Who doesn’t like a good countdown? Especially if it is counting down to something nice and special. For example, some people will count down the number of days until a birthday: for themselves or someone else. Maybe they are counting down the days until someone is coming to visit. Maybe people enjoy counting down to vacation. Maybe it is a countdown to retirement or a graduation. Right now many people are probably counting down the days to Christmas. It is easy to count down the days when there is a set date or time for what we are looking forward to. It makes it a little bit easier to be patient.

But what if you don’t know the time or the day that something will happen? It makes it more difficult to be patient, and it certainly would seem to make it more difficult to plan. This is especially so when we are thinking about the hour and day when Jesus Christ will come again. It is certainly something that we should be looking forward to, even as it holds within it, terror for those who do not and did not believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. But unlike Christmas, anniversaries, vacations, or a birthday, we do not know the date when He is coming back. “No one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only”. This can be a problem for us, like in the lesson for last Sunday with the 10 virgins, because we may be tempted to lose vigilance and preparedness for lack of focus. Or we may be tempted to abuse the time, and waste it. In the verses following the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus spoke of how serious a matter that is. How vigilance and faithfulness will be vindicated and rewarded, but impatience and the temptation to unbelief and abuse will be punished. He said:
“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Impatience is indeed a temptation for us all. Impatience can lead to doubt, doubt to unbelief, and with it, the temptation to fall back into the works of darkness from which we have been called in Jesus Christ. For indeed the darkness is what the world continues to stumble around in, and it is sin and ignorance and the indulgence of the flesh that our old nature wants to go back to and cling to, such is the curse of original sin.

Therefore, Paul said to the Romans only a few years after Christ’s ascension to “hang in there”, to “be vigilant”, to “walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

Though we do not know the hour or day when Jesus Christ, the Son of Man will return in all His power and glory, Jesus left us clues. One is quite obvious. What is that? Well, it is the elementary reality that every day in our reckoning brings us that much closer to the day of Christ’s full return. Simple enough. Yesterday was further away from the end that tomorrow is. We can certainly comprehend that.

Another clue is that the world will, of course, continue be doing its own thing as Jesus indicated: For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark”. Another clue is found here and elsewhere where Jesus compares the time of His coming to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Because both with Sodom and in the days of Noah, the time and people were described as wicked and their sins as very grave. This clues us in to the fact that wickedness and lawlessness will likely increase upon the earth before Christ returns. It will undoubtedly seem that society will be getting worse and the numbers of believers may appear to be growing smaller, but only God knows and He will remember and sustain the Church regardless of how many or few remain faithful, in the same way that He sustains us today by His Word and Sacraments.

But as we wait, another temptation presents itself, and that is to take the clues and descriptions of the last days and Christ’s return and try to make predictions as to how and when it is going to happen despite Jesus saying “Nobody knows except the Father.” This is a major problem for some of our Christian brothers and sisters, and I think it is part of that temptation to impatience and wanting to feel more settled and focused as to our preparation. Therefore, there are those church bodies and leaders who have tried to construct scenarios and descriptions which sadly become actual dogmas and official teachings but go far beyond what Scripture says and ends up actually contradicting what Scripture says. One such doctrine is “Dispensationalism” and another closely tied to it is “millennialism”, and another concerning “the Rapture”. Without going into great detail about them, for to do so would take quite a bit of time and looking up various Scriptures to see where they get their ideas and then one by one deconstruct their wrong premises, I will simply say that they are wrong. In Brief, Dispensationalism is the idea that God works through various historic dispensations or time periods of specific national reigns. The dispensationalists take passages from Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation and try to make an exact counting as to how many dispensations there are and which country or empire is being spoken about in the prophecies. Many of them also hold onto the idea that at the end of the final dispensation, there will be a rapture. What they mean by this generally is that before a specific time of “tribulation” God will have believers taken up in a sudden and unannounced moment and removed from earth for a specific time of several years. The only people “left behind” will be unbelievers during which time who may be allowed a final chance to convert where things will be very wicked and then Christ will return with all His raptured people, not for a final judging but to reign here on earth for a thousand years and then He will judge from the literal Jerusalem. There are variations on this but they are all aberrations from what Scripture is indicating.

One of their chief passages that they try to use for justifying this “secret rapture” is here in our Gospel text. They take this passage: “Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.” And say that this describes and therefore prescribes “the rapture”. However, if you are faithful in interpreting Scripture and letting Scripture interpret itself, you would look first at the context of these verses, and then look at what the rest of Scripture has to say about it. What preceded these verses refers to the fact that Christ’s return will be sudden and that as He returns, the world will not understand what is happening in its suddenness, much like the people in the days of Noah “they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” And then the verses regarding the field and mill workers follows immediately to emphasize the suddenness of His coming. Furthermore this text emphasizes the fact that nobody knows when He will return. People will be going about their day, and it will happen. And when it happens, it will not be a secret, there will be a worldwide announcement by a shout of command, by the blast of trumpets, when the dead will rise first and then those faithful who remain will join them in the sky with Jesus Christ who has returned to announce not an earthly reign for a thousand years, but a judgement where the unfaithful unbelievers will be cast into the place of eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth, but the believers will be brought into an eternal never ending kingdom of a new heaven and new earth to live forever with their Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ, with all the heavenly host.

Dear Friends, we do not know when Jesus shall come again, but we do know that it is drawing closer, and when He comes it will be glorious and it will be joyous: far better than any birthday, anniversary, vacation or Christmas celebration that we have ever known. Let us then not dwell upon it as though we are counting down days, nor that we make predictions that only serve to discourage people when they are incorrect. Instead let us endeavor instead “to put on the armor of light” as we work in the daylight of Jesus Christ. Let us be prepared by being faithful in our earthly vocations making good use of the time, having children, teaching our children, showing love to our neighbor, being lights in the darkness of the world, and coming here where Jesus continues to Advent to us. He comes to us as we confess our sins, as He renews us in the forgiveness accomplished for us by His death and resurrection and received through faith as He speaks to us in His proclaimed Word in baptism, absolution, and faithful preaching. Then He encourages us by giving us a preview of the eternal joyous banquet feast of victory here at the Sacrament of the Altar where He feeds us His crucified and raised body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. Here the Holy Spirit enlightens us to live in Him and be prepared until we live more fully with Him at the last.
Therefore,
“O house of Jacob,
    come, let us walk
    in the light of the Lord,” in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas