[In these words that Jesus has just read, and in very many other parables, he speaks over and over again of what we say in the Apostles' Creed, "From thence shall come..." The message of today's sermon could therefore be summed up as follows: "The future as the return of Jesus."Perhaps I am expressing the opinion of many when I say that this very tenet of our faith is the furthest thing from the mind of the modern man, sometimes even from the mind of the believer. Perhaps it is because Jesus himself, and the apostles, whenever they speak of this question, use the most bizarre images and symbols in connection with this expectation of our faith. Here too we hear of lightning, thunder, angels, clouds, trumpets sounding, the heavens shaking, the stars falling. Elsewhere we hear of the wedding of the king's son, and in Revelation of a city with streets of gold and gates of pearls. Somehow, we feel that these are unreal images that are quite distant and alien to our modern thinking. What exactly are we to make of these images? Undoubtedly, we need to immerse ourselves very deeply in the world of the Bible and acknowledge that the Bible is not written in the abstract language of later Western scholarship, but in the language of the able speech of the Oriental. Especially when it comes to this great vision, the Bible speaks to us almost constantly in images and symbols.
One might ask: "Why in images? Why not in a more understandable language?" This question is, I feel, a question that is peculiar to a person who has grown up in Western culture. Because we, people today, speak in the language of abstract concepts. We have come a long way with this language. It is the language we have developed to an extraordinary extent, especially in science and technology. We have become so used to it that we think that it is the only language that is intelligible and meaningful. But we are wrong. If that were true, it would impoverish our whole lives. Let us imagine that the child, the mother, the lover, the poet, all speak a different language. If, for example, we do not want to talk about scientific truths or technical things, but want to communicate with people, or if we want to praise God, we need a completely different language. We also immediately speak in the language of the able. The most human language of all, the language of all times. For example, the fall of leaves in autumn can be described in such a way that the circulation of sap in the tree slowly stops, it stops transporting the chlorophyll that makes the leaves green, so they turn yellow, and then a thin, tiny layer of membrane forms between the branch and the leaf stalk, which causes the leaf to fall off the tree. In the language of the poet, János Arany says the same thing: 'Nature's head is twisted in autumn, the dew has turned to blood, the leaves of the trees are falling'. Or, for example, a mother, when she holds the little head of her crying child, and says, "My sweet heart!" Imagine the strange things a mother says when she says "sweetheart". If we want to understand this in the abstract language of the West, the child's heart is neither chemically, biologically sweet, nor is it its mother's heart. But the image is true, and as an image, this child is indeed sweet. Oh, how sweet! And really the heart of its mother.
So, if we need the language of capable speech in such profoundly human contexts, how much more so when we want to say something in human words about the great future of God for which there are no human words and which is beyond the horizon of all human experience. So, not only is the able speech of the Bible behind us, which modern man thinks is already out of date, but in many respects it is also ahead of us, and only then will we understand it in all its true richness. Until then, that is the only way we can speak of it, of that sublime scene, the appearance of Jesus. In symbols. Of course, one could try to translate these and apply them to our present greyed vision and hearing. But it is to be feared that such a translation would fall very far short of just those, and would not express half of what the images express.
Such is the case, for example, with the trumpet blast: "He will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet." The apostle Paul, when speaking of Jesus' return, says explicitly, "For a trumpet will sound." In the Old Testament, the sounding of the trumpet is of great significance. Remember, when Moses spoke, he always called his people together before the holy tabernacle with the sound of a trumpet to tell them of a new revelation from God. Every major Old Testament feast, every special sacrifice, every occasion of worship, began with a trumpet. It opened the feast. In the Book of Revelation, the opening of the seven seals is introduced by the sounding of the trumpet, the angelic trumpet, as a new extraordinary event. The trumpet then announced: 'Watch out, God is at work. Prepare yourselves, people, to meet the Lord." So now it is clear why the coming of Jesus is also ushered in by the angelic trumpet and the sound of the horn. Of course, one might ask again, when Jesus and Paul spoke of these things in this way, did they mean a real trumpet? My guess is that neither Jesus nor Paul would have understood our question. Or if they had, they would not have considered it important at all. Of course it would not be an ordinary trumpet. But it is the last trumpet, the very trumpet of God, that is the truest trumpet sound imaginable. What every other trumpet sound we've ever heard here on earth can only hint at, and what the people of Israel felt when he called them together for a special occasion of worship, will only be more powerful.
Then there is the cloud that Jesus talks about over and over again. In the Old Testament, the cloud also had great significance. From the top of Mount Sinai, where Moses heard the word of the Lord, or the pillar of cloud that led the people during the wilderness wanderings to the Promised Land, or the one that overshadowed Solomon's temple, or the cloud filled with thunder and lightning from which the prophet Ezekiel was addressed by God. Or the New Testament cloud into which Moses and Elijah are almost invisible after their conversation with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, or the cloud that hid the ascending Jesus from the disciples. Here, as here, it is Jesus appearing in the clouds of heaven. So the cloud, whether it was a beautiful, gentle, quiet cloud in the sky or a cloud full of thunder and lightning, was then, there, for those people, an expression of God's hidden - hidden from human eyes - majestic presence. It meant: God is present, but not visible. Invisible, as if shrouded in a cloud, God is here among us. "You shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Again, one might ask, "But is it a real cloud?" I can also say that it is the truest cloud imaginable. The cloud of God's salvation history. The cloud of Moses and the mount of transfiguration, the cloud of the holy tabernacle. Of course it is not an ordinary cloud, it is the cloud of the heavenly glory of a God, the heavenly light from which One is about to unfold, Who comes to us from an unseen world with startling spectacle, in startling, stunning visibility, like zigzagging lightning in a cloud.
So Brothers and Sisters, let us not be afraid of images and symbols. These images and symbols tell us much more than modern man can say in the language of science about this sublime mystery. This glorious manifestation simply could not be expressed, told and perceived in any other way than in symbols and images. Always aware that they are only symbols, but also aware that they are necessary, because without them we simply cannot speak of them. We are dependent on them.
But it is not the circumstances, the external phenomena in which Jesus will appear, that is the most important thing, but the fact that Jesus will appear. At the heart of our expectation of the future is that Jesus will one day appear, as it were come forth, in all His divine power and glory. As if out of a cloud, out of obscurity, out of hitherto invisibility, out of incognito, His full divine glory and power will be revealed, so that the mysterious One whom we have hitherto seen or seen through our faith as obscured by a mirror, and whom those who do not believe in Him do not see at all, will be seen by us all, face to face, as He is. Now, whether this mysterious Someone who lived, walked and died here on this earth 2000 years ago, and in Whom so many people still believe as their Lord and Saviour, is real or a dream, a living divine person or a fictitious one, a truth or a lie, can be debated. For we have no tangible evidence for or against, only our faith. But the moment will come when it will be revealed beyond all doubt, when it will be revealed that the child who was born in Bethlehem and died on the cross of Calvary, a martyred, miserable man, that this mysterious, invisible person, in whom millions of people have believed for 2,000 years, that the man called Jesus is really a piece, a person, of the living, omnipotent God. There comes a moment when Jesus appears in such a way that you can't help but notice, you can't help but acknowledge, you can't help but recognise that it is Him. For he will be seen in his full, dazzling, stunning, surprising divinity by those who expect it and by those who do not expect it. Those who believed and those who did not believe, those who denied. Those who loved him and those who were indifferent to him and those who hated him. Thus says Jesus, "You will see him coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory.
So actually Jesus is not "coming back". We are not waiting for Jesus to return! This word "back" is not in the Bible at all. In fact, the word "back" in connection with Jesus' coming would mean that he is not here, that he has gone somewhere and will come back. But that would give rise to very wrong images. But Jesus, who came once 2000 years ago and after his death came again in another form by his Spirit and is here in the Spirit, is not coming back, but is coming in another way. Again in a different way than before. Not in human flesh, not in the invisibility and hiddenness of His Spirit, but in His full divine power and glory. Unveiled and visible. For the one whose coming we await is not far away! He is here! He is here now! For He promised, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be there among them!" (Mt 28:20) So, if the One who is coming is here now, then His last coming is not a return, but a new form, a new manifestation of His presence. In the past, Jesus was present in his human, physical form. Now he is present in his Spirit. Inherent in all our faith in Jesus is the hope that this faith will one day become a vision. Jesus' very presence in the past and his presence now is the guarantee that he will be present in the future - only in a different form.
You remember how I said the last time about the basic tenet of the Christian hope: "The whole Christian hope is directed to the direction in which God's actions, already done in the past and being done in the present, point." So, because Jesus has already come in the past and because He is here in the present, He will then appear to confirm everything we have believed. Then we will see that it was worth the risk, the sacrifice, even the suffering for Him. Then we will be convinced that it was worth denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, temperance. That everything He said, promised, did, was deadly true. And it is indeed true that "our momentary light suffering will bring us very great glory". And we will be amazed that it is more true than we can believe that there is a God, a heavenly happiness, and a meaning to faith, Christian hope, and servant love. That indeed the happy ones were those who did not see and believe! For behold, what we have not seen before is confirmed by tangible truth. There before us stands Jesus in his visible form and glory.
This is our great hope for the future, that we may so look forward to Jesus, to his glorious appearing. To wait for someone we love very much is very good. Waiting for the moment when the beloved being appears at once is a happiness in itself. I often watch at the train station when an international express arrives. Then the big moment, the meeting. They see each other. Hug, kiss, smile, tears, happiness! Well, we're on the verge of something so great. And even greater good!
The other day I came across a German theological book. The title is interesting: Das schönste kommt noch! For the believer, the happiest moment of his life - however much of this earthly life he has lived - is still to come. The great encounter! The all-justifying, all-reconciling, all-revealing, all-consoling, all-consoling, great, happy encounter with Jesus. At the same time, it is also the great encounter that brings everything to account, because this waiting for Jesus is not at all a way of escaping from the problems, tasks, troubles and miseries of this life on earth and letting ourselves be swept away into a future dream. On the contrary! It is precisely this waiting that makes us really responsible to ourselves and to our fellow human beings. "Be ready, for in the hour which you do not know, the Son of Man will come." It symbolizes and explains very well what this watchfulness means. He speaks of the servant who is very serious about the fact that at any moment his Lord may appear, and so he does his work diligently, honestly, with the sense of responsibility that he will have to answer for everything to someone. And the other servant, who has not thought of this possibility, eats, drinks and is irresponsible with the drunkards. He has no one to answer to. Of course he is irresponsible! He wastes his best life forces, he exploits his fellow man. Why not? He lives only for himself. He who has nothing to look forward to in the future, where will he find the strength and encouragement to live in the present with love and serious responsibility?!
But we, do we not, see the future as the coming of Jesus, as the appearing of Jesus of our faith in His heavenly glory?! Let us therefore, my brothers and sisters, take His warning deadly seriously: "Therefore be ye also always ready, for in every hour that ye think not, the Son of man cometh!"
Amen
Date: 20 October 1968.