Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Parousia
Matthew 24:30
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Back in the 1980s, I got my first chance to preach on a Sunday morning. My pastor, Lee Miller, took a big chance some thought. I didn’t want to let him down, so I worked hard to build on the opportunities I had before to speak at youth meetings, mid-week meetings, and a few Sunday nights. For reasons I would not distract us with today I would never forget that first Sunday morning message I delivered. The title was – Parousia, the same at the title of this devotional almost three decades later.
Parousia is a Greek word that has come over unchanged to English as theologians use it as a term to describe the Second Coming of Christ. Our Christian faith is incomplete, and quite frankly useless if it doesn’t include a firm belief in the Parousia, and an attitude of constant expectation of it happening at any time.
The COVID-19 Pandemic, with its attendant pandemonium evident in overwhelmed emergency response systems, overwhelmed healthcare systems, overwhelmed funeral systems, and even overwhelmed governments, presents the greatest challenge to our faith in a few generations. This is a critical time, therefore, because an untested faith is no faith at all.
We enjoyed an extended period of relative ease and comfort, especially for those of us who live in the west. Our economies grew and so did personal wealth, information and communication technology expanded and transformed our lives in unprecedented ways. Innovation is at an all-time high so that there is almost nothing that we could want that is not already available once we could afford it.
For many of us, life on earth has reached a level of comfort that was unimaginable just a generation or two ago even with their best abilities to predict. These unprecedented possibilities have pushed us to the place where even our preachers, despite the dire warnings of scripture, push us to focus on our best life now and how to enjoy everyday life.
Scripture, however, takes a different tack. We are warned of the coming of perilous times, of the challenge and necessity of suffering, and of trials and tribulations. Scripture does speak of blessing, wealth, and health, but these are never without the context of life’s reality and God’s end game.
Nevertheless, many Christians seem to be caught off guard by the disruption of life here brought on by Covid-19. Some prayers and preaching are about the disruption to the health, wealth, and prosperity Gospel that have become so popular. We are asking God to please bring an end to this pandemic so that we could all quickly get back to the lives we were living and expecting. Our context for coping is the resumption of things here, rather than the end of things here.
As this pandemic bites the death rates are going up, by now most of us either know someone who died or we know someone who knows someone who died. Yesterday I found out that one of my colleague ministers here in Guyana lost two relatives in New York, one was his mother. Today as news of the second death in Guyana spread, we found out that he was a best friend to one of our church members.
Last week we talked about the pandemonium being caused by the pandemic. Things are worse this week. People poor and rich, powerless and powerful, agnostic and religious, non-Christian and Christian are all gripped by fear, anxiety, depression, and loneliness induced by the ubiquitous demand for social or physical distancing, and by the daily reports of the infected and the dead.
The suffering for the infected is real and the pain of their loss is real, no one is out of reach. We all must do our best to maintain distance, quarantine, and where necessary isolate. But the real job of the Christian is not to hide out from the deadly SARS Coronavirus 2, rather, our job is to remember the context – Jesus is coming again – the Parousia is in the panorama.
The Covid-19 Pandemic must serve to remind us that, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-53
With the Parousia before us, we must remember that there is an ultimate purpose for our lives here, but that here is not the ultimate purpose for our lives. We must resist the tendency to love life here so much that the idea of not being here scares us. Of course, to do this we need a return to the teaching of sound doctrine about the issues of pain and suffering, and about the true freedom from them for the risen and raptured saints.
Jesus Himself promised, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:1-3
Think on these things:
- Does your church regularly teach and preach about the return of Christ?
- Knowing that the virus is “coming” has changed how we live and behave, what changes should you make knowing that Jesus is coming too?
- What would you say about the return of Jesus to someone who is afraid of Covid-19?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that, despite all that is happening around us, we would not fear but continue to look for the coming of our Lord.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex