There was a bit of a media frenzy last week when radio preacher Harold Camping predicted that the rapture would take place at 6 p.m. local time (whatever the local time was around the world, though I’m not sure whether Camping figured Jesus would correct for daylight-saving time) Saturday, 21 May, with the end of the world taking place six months later on 21 October.
I’m very pleased to report that I received no email from people who wanted to know whether the Rapture actually would take place Saturday. I’m going to assume this means you all knew better. If Jesus says not even he knows when he’s returning,
Camping and his followers were met with skepticism and a fair amount of scorn from all sides. But there’s a significant difference between the motivations for people’s responses.
Among Christians, it was, “Jesus clearly said nobody, not even Camping, is gonna know when he returns. How can you possibly have bought into this idea?” And among pagans, it was, “Jesus isn’t coming back. How can you possibly have bought into this idea?” One came out of knowing better. The other came out of unbelief.
Those who think he’s never returning.
Pagans don’t believe Jesus is returning. They believe he’s dead. Dead dead dead. Crucified and dead. Went in the tomb, body got swiped, not coming back, dead. He’s particularly not coming back to gather together all the Christians and meet with us in the sky.
From time to time you may encounter a pagan who pays us Christians some lip service in order to be nice. They concede Jesus might be around in some form. But it’s as a spirit, as the ghost of Jesus. Or it’s as the “spirit of Jesus,” which is a lot like the “spirit of Christmas,” in that they don’t believe it’s a real live person; it’s the ideals of the thing. To them, the spirit of Jesus is his teachings, and if we keep his teachings, his message, his hope alive, that’s as good as him being alive. And while Christians definitely ought to carry around Jesus’s teachings, that’s not what we mean when we say he’s alive. We mean literally alive. He’s got a body and intends to come back to earth and walk around on it and breathe its oxygen and eat its food. We mean real and not dead.
Big difference. Important difference… and one that, if you were paying close enough attention to what people were saying, might’ve even revealed to you there are Christians who believe Jesus is still dead. Because there are. Certain so-called Christians don’t believe Jesus will ever return: When we die, we go to the afterlife in heaven, where Jesus is, and life on earth will just continue forever, or until the sun burns out. To them, Jesus is the god of the afterlife, like Osiris or Pluto, and we’ll interact with him there. Not here. Never here.
But that’s a theology discussion. This article is about the temporary world we live in. How ought Christians deal with this far-too-common attitude we find among pagans?
Teaching the truth.
First of all, the opportunity to talk about Jesus’s return with pagans is far from lost. The conversation point of Camping and the rapture is still in the news, ’cause Camping is now claiming that regardless of what did or didn’t (or invisibly did) happen on Saturday, the end of the world will still be 21 October 2011. So we have six months more of this story.
While it’s perfectly okay to point out the ridiculousness of date-fixing, and while we can laugh about that with the pagans, we need to make it clear to them we’re not laughing at the idea of Jesus’s return. Just that anyone can predict when it’ll will take place. That, we don’t know, and aren’t allowed to know. But it will happen, because Jesus is alive.
Then we can talk to them about how Jesus is alive.
We can give testimonies—share our own experiences with him, and how he’s proven he’s alive to our satisfaction. We can listen to why they don’t feel he’s alive—and sometimes their reasons are quite valid. Some will scoff. Some will try to reason their way around orthodox Christian beliefs so that they can call themselves “Christian” despite believing our Lord is dead. Some might actually repent. Regardless of what happens, this is our opportunity to share the good news: Jesus is alive, and coming back, and it’ll be awesome.
Then when 21 October comes and goes, more people will laugh at the date-fixers for the right reasons.
Laughing at date-fixers.
Which brings up a valid question I’ve received: “Is it okay to laugh at the date-fixers?”
Yes it is.
Just about all of them have heard Jesus’s statements that we don’t know when he’s returning.
According to Proverbs, the proper response to a fool is a good beating.
Of course, as in all humor, there are lines we ought not cross. I suppose at some other point I’ll have to get into what those lines are. For now I’ll just say we mustn’t make any jokes which we’d find hurtful if we were on the receiving end. Stay away from passive-aggressive, hostile, angry, sarcastic statements. Make no personal attacks and keep it clean. Bear in mind that while Camping and his followers are wrong, possibly even heretics, they’re still family—still fellow Christians who, God willing, may yet repent. So don’t burn bridges. Leave the door open, ’cause once Camping is proven wrong, we wanna invite them back to the fold—and if we were really awful to them, they won’t wanna come back. Certainly not to any Jesus you claim to follow, if cruel is the the way “following Jesus” makes you.
And if you’re the sort who always does go too far, don’t even start. Work on your self-control by staying out of it.