Voices first heard in childhood often continue to impact us with potent echoes from the past. At the speed of thought I return to that small church in Jefferson County, Mo., where I grew up. It was Sunday evening and the shellacked knotty pine paneling reflected the overhead lights, producing a warm and welcome glow. Warmer still, however, was the fiery sermon delivered by a loving pastor who urged us to consider that before we got home that night from church, Jesus might come again. He spoke of the signs: Wars, rumors of wars and earthquakes.
More than a half century has passed since that sobering prediction that our drive home might be interrupted by a trumpet blast from the heights. In the intervening decades, I learned to concentrate my attention on kingdom-building tasks. More and more I planted my feet on solid ground and less and less did I pause to listen for the sound of a distant trumpet.
Jim White
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Even as a pastor, which I was for nearly 30 of those years, immediate needs seemed to require my full focus. There were grieving hearts to console, sermons to prepare, Bible studies to lead, committees to chair, staffs to inspire, fires to douse, souls to save and money to raise. Christ’s second coming became for me more a prophetic potential than an eschatological expectation.
Still, the voice from long ago occasionally rings clarion through the clamor in my mind: wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes. This is one of those times.
No one can escape the news of global catastrophe. On the war front, in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan we can list Egypt and Libya and others in various stages of eruption. And earthquakes? Say them with me: Haiti, Chile, China, New Zealand, Japan — and these are major quakes since the first of last year.
Am I sounding the alarm? Do I encourage us to sell or give away our goods and wait for Christ in a vast valley meadow? Or quit our jobs in anticipation of his coming as did some in the Thessalonian church? No, I haven’t been hitting the Kool-Aid.
But we who are Christ-followers must listen for his words. Not the words of a passionate preacher, and certainly not the emails mass forwarded through the cybersphere. The words of Jesus, himself, should cause all Christians to pause and reflect no matter how preoccupied we may be with Kingdom concerns. To quote Jesus’ words as found in the synoptic Gospels (Mark 13:1-37, Matthew 24:1-51; Luke 21:5-36), wars, rumors of wars and earthquakes are signs that the end is approaching.
Many will remind me that humankind has always been plagued by these events. Others will caution me that Jesus’ words may be interpreted to apply in different ways and to a different age. Observations and cautions are acknowledged and affirmed. But the second coming of Christ is one belief most Christians agree on.
Two millennia have passed, however, and it hasn’t happened yet. But if a thousand years are as a day with the Lord, then in his timing only two days have passed since the resurrection! Even so, perhaps it’s not surprising we have grown complacent.
Still, we lose something when we cease to expect it. We lose a sense of passion and a sense of urgency. In my grandparents’ home, family members and friends who gathered sometimes sang, “Wait a little longer, please Jesus. There are so many wandering out in sin. Just a little longer, please Jesus, a few more days to get our loved ones in.”
I am not advocating a return to tent revivals and the sawdust trail, but I believe we Virginia Baptists could channel that kind of passion into ministries, church starts, evangelism and discipleship. But so many of us are tired. A few have gotten lazy. Many seem to have ceased expecting anything extraordinary.
In citing on-going tragedies that occur in every generation as signs of the end, perhaps the Lord intended to keep us alert and energized.
So what do we do between now and the time Christ returns? Appealing to another old song, “We’ll work ‘till Jesus comes.” And with that, I come back to the earthquakes.
We Virginia Baptists have opened our hearts and our pockets to those who have been hard hit by these natural disasters. John Upton and others in the mission board have already been in contact with Baptist leaders in Japan to determine how we might help. Needs are still being assessed, but soon requests will come. In anticipation of that time, I urge us to reach again into the storehouse of reserves the Lord has provided us and withdraw a gift of money to send to our Japanese brothers and sisters and those unbelievers they are trying to reach.
Authorities have already issued cautions because groups seeking to scam generous people out of their contributions have already arisen. When you give through the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, you know that your gift is used with integrity and applied only to the purpose for which you gave it.
In the aftermath of this great tragedy, perhaps the Japanese people will observe that Christians, motivated by love and fired by urgency, have been their greatest allies in their struggle to recover.
So, as we live and minister in the context of wars, rumors of wars and earthquakes, let us pray as though Christ were coming tomorrow and plan as though he will wait a thousand years.