Are we sufficiently embarrassed enough, yet? Can we please stop with the cockamamie predictions as to when Jesus will return? “Judgment Day” has come and gone without so much as a tremor. Harold Camping, the driving force behind the May 21st prediction, may very well be a Christian brother, but this nonsense of trying to predict the return of Christ has to stop. This wasn’t his first foray into naming the day of the rapture. He tried, and obviously failed, back in 1994 to do the same thing. Apparently being wrong once on something of this magnitude wasn’t enough. The axiom “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” DOES NOT APPLY in this type of situation. Perhaps, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” would be more appropriate. How many people bought into this madness and are now not only facing international derision, but are penniless because they sold everything for “the cause?”
The Bible is clear when Jesus said, “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.”[1] If no one knows, or can know, the time of the return then why this futile exercise of prediction? Are we, as believers, so bored with God’s call to make a difference in the lives of people around us that we have to delve into the ridiculous? Consider the emphasis of this little adventure. It was the classic “Jesus is coming and boy is He angry!” Scaring people into a relationship with God is not the answer.
Jesus did not come to coerce people into a relationship with God through fear; He came to love and to serve. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” ever heard that one before?[2] How about, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”[3] Or maybe, “The Lord is not slow about His promise (to return), as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance?”[4]
Are we supposed to be watching and ready for Jesus return? Of course! Should we be eagerly waiting the day when He comes back? You bet! I certainly am! But our expectation should not become a circus side show that detracts from the important work before us; the work of loving our neighbor and sharing the good news that God loves us all and has made a way to know Him personally and intimately through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.