The opening lines of the Acts of the Apostles summarizes the last few weeks Jesus spent on Earth from the resurrection to his ascension into heaven. The book narrates the exact moment Jesus had prepared his disciples for – the moment they would have to let go of him. Sad and confused, they must have found hope in the words of the two men dressed in white, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” These words gave them something to look forward to – He would return.
In the Gospel passage we hear another hopeful message, this time spoken by Jesus himself. He promises his disciples to be with them until the end of the age. In these passages we find two important revelations: (1) Jesus will come again. (2) The world will end.
These teachings have always fascinated us humans and have been in people’s minds recently. Many modern-day religious groups have been founded around the idea that the end is very near – including Adventists, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. There are so many misunderstandings regarding Jesus’ Second Coming and the end of the world, especially among Catholics. Unfortunately people are getting their catechesis about the end of the world from the Left Behind Series and preachers who predict the world will end on a specific date. As Catholics, what do we believe about the end of the world?
We believe Jesus will return once and once only at some point in the future. Scripture teaches his return will be public and visible, no one will miss it. It will be announced by a loud trumpet, he will be accompanied by all the angels, and every eye will see him coming on the clouds with great power and glory. We believe that when this happens, the world will end and the final judgment will take place.
At this time, those who have died already (the saved and the damned) will rise from their graves to receive their bodies back. Those who are alive will not experience death, but will immediately receive their immortal bodies and be taken up (or raptured, as Saint Paul calls it) to Christ. The entire human race will be gathered for the Last Judgment where all things, good and bad, will be exposed and revealed. The Earth will pass away and only heaven and hell will remain.
We summarize all this into one line in the creed which we recite every week, “He [Jesus] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”
Scripture gives us signs that will precede the end times – the rise of the anti-Christ, mass defection from the faith, the conversion of all Jews, the Gospel preached to all the world, signs in the sky, natural and man-made disasters. Many try to interpret world events today and link them to Scriptural predictions. But don’t you think early Christians thought the world was ending when in 70AD Jerusalem was destroyed and an estimated one million died? How about Europeans in the 14th century when one-third of them died of the bubonic plague? Scripture does not give us an exact sequence of events or time intervals. The signs described could be more severe in the future still, we just don’t know.
You may have noticed I did not speak of people being left behind, of a tribulation, the re-establishment of Israel and many other things people often associate with the end of times.
The rapture that the Left Behind Series portrays and many fundamentalist Protestants teach today is a 19th century interpretation of the Bible proposed by John Nelson Darby. His interpretation of Scripture goes against centuries of Christian teaching and understanding of the end of times. It’s an interpretation based on a faulty Scriptural analysis. This view speaks of seven periods of history, a tribulation and many other concepts alien to the Christian tradition which have unfortunately been adopted by modern-day Christian and non-Christian groups.
Regardless of when the end times arrive, it is more certain we will meet our own end time. Those who obsess with the end of the world lose precious time and energy that could be spent developing a solid relationship with Christ. Yes, the Lord is coming, but there is no need to panic. The right attitude is found in the prayer I pray at every Mass, “we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.”
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