11/15/09  Listen: The Big Reveal
Bulletin

Dear Friends,

Over the centuries, much has been made of the so-called “Second Coming” of Christ.  Every generation of Christians, since the earliest days of the church, has held the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, trying to read for signs of the “end times,” even calculating precise dates for when it might happen.  In modern times, predicting the Day of the Lord has been a lucrative enterprise.  Many have written best-selling books on the subject (and made millions in the process).  Preachers have converted their fair share of followers by simply asking, “If Jesus came tonight would you be saved?”  With every natural disaster, or outbreak of war in the Middle East, or new global epidemic, televangelists’ coffers swell with donations by the mere utterance of a single word:  Rapture.

For some Christians, there has always been an obsession with the Second Coming of Christ.  Perhaps that’s because the First Coming of Christ ended so unceremoniously.  Not only did Jesus die a brutal death, but many of his followers suffered the same fate.  In the midst of their suffering, they sought deliverance.  Even today, many Christians (especially in those forgotten, impoverished places of the world) can point to their own suffering and misery and say, “We followed Christ, but things haven’t gotten better for us.  We are still hungry, poor, and oppressed.  We are still waiting for the Kingdom of God.”

 This Sunday our lectionary presents us with one of the “apocalyptic” passages from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 13:1-8).  It’s not exactly a picker-upper, as they say.  But it is an essential aspect of the Gospel, and it can be instructive for us, even today.  I hope you’ll worship with us this Sunday.

Yours,

Rev. Mark