The long wait for Jesus

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070716.cfm

Hosea 11:1-4, 8-9
Matthew 10:7-15

I heard a preacher on the radio a few days ago, and what he said came back to mind after studying the readings for Thursday this week. The radio preacher’s central theme focused upon the return of Jesus and why he believed God was taking so doggone long to come back.

Questions abound regarding Jesus’ return — does he really bring an army of angels when he flies back from heaven, and are the faithful Christians really raptured before a bloody and vengeful battle for earth, and so on — but the essential issue in most folks minds is “when” does Jesus come back.

On the issue of Jesus’ actual return trip, scripture seems rather clear that this will take place. According to Acts, chapter 1, verse 11, Jesus ascended into heaven with a clear intention to return. Two angels confirmed that plan: 

They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

Those angels reported that Jesus was coming back almost 2,000 years ago. Seems like a long wait for even the most patient of us. So why the spectacular elongation of a return trip? Given the importance of a return trip to our world by Jesus, I believe the subject of his timing presents the key to understanding what God is up to. I think the material of today’s readings gives us some terrific clues.

The following is my freelance interpretation of the preacher’s sermon juxtaposed with Hosea and Matthew.

First, the preacher said, God is in the creation business and creation isn’t done until God says it is. Jesus’ return appears to represent the fulfillment of God’s creation commitment. God’s got an apparent and amazing desire to build a Kingdom of folks that he loves. My finger in the wind math would put God’s desires for human creation to be somewhere in the one to two trillion folks, and counting. In other words, he hasn’t yet reached the number of folks he wants a co-creator population to produce.

For each one of us that God has created, Hosea’s verse today is very telling about God’s loving desire:

“I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks.” 

God is a loving God, and he hasn’t quit raising up infants. Not just yet.

Second, the preacher added, God recognizes that an increasing number of folks don’t want to give God the credit for either their existence or their life’s direction. Hosea confirms that God very clearly understands the problem.

“Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.”

This painfully felt ignorance of God by creation comes at a cost — distancing ourselves from God, and limiting God’s desire for love relationships. The cost is fostered by creation itself, and yet the burden is carried by God. 

Even today, and maybe more so, parents, family, friends, and the general collection of humanity do not educate or inculcate the identity of the creator to its young. We do not all eagerly and tenderly explain God’s presence to our own children, and they suffer the distance from God. And God suffers their ignorance about who he is.

Third, the preacher continued, God powers through his rejection from humanity with a heartfelt desire to call all to him. He does this even though creation, with flagrant dismissal, ignores him.

“My heart is overwhelmed,
my pity is stirred.
I will not give vent to my blazing anger,
I will not destroy Ephraim again;
For I am God and not man,
the Holy One present among you;
I will not let the flames consume you.”

God has struck down his creation before, scripture tells us. From the record, the destruction was deserved. The same is true today, but God is present among us in a way not seen since the days of Adam and Eve’s paradise. 

Now, that brings us to the lengthy time since God took incarnation to a mind-blowing level with his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension as Jesus the Christ. Jesus said if we see him, then we see the Father. So, Jesus is parenthetically and practically God himself. 

That brings us to the fourth thing the radio preacher said about the longest “Be right back” statement ever made — we have a part to play in this lengthy passing of time. As Christ followers we are to share the gospel message of Jesus’ birth to ascension as living temples of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, by the way, is actually God himself too. 

This trinity of God’s power, love and presence is not a waiting game for Jesus to return, but a living relationship of creation and God calling us to himself by asking to live in us. The living relationships part is clearly stated in Matthew, Chapter 10, verse 7:

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.”

So, not only are we to share the gospel, but we are to be conduits, live wires of the Holy Spirit. Cure, raise up, cleanse and drive out.

To review what we have so far, then, Jesus has taken this long to return because: 

• he wants more of us to love
  
• he knows that the bulk of us won’t accept his love
  
• his love for us extends to his protection, anyway
  
• and finally, he wants us to participate in attracting believers

Now, all of that seems rather tame at a high level. Kind of a like a corporate mission statement that never gets beyond the employee handbook. But the implication of the process of God’s dutiful and patient long term game plan settles upon those few that not only believe in him, but also follow through. And, then, that leaves all of the rest of us.

In which group of the “rest” do we fall?

As you enter a house, wish it peace.
If the house is worthy,
let your peace come upon it;
if not, let your peace return to you.

If we are already the ones carrying the peace of Christ in us, good on us. We bear the message of the gospel and exhibit the wiring of the Holy Spirit. If we are among the rest, living in the world, in the house that is approached by the ones carrying peace, will our home be worthy? 

The burden of Matthew 10 settles upon who we are. The clarity of that answer can only be calculated by us. Do we seek out those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, carrying the message of peace, or are we still standing with the rest, wondering if Jesus is real? 

Among the rest, we must decide if we the ones who find the Jesus folks not just annoying, but a danger to our way of life. We must identify with the creator or with the world we have both created and sustain. 

The preacher on the radio didn’t quite get to that question, caught up as he was in the message that the timing of Jesus’ return is irrelevant. The practical timing for the believer is our personal acceptance of God’s place in creation.

And yet, not all of us are believers who follow through. Not all of us consider the worth of God over the world’s offerings. A great many of us know this is the key point of God’s desire to be recognized in order that he can love us. 

Do we tell our children about him? Do we stand in our family and speak his name? Do we recognize God in the company of our friends? 

The preacher was talking to the believer. 

Jesus was talking to everyone.