Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
Stay awake! Keep watch! Get Ready!
Back in 1990 I had these sayings painted on florescent cardboard placards so I could use them in a clown sketch for Advent. It was a response to the challenge from Jesus to be ready for the BIG DAY of his return, as outlined in Matthew 24. (See the previous post). The placards sat behind the piano for years afterwards. My 17 year old son told me this last weekend that he’s had those phrases in his head all that time because of the constant reminders peeking out from behind the piano!
Another reminder to be alert (the world needs more lerts!) comes from the song written by Curtis Mayfield in the mid sixties. Mayfield was inspired by the work and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. In that famous Washington speech in 1963 people around the world were challenged to get ready for a world that would look differently. No longer would racism be the norm. Instead boys and girls would grow up no longer basing their friendships with each other on the colour of their skin.
And so… Curtis gives us the words of “People Get Ready”.
“People get ready, there’s a train a’coming
You don’t no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear those diesels humming
You don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord”
Curtis’ song goes on with the sense of a joining a coast-to-coast movement that will be marked by loving and not selfishness. There’s an excellent radio interview with Curtis on the NPR web site prepared for the 40th anniversary of the 1963 Washington March.
‘People Get Ready’. That’s the gospel I hear resounding in Jesus’ words. We don’t know when we’ll be called to action. We don’t know when we’ll encounter Jesus in the lives of prophets, poets, activists. We don’t know the hour or the day when we’ll be facing our ultimate crises of faith and action - turning points that change our world. So we need to prepare ourselves.
This summer I’m focusing on preparing my own kids for living by themselves or with others. They’re picking up some of the disciplines of cooking, keeping house and finding their way around with public transport. One day they’ll need to daily call on all the skills they’re developing now. That’s the kind of challenge Jesus gives us. The way of life we develop now will make a difference to the way we face our crises in the future. The decisions we make each day will nurture in us the character we’ll need as face the big day, whatever that might be.
What do I think about the possibility that Jesus will return in a big showdown style arrival on Earth? Will he come to wind the whole cosmos up? I’m not a betting person. And I’m with Jesus in not trying to predict the end every time I see some evidence of disaster or ‘one world government’. I remember reading a Christianity Today article in the 1980s outlining the dawning realisation among conservative evangelicals that we could be on earth another thousand years. That gave credence to the phrase, “Plan as though we’ll be here another thousand years, live as though we might be gone tomorrow”. That article named for me my own changing mindset. I’d gone through Hal Lindsay’s “Late Great Planet Earth” as an impressionable teenager. And now I was starting to put roots down in to the future of the planet.
Now, I’m happy to keep the ‘return of Christ’ in my vocabulary and in my consciousness. But more immediately I’m aware of the 21st century crises I’m encountering that give me the chance to help ‘write history’ with other people in the Christian movement. I’m happy to be part of the gospel movement, on board Jesus’ global and cosmic gospel train.
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Friday, November 26th, 2004
No one knows the day or hour. The angels in heaven don’t know, and the Son himself doesn’t know. Only the Father knows. When the Son of Man appears, things will be just as they were when Noah lived. People were eating, drinking, and getting married right up to the day that the flood came and Noah went into the big boat. They didn’t know anything was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man appears.
Two men will be in the same field, but only one will be taken. The other will be left. Two women will be together grinding grain, but only one will be taken. The other will be left. So be on your guard! You don’t know when your Lord will come. Homeowners never know when a thief is coming, and they are always on guard to keep one from breaking in. Always be ready! You don’t know when the Son of Man will come.
Matthew 24:36-44 Contemporary English Version
That’s the reading set down for the 1st Sunday in Advent, used in traditional churches around the world on November 30, 2004. Another version of the same teaching appears in Mark 13:32-37 and Luke 17:26-30, 34-36.
Where’s the good news here?
As a youth worker in 1984 I hired a Christian film to show at a youth sleepover. “A Thief in the Night”, made by Mark IV Pictures in 1972, tells the story of Patty, a young woman who puts off making a decision to follow Christ. Her boyfriend does become a Christian after nearly dying from a snake bite. They get married and move to the suburbs. But without warning he and other Christians are whisked up into the sky, beamed up by God, so to speak. The rapture has come. Patty is left behind to face the tribulation in which a “one-world government” forces people to take the mark of the Beast. New Christians are hunted down. The soundtrack, if I remember right, includes Larry Norman’s song, “Left Behind”. The movie was not well made and was clearly dated with early 1970s culture. But it was one of the ’safe’ movies that our church would allow me to show.
So what was the result? I vividly remember the expression of panic by a 14 year old member of the youth group. She was so scared she might end up in the same situation as Patty. But did it motivate her to do anything? No. If anything, she was paralysed by fear.
I don’t think ‘panic attack’ was what Jesus intended to achieve in his words about the ‘end times’. If anything, I believe he’s trying to get people to stop fixating on the future and start focusing on the present in a way that will prepare people for any contingency. It has always seemed strange to me that people read this passage and proceed to lead seminars and publish books telling people that the second coming of Jesus is imminent.
So what’s the gospel here? What’s the good news? Is there a challenge for me? Was there good news for the 14 year old girl in 1984, now 34 years old?
I think there’s a reality check from Jesus, to start with. He challenges us to get real about our ability to predict the future. Even he isn’t able to tell us about everything that will happen. This was good news for me as I tried to deal with the sales pitches of prophets of doom in the 1980s. There may have been indications that nuclear war would wipe us all out. There may have been signs of environmental disaster. Species becoming extinct could eventually include the human race. But it’s not as clear cut as these prophets make out. The future is up for grabs.
Secondly, Jesus gives us the opportunity to do something about our future. Get ready. We don’t know what the future will bring. But we can prepare ourselves to face the unknown.
A couple of weeks ago we had a freak storm on the Gold Coast. A flash flood swept through our house. Normally we might have coped with this. We have a good drainage system which I had only improved a few weeks beforehand. But one of the drains had a large leaf swept onto it and within minutes the water had built up so that one end of the house had water against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The seals didn’t cope and we ended up with one flooded bedroom. An event that was out of my control. Fortunately I was home that morning to unblock the drain and prevent worse damage. We were able to salvage the carpet with help from the insurance company. They’re replacing all furniture made of particle board with new solid furniture.
We were prepared for disaster. We had an insurance policy. We had an idea of how to act quickly in emergency. It sounds a bit like the Boy Scouts (now just Scout Association) I belonged to in the 1970s. Baden Powell’s motto passed on - “Be Prepared”.
I believe that staying in relationship with the Creator of the universe is the ultimate way to prepare for whatever the future may hold. But I’m talking about a relationship that leads to making history. Not a relationship based around a contract to keep us out of hell or protect us from the ‘tribulation’.
Enough for today. I’ve got something to write on the rapture. And something on the song, “People Get Ready”. And on the return of Jesus. Later…
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Friday, November 26th, 2004
I’ve been spurred into writing about Christian faith by questions from friends, in and out of the Church. This week I watched a video on sharing faith in which people gave their understanding of what it means to become a Christian. “These are the basic steps needed to become a Christian”. Hmmm. They’re not where I’m at. Maybe I’ve been there. But I wonder if it is possible to explore with clarity the diversity of ways in which people experience following Jesus.
So, where do I begin? By studying what other people have written? I’ve done that with the Driving With Purpose blog. I’m at a point where I want to start with the stories of Jesus in the New Testament and go from there.
Duncan
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