Video for November 27th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video. I’m braving the winter chill today.
This coming Sunday is Advent Sunday, the first day of the Church year. It’s a season where we traditionally focus, not just on Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, but on his second coming foretold by Jesus in his ministry and outlined in glorious, technicolour symbolism in the book of Daniel and Revelation. Jesus, speaking from within the human limitations he took upon himself when he came among us, said that he had no idea when it was going to happen. That hasn’t stopped speculation from the earliest days of the Christian movement as to what was going to happen and when. Some religious cults have been very active in this space. The Jehovah’s witnesses predicted the end of the world in 1874 (which they thought was an invisible return), a rapture in 1910, and the end of the world in 1918, 1920, 25, 41, 75 and 94. In 1995 they declared it had been delayed! The timing of Christ’s return has similarly obsessed parts of the Christian Church. As far back as 400 AD Hippolytus said there were at least 200 years to go. You may remember at the turn of the millennium a number of valiant souls bought one-way tickets to Jerusalem, convinced that Jesus would be coming back to the Temple mount at the turn of midnight. Unfortunately, with the transition from the Roman to Gregorian calendar they were either four years too early or late. I can never remember which.
Jesus’ remarks that you will hear of wars and rumours of wars have been applied to every century sadly, because that is a mark of the human condition. Books like ‘Approaching Hoofbeats’ have sought to show that recent decades are particularly bad, although not plausibly. But not only has timing been a source of speculation but wilder misinterpretations of symbolic language in the book of Daniel and Revelation. Christians always get themselves in a pickle when they make symbols and metaphor concrete. Most reputable scholars do not interpret the Bible to be talking about a rapture when the saved are whisked up into the sky to avoid a forthcoming apocalypse, nor think that 666, the number of the beast is a marker allowing access to some universal financial system from which Christians will be excluded. Neither does the symbolic language of perfection in Revelation mean that only 144,000 people will eventually get into heaven.
Jesus was convinced that history wouldn’t go on forever and that there would be a time of decisive judgement. Part of the reason the Gospel was described as good news was its deliverance from such judgement though God’s grace. Peter reflects on the delay in his second letter, citing it as an example of God’s mercy and desire that all should be with him in eternity. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”. Essentially saying that if anyone is excluded from eternity it is their choice not his. The focus wasn’t on fruitless speculation about timings and detail but on the event as a framework for current action.
In over thirty years of ministry one of the most frequent things people express in bereavement is their regret that they didn’t say what they should have to the person who has gone. If they’d known the person wouldn’t come back the day they left the house as normal, they would have told them they loved them or not have held on to that resentment or anger. Perhaps we might consider Advent in that light, as an opportunity to put things right. Jesus might return next week or in 100 years. That’s not really the point. The emphasis is on living in the light of that reality – a life framed by God’s judgement and grace. Now is the time to make sure our hearts are right with God. Now is the time to put right broken relationships; to say sorry; to say what needs to be said.
Advent says, “don’t put it off; seize the moment while you can.” That’s good advice.
+Richard