It's Getting Serious ... Maybe

Well, we're down to 26 DAYS!  Maybe.

That means the all of Christendom will be waiting!   Maybe.

Surely at least those Christians who expect the Second Coming to occur will be waiting!  Maybe.

Okay, what's with all of the 'maybe's? Is May 21 the date of the "rapture" or not?

The ambivalence is not my invention. It is a reflection of a Pew Research Center survey that was originally taken in 2006. (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1187/poll-christians-jesus-second-coming-timing) In that survey, which was distributed among people who profess Christianity and not to the public at large, the following tension occurred: In answer to the question, "Do you believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?" 79% of the respondents said, "Yes." But, in response to the question, "Do you believe that Jesus will return to earth in your lifetime?" only 20% said, "Yes."

It's the gap between the 79% and the 20% that constitutes the 'maybe.' And, frankly, if the survey had phrased some questions in terms of the "rapture," the numbers would be even more disparate. The "Second Coming" has been a part of Christian confessional standards since at least the Apostle's Creed and was articulated way earlier than that in the simple phrase, "Come, Lord Jesus."


The "rapture," on the other hand, is a fairly new wrinkle on the understanding of the Second Coming. It seems to me that the idea of the "rapture" is an attempt to make some literal sense of the kinds of visions found in Daniel, I Thessalonians, Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 22, and Revelation. Since I don't think any of those texts are intended to be taken literally - much less accumulated together into a 'timeline,' I would be among the  folks in the gap between "Yes" and not "Yes." I guess I'll be content standing alongside of Jesus, who didn't even know the times or the season!

Easter V. Rapture

Ladiieeess and Gentlemeennn! Welcome to the MAIN EVENT in Faithful Expectations!

In this corner, weighing in at less than 200 years of theological inventiveness, hardly attested by the gospels and only decipherable by the most creative of Scriptural interpretations, ... not one, but many times claimed and never validated ... THE RAPTURE.



And in this corner, weighing in at 2,000 years of sacred history, fully attested by all four gospels, the undefeated anchor of Christian hope, the undisputed vindication of all that Jesus said, did, and endured, here it is, the one, the only ... EASTER SUNDAY!


Okay, you two, come to the center of the ring. Now, I want a clean competition, see? No low blows, no cheap tricks, no preying on people's fears or emotional appeals about being "left behind." Got it? Just some good, solid biblical interpretations, theological integrity, and most of all, compassion. See, if you have emotions, and symbolic interpretations, and number-crunching, but don't have love, then ya' got nothing, see? So, none of that. Just get out there and give the people here what they came for, a good reason to crown one or the other of you as the champion of faith, the pinnacle of theology and practice. Got it? All right, shake hands and come out showing your best stuff.

(Ding!) 

And Rapture comes out swinging! It's using blogs and raucous preaching! Ooohh, it lands a heavy timeline! What's that? A best-selling series of novels that escapes criticism by calling itself 'fiction' when challenged, but styling itself as 'truth' when appealing to audiences. And now, a flurry of suggestive symbolic pictures, some of which look like actual people existing today! And there's a repetitive claim that "every prophecy has already been fulfilled," which nobody even understands! I tell ya, folks, Rapture is pushing like there's no tomorrow. It's thrown all caution to the wind, cares noting about the long-term fate of the universe, and even ridicules any concern about the earth as a form of pagan idolatry. My goodness! Can the champ take it and still survive?

What's this? Easter is simply standing in the ring, absorbing blow after blow. Easter is letting the fury pass, with hope and confidence. Easter is taking a beating as if it has been abused, despised, and afflicted before! Easter is giving hope for all who have been victimized, granting strength to all who have been weakened by life's incessant worries, proclaiming triumph to any who has been bruised by the powers of violence and ridicule. And now ... it's official. Rapture has spent itself with repeated false alarms, so that Easter is the only truth left standing.

Rejoice, ladies and gentlemen, Easter has prevailed again!

37 Days of Final Preparations

Oh, we are so close to turning the final corner and heading down the final stretch. Harold Camping has determined - after 70 years of study - that the "rapture" is coming on May 21. We raised the question earlier of what one ought to wear at a "rapture." And now, I'm ready to answer: Nothing. Well, nothing except maybe some old shoes.

Now, why would I suggest some old shoes? It's because of a picture that I have found both inspiring and puzzling. Occasional artistic depictions of the "rapture" typically illustrate ascending saints heading into the clouds either clad in white robes or not clad at all. Of course, when they are not clad at all, the clouds discreetly cover all of the good stuff and all we see are ankles and feet. That is because if you saw more you might lust and the you'd have to be left behind with all of the other lusters. What a mess. So, just enough nakedness to get the message; not enough to get excited.

Other artistic depictions of the rapture show empty clothes left behind from those who have been taken away. This is the 'other side' of the naked ankles and feet depictions. But, I recently found a book cover which has messed with my expectations. It is from a book entitled, Three Views of the Rapture, edited by Gleason L. Archer, Jr. and published by Zondervan. This book cover is extremely alarming to me.

If we leave our clothes behind in the "rapture," then this picture suggests that people who walk around in nothing but a pair of shoes in open fields are among those going in the "rapture." Heck, this guy wasn't even wearing socks! I tell you, I'm glad we have 37 days before the "rapture" because I have to seriously consider whether or not I want to be companioned for all eternity with people who walk around open fields in nothing but shoes. It's kind of creepy if you ask me, and I always figured that the "rapture" excluded the creepy. What do you think?

How Should We Live?

So, we're counting down to May 21. The latest prediction is that May 21 is definitely the day of the "rapture." I know you thought it would come like a thief in the night, totally unpredictable, catching people unawares, etc., but apparently you were wrong. It's coming on May 21. Or, in 2012. It depends on whether you invest more trust in Harold Camping's 70-year study of the Bible, or the ancient Mayan's millennia-old prognostications. I'm thinking that if we're going to have a countdown, we ought to go with May 21, because I can't think of enough things to blog about all the way to the end of 2012.

So, May 21 it is. I invite you to join me in accepting Mr. Camping's conclusions and his certainty about this date. I invite you to imagine how we ought to live, if we believe that May 21 is the day the rapture will take place.

First and foremost: We ought to repent - that's a given, isn't it? After all, what does it profit us to gain the whole world if we lose our souls? Then, we ought to invite others to repent also - that's how we act in love. Only, let's take a broad view of the word "repent."

To repent is not simply to say, "God, I'm sorry. Please forgive me; wash my sins away; take me to heaven when I die or when you return, whichever comes first." That kind of repentance is not really biblical repentance. It's more akin hedging a bet or purchasing fire insurance or simply trying to appease a guilty conscience. I have no problem with hedging bets (although I don't gamble), purchasing fire insurance (okay, maybe I do gamble, because I have insurance), or appeasing a guilty conscience (no comment). BUT, biblical 'repentance' involves more than all of that. It involves a re-orientation of life.

So, let's live as if the rapture is coming on May 21. Let's confess our sins, let's accept the good news of the gospel that, in Christ, we are forgiven. And, let's live in the newness of a life that is set free from the threat of hell, from the guilt of sin, and from the anxiety of whether or not we are "right with God." To those things, we say, "God's grace is even greater than my sins or my anxieties" and leave it at that. THEN, we embrace our lives anew. We are forgiven, who can we forgive in order to live out our repentance? We are accepted, despite our failures. Who can we accept that we have previously rejected? We are called "beloved children of God." Who can we love that we have previously despised or hated?

Wow! We have a lot to do before May 21!

The Countdown Conundrum

So, the latest popular attempt to actually name the date of a "pre-tribulation rapture of the saints" says that it will take place on May 21, 2011. While it is plainly evident that I do not believe in this conjecture, I am using this space to entertain the idea. I have no underlying motive. My goal is simply to say, "Okay, if the Bible really is a puzzle that has secret codes and cryptic numbers that predict a future "rapture," then let's give Harold Camping the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's correct." (See my blog from April 4 for details.)

I am aware that many people who believe in and look forward to the "pre-tribulation rapture" are skeptical of Mr. Camping's attempt to name a specific date. So, please don't get the impression that everyone who expects a "pre-tribulation rapture" to occur any time now has May 21 marked on their calendars. That's not how most "pre-tribulation rapture" believers roll - at least not from my own experience. I've only known 2 people who have actually forfeited any investments (economic or otherwise) in the future, because they believed that the rapture was really, really imminent. One of them ended up in a treatment facility (I helped him check in and visited him there); the other dropped out of college and was intending to live in a cave somewhere in Tennessee the last I heard of him. (I am not making this up, although I am fuzzy on many details and did not know him well). Outside of those two persons, most of my "pre-tribulation rapture" friends are just as sane and functional as anyone else. And most of them are not circling May 21 on their calendars, setting their affairs in order, or dressing in white gowns and sitting on their housetops to be "ready."

But - if my own experience is at all typical of anyone who takes their "pre-tribulation rapture" belief seriously - they are a little nervous.

Almost anyone who believes in an imminent "pre-tribulation rapture" has had an experience when s/he observed something that triggered the fear that the rapture had taken place and that s/he has been "left behind." These experiences are funny in hindsight, but not in real time. In real time, anyone who has heard a plethora of "any day now!" proclamations knows what it is like to feel the anxiety of having been "left behind," and it is not pretty.

So, whenever a Harold Camping comes along - anyone who had crunched the numbers, broken the code, connected the dots, and named the date - the result is unsettling. On the one hand, those who believe in a "pre-tribulation rapture" feel the need to read the "signs of the times," and to interpret real time events as the "budding fig leaves" that augur end time events. On the other hand, they remember that "no one knows the day or the hour," of the "pre-tribulation rapture," so they shouldn't actually invest in something as specific as Harold Camping's prediction.

I do not believe in an imminent, "pre-tribulation rapture." I do not believe that we are living in "the last days," if one takes those words to refer, literally, to a countdown to the end of planet earth. And, I would gladly be willing to say, "This is simply a place where we can agree to disagree" over this matter, except that I think a true belief in an imminent "pre-tribulation rapture" can have some disastrous results. We'll explore some of them in the future. If there is one.

Only 45 Shopping Days until the "Rapture"!

Okay folks, it's getting serious. There are only 45 shopping days until May 21, so you need to get right over to K-Mart and get your "rapture" duds on.

Of course, it is easier said than done. First of all,the question arises, "What does one wear to a good ole' Rapture?" I mean, it's not like we've had enough of these to develop a protocol. Well, we've had plenty of false alarms, so unless we're thinking that their attire was some sort of bad karma that resulted in the "rapture" not happening when people expected it to, we could look at previous "rapture" dates for our sartorial indicators.

For example, back when William Miller began proclaiming with certainty that the Lord would return in 1843 (and then fell back to a revised date of 1844 - See the April 4th blog on math!), the "Millerites" readied themselves for the "rapture" by dressing in white robes. (Some of them took to sitting on their rooftops also, but that seems to be the "rapture" equivalent of pushing and shoving to get to the front of the lunch line to me.) Needless to say, either the Millerites were wrong on both occasions, or else the Lord "raptured" so few people that nobody even noticed that it had taken place.

At any rate, white robes seem to be the preferred dress for saints that are 'ready to go.' Maybe dressing like a first-century Palestinian is akin to being heavenly in some way. I don't know.

A twist on the white robe option could be to dip those robes in blood. I know that sounds a bit gruesome, but there's both biblical and musical precedent for it. Biblically, Joseph's brothers used goat's blood to decorate his robe, which started a fashion in the Ancient Near East that almost nobody talks about any more. And, musically, I love the song "Wayfaring Stranger" that looks forward to the promise of being in concert with the "bloody washed band." (If I ever start a rock group, I'm naming it "Bloody Washed Band.")

Or, we could just shed our clothes altogether on May 21 and go 'commando' like all of the pictures of the "rapture" seem to imply. I'll speak more about this option next time.

For now, I think white robes are our best bets and my suspicion is that the K-Mart near me doesn't even carry them. We might have to order them online from L.L.Bean, or something like that. We could steal some from a local church choir room, but then we wouldn't get to go in the "rapture."

See how important it is to start our shopping now? You don't want to be ill-dressed when May 21 gets here.