Have We Given Up on Jesus?

Why is Christmas so overblown?

Maybe it’s because we’ve given up on the Second Coming of Christ.

I hadn’t thought about that before yesterday, but as I was looking at all the references to the Second Coming in the New Testament (some 57 of them) I was reminded of those funeral services I’ve been to where people want to “celebrate the life” of the deceased rather than “mourn the death.” They want to focus on the positive, that is, and so they focus on all the happy memories of a well-lived life.

That’s not a bad thing to do, but we Christians believe in the resurrection of the body. We believe that death is not the end of life, but in so many ways only the beginning. The old preachers had a way of pointing us forward—toward that hope—and not only back.

I think the old preachers used to do that with the Second Coming, too (and I mean the really old preachers, like Paul, and Peter, and some of those others whose writings ended up in the New Testament). Some of them were so excited about the return of Christ that they didn’t spend much time “celebrating his life.”

They just kept watching the skies.

But that was 2,000 years ago, when it was a little easier to believe that “this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). Now we are almost embarrassed to mention it.  It’s been too long.  Surely, if he were coming, he would have come by now.  And so, instead of looking forward to the Second Coming, we look back to the first one, and celebrate it as if it were all we would ever have.

Have we given up on Jesus?  Do we no longer believe that one of these days he will come back, and the Kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever (Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!)?  Is that why we go crazy at Christmas, and rush around buying presents for each other?  Is that why we crank up the Christmas carols and talk about Santa Claus coming to town?

I preached at First African Baptist Church yesterday and ended with a true story about a P.O.W. who came home after seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp to find his wife waiting for him.  Although friends and relatives had suggested that he might never come back, and that she probably ought to move on with her life, she had never given up.  He had told her he would come home and she believed him.

She was there waiting for him when he got off the plane.

He said later that she wasn’t the same girl he married; she was no longer a blushing teenage bride.  In the time he had been away she had become a strong, confident, capable woman.

She’d had to.

New Testament scholar Hans Conzelmann used to say that this period between Christ’s ascension and his return is “the Church’s time.”  It’s our time to fulfill the commission Christ gave us, and to do everything in our power to bring heaven to earth.  But Jesus himself said he was going to come back some day.  When he does I hope he will find what that prisoner of war found:

1. That his bride has waited for him, and,
2. That she has become strong, confident, and capable.

How do I get in?

One of the stories that came out of my recent trip to India is the one about the groomsman who wanted to get into the family.

He was at the wedding reception, watching as his friend Josh (the groom) was welcomed again and again by members of this large, loving Indian family.  He himself had grown up in a small family, and something about all those people laughing and calling each other “cousin,” “uncle,” and “aunty,” appealed to him at the deepest level.  In an unguarded moment he asked one of the uncles: “What do I have to do to get in?”  The uncle looked at him, smiled, and began flipping through his mental Rolodex, searching for the name of a niece who hadn’t been married off yet.

That’s one way to do it: marry into the family.  But as I watched Josh (who grew up in Oregon) nervously greeting his many Indian in-laws—I guessed it was going to take more than a wedding ceremony and his signature on a legal document to become part of the family.  I thought about my own experience over the previous two days as I had been welcomed into my host’s home in Bangalore.  That first morning at breakfast I learned to eat idli and coconut chutney—with my fingers.  It was delicious, but a much different experience than my usual bowl of oatmeal at home.  How many times would I have to eat idli before it seemed like a typical breakfast and not a new experience?  How many times would Josh have to try new foods, learn new customs, pick up words and expressions in another language, before he truly felt like part of the family?

Interestingly, I was able to apply this experience to the Bible study from Galatians I led last Wednesday night.  I said that the doctrine of justification seems to be a question of how we get into God’s family.  For Paul, it’s as simple as getting married.  We are justified (brought into the family) through God’s grace and our faith in Jesus Christ.

In my mind’s eye I could see the bride’s father, Colin, graciously welcoming his new son-in-law, Josh, simply because of his love for Kavita.  But suppose some members of that wonderful Indian family felt that wasn’t enough.  What if they wanted Josh to adopt their language, culture, clothing, and customs?  What if they believed he could never really be part of the family until he was Indian? 

That’s what’s going on in Galatians.  The Jewish Christians are having a hard time welcoming these Gentile believers into the family.  It’s not enough that they have said “I do” to Jesus and signed all the papers; they want them to adopt the language and culture, the clothing and customs, of Judaism. 

Circumcision, for example. 

Paul is incensed.  Like the father of the bride at that Indian wedding he insists that the Gentile believers are also part of God’s family even if they look different and talk funny and have all those quirky Gentile customs.  He might say that you don’t become Christian by being circumcised any more than you become Indian by eating idli. 

Take another look at the bride and groom in the picture at the top of this post.  Don’t they look happy?  And don’t you think their love might not only survive the mix of cultures they bring to their marriage but thrive on it?  I’m guessing that’s why God has always had it in mind that the Gentiles, too, would be part of his family. 

His love isn’t diminished by diversity; it is enlarged by it.