The Next Big Thing?

From today's Collect: Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life...

Is Christian faith more about life now or life after death? Enter any medieval church built between the year 1000 and 1350 or so, and you would have been powerfully convinced by the gaping Hell's mouth painted over the crossing or sculpted over the west door that Christian faith is all about whether we get to go to heaven or to hell after death. Listen to Jesus' "new commandment" to his disciples the night before he was to die, and you'd be persuaded that it is all about loving and living in the here and now. Just where does one locate the heart of Christian hope, in time or in eternity?

Some years ago, a newly confirmed teenager in my parish shook me severely with a book recommendation. With great enthusiasm, he pressed a volume into my hands, the best-selling novel, Left Behind. "You must read this!" he exclaimed. About three weeks later, I gave it back with almost equal enthusiasm, enthusiasm to get it off my hands and out of my sight. I had been able to stomach only a couple of chapters, but those two chapters were enough to convince me that however eagerly the series may be embraced by churchgoers on the Christian "right", the message of these books is antithetical to the very heart of Christianity.

The heart of the Left Behind series can be summed up with a little jingle that has been taught in many Sunday schools in this country: "Somewhere in outer space God has prepared a place for all those who trust him and obey... The countdown's getting closer every day." It is the vision of the authors of these extraordinary best-sellers, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, that God will "rapture" the "saved" away from planet Earth, away from the chaos of destruction to be released on those who persist in unbelief, literally leaving behind those unworthy of life with God, to a fate horrible beyond imagining. Over 65 million of these books have been sold, a staggering number, and staggering evidently also to the authors, who claim that such huge sales are evidence of God's "anointing" approval of their work, and proof that, "Prophecy is God's love letter to man."

In the course of John's gospel, Jesus gives what seem like two conflicting messages about his departure from this world. Speaking in the context of his last meal with the disciples, we have just heard him say, "Where I am going, you cannot come." Insisting that he really is leaving them and his physical presence about to be taken away, he repeats that the disciples' love for each other will for ever be the proof of their allegiance to him: whether Jesus is present or absent his new commandment remains non-negotiable:

A little later that same night, though, when Jesus sees how deeply distressed the disciples are at the prospect of losing him, he shifts ground to reassure them with the promise of his renewed presence after the terrible passage he is about to undergo: in words that for many of us have deep personal associations with loss and hope because they are so often read at funerals, Jesus promises, "Do not let your hearts be troubled... In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also." The conflict between, "Where I am going you cannot come," and "where I am, there you [will] also be," is resolved in the many sayings of the great "Farewell discourse" of Jesus, on the theme of abiding in his love, through obedient action, yearning and longing, and unalterable allegiance. "If you obey my commandments you will abide in my love." Through such faithful abiding, life now and life to come merge into a single continuum.

From these and countless other passages, I want vehemently to contradict Messrs LaHay and Jenkins by affirming that far from "prophecy," let alone apocalyptic prophecy, being God's love letter to men, Jesus is God's love letter to humanity. For Christians, what we know of God in this life we know through Jesus; and what we hope for in a life to come, we hope in trust through Jesus too. For us there is no self-evident knowledge of God and no assurance of life beyond the grave, outside of what we see and trust in Jesus either. As St. Paul himself says, we walk by faith and not by sight, and the shape of our faith is what we see and believe through Jesus, just as our commitment and allegiance is to follow and obey him. We have our commission from Jesus along with the disciples in the upper room, "Just as I have loved you, you are to love one another."

The Book of Revelation has been used to cook up all manner of hideous scenarios claimed to be Christian, but its ultimate vision is not one of catastrophe visited by God upon a sinful world, the destruction of God's own creation: it is one of a world redeemed by God's own entry into it. Its message is identical to the message of the Incarnation, the message of Emanuel, God with us, and its vision is the realization of Jesus' own prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth." There is tribulation aplenty in the world as we know it, and it is an insult to those who are undergoing unspeakable suffering in Darfur, in northern Uganda, in Iraq, Palestine, and countless other places, to suggest that the real tribulation is still to come, to be unleashed only in the future, and that believing Christians alone will be rescued-by-rapture when it does.

In her book The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing writes: "Christians are not dealt a get-out-of-tribulation-free card to play in the face of the world's suffering and trials... Jesus never asked of God to 'Beam me up' from the earth, nor can we. It is a temptation we must resist - as Jesus did. Tribulation is something that has happened and is still happening today for many of God's people in the world. God saves us not by snatching us out of the world, but by coming into the world to be with us."

To remain true to Jesus' "new commandment" we need more, not less, awareness of the reality of other lives than our own, and more, not less, awareness of the marvelous vision of Revelation, chapter 21: the throne of God descending out of heaven, coming down to earth, and a great voice from the throne proclaiming, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes..."

Echoes from this voice and vision and from Jesus' final commandment to his friends, have rippled down through generations of Christians, from the gentle Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna who in the year 156 AD refused to renounce his Lord, saying as he was walked to the stake to be burned alive, "Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" to 20th-century activist Dorothy Day who gave hospitality in the name of Christ to any in need at her Catholic Worker shelters during the terrible Depression years, and in the faithful witness of multitudes whose names are known to God alone - all of them acting on the inspiration and commitment engendered in their own hearts from the heart of Jesus.

May our lives merge with theirs in a single continuum of witness, action, and love that through trust and hope in Jesus indeed transcends the grave.

Amen