...and ransom captive Israel.
Advent is upon us once more. From a dip around the blogs and hearing people speak at things I think Advent is the most popular liturgical season (8 out of 10 liturgically astute people who expressed a preference...) and Advent Sunday is a day when there is only really one sermon starter
Advent is a season of preparation and waiting, but it is not about preparing and waiting for Christmas...
just about sums it up. Its what you go on to say that becomes a bit murky.
I know the stuff about the Second Coming; I've read Hal Lindsay and others. I suppose I dislike the sense of competitive authors (my understanding on what is predicted in the book of Revelation is more accurate than yours, therefore I am more inspired/straight down the line/saved than you) that is visible in the various interpretations, and I cynically want to point out how each interpretation seems to be based on some aspect of the world that America as a country seems to be concerned about at present. Scripture is far more precious than simply a Godly conspiracy theory AND I hate with a loathing the glee with which the catastrophes that will befall others are met.
I've also read and been taught the stuff about Jesus actually being seen returning visibly on the clouds as a late 19th Century construction that can be traced back to Cyrus Scofield and others, without any real reference to what the early Church actually understood by the words "Second Coming", and therefore being not worth the theological time of day.
So I find myself between a rock and a hard place. Without something of an extraordinary cataclysmic event and a real return of Jesus then I struggle to see the point of the Mark readings we had this morning - we are not commanded to watch and wait just on the off chance. But if all we do is watch and wait then it becomes really easy to do nothing of any earthly use demonstrating the truth of the Gospel, and I take this to be the exact opposite of the meddling in the world or in politics trying to do things to bring about "the rapture".
We must avoid the dualism of much of the end of the world is nigh stuff, but I struggle to see how at some point the new Jerusalem can descend to the new Earth if it does not enter into the real physical "bounded by time" universe that we inhabit, and therefore an event that will be there for us to see. The sufferings and heartache are real, and so the rescue has to be real too.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.




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