need to know the details or believe in acertain version of the second coming. I think this is where we have gotten hung up in the past. The version that I got as a child, that scared me to death, is not really what the second coming is all about. The second coming is something to anticipate, not something to fear. You see what I was afraid of was the version that the Jesus of the second coming was absolutely, utterly different from the Jesus of the first coming. When I understood how God works, then I knew that what God will do in Jesus in the second coming will correspond to how he has acted in Jesus in the first coming. We do not need to know the time or the manner God will bring history to completion. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, "Even the Son is not let in on that part of God's plan."

Our responsibility is to be faithful now. To be faithful and to live in the hope that our efforts to follow Christ and his way of life are not in vain. That is what the doctrine of the second coming is all about. If we live according to the way that God has shown us in Jesus Christ, those efforts will not be wasted. The good that we do will be caught up in that consummation and will contribute to that consummation. It makes all the difference to know whether we are going about doing good or we are just going about.

God has a purpose and we are to be faithful to that purpose now no matter if there is a second coming within our lifetime, within the next generation or 2,000 years from now. We are to live in expectation that God's way revealed to us in Christ will ultimately triumph. We can contribute to that by our faithfulness.

So I would say to you this morning that the teaching of the second coming should neither be ignored or be blown out of proportion with exotic language that is not consistent with the Christian gospel. We as Christians should all hope and work for the day when God will fully bring about the way of life in the world that God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.