November 30, 2025
Celebration of Holy Communion 

"A Time for Waiting"

Matthew 24:36-44

" Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:  41, 42)

Does this story fill you with anticipation, or with dread? With hope or with terror? How should we make sense of predictions about the future that crop up in the Bible?

Let’s acknowledge, to start with, that Christians have never agreed on a common interpretation of this passage from Matthew’s Gospel! There is no timeline for an end of the world (or an end of this era) that is considered “generally agreed orthodox theology.” Interpretations are, and always have been, all over the map.

This Wikipedia article on “the rapture” gives a pretty comprehensive description of all the different options that Christians have believed over the centuries. While the notions of “rapture” made popular by Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of books are common in some branches of North American evangelical theology, most Christian denominations around the world don’t subscribe to them. Don’t feel like you’re on shaky ground if you find someone else’s view of end times makes you squeamish! The vast breadth of Christian opinion over the centuries makes it obvious that none of us is clear on what the original Biblical authors intended! Most Christian traditions today do not believe a “rapture” is coming.

It’s not even obvious when Jesus says here in Matthew, “one will be taken and one will be left behind,” whether he means the one “taken” is going to be whisked away from Earth up to Heaven, or simply ushered into a front-row seat in the honour guard as the Son of Man comes back to bring peace to the Earth. Is Jesus saying the person “left behind” going to endure painful punishment because they weren’t rescued from a world about to be destroyed, or do they simply the need to wait a few minutes longer to see the reign of Peace on Earth begin? Christians have held both views. Passionately!

But if we can’t suss out a timeline, or agree on what God’s process might look like, we can at least acknowledge that Christians over the years have insisted that our lives – and the life of the world – have meaning, purpose, and future. The future is in God’s hands.

So, then, much depends on what we think God is like. Will God behave like a vengeful judge who wants to make evil-doers suffer, or a compassionate parent who weeps over injustice and keeps trying to help us grow up into responsible caring adults? Will God pick sides and consign the enemies to annihilation (or worse!), or is God already actively working to repair the rifts that divide us and create a future where no one misses out? Even the Bible isn’t consistent on that! But following the thread from last week’s sermon, my way of choosing between the options that Christians have argued about is to ask what Jesus would say. Would Jesus subscribe to theologies that condemn the vast majority of humans to a fiery end, and only rescue a remnant of his friends? Or would he be inviting us to work for a world where enemies are loved, sin is forgiven, and everyone gets their daily bread?

Long before Jesus, God’s prophets imagined the future. Jesus, who was steeped in their writings, built on their dreams. Here’s a passage from Isaiah, also appointed for the church to read on this first Sunday of Advent, that captures an important and longstanding Jewish dream of the world transformed, rather than condemned. “He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4) I could imagine Jesus trusting in a future like that.

What future are we waiting for? What kind of world are we hoping for? As we open the Advent season, and prepare for God to come into the world in our future as well as in our past, what should we rely on? How shall we prepare? What does it mean for us to honour the one we name Prince of Peace?

Join us on Sunday as we contemplate waiting for God to bring healing, hope and future to our hurting world.