At church this morning, the pastor preached on Matthew 24:42. In the
King James Version, this passage states: “Watch therefore: for ye know
not what hour your Lord doth come.” The pastor noted, however, that the
word often translated as “Watch” is translated differently in some
versions. For example, the New Revised Standard Version has: “Keep
awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
The pastor was saying that watching or keeping awake is intended to
be something positive. Jesus’ second coming, after all, is something
that’s positive, in that it brings about forgiveness and renewal. When
we watch, the pastor was saying, we’re like kids, eagerly anticipating
Christmas and the presents that we will get.
I’m rather ambivalent when it comes to the topic of the Second Coming
of Christ. On the one hand, I definitely realize that this world is in
need of renewal—-and end to poverty, environmental devastation, war,
natural disasters, exploitation of others, and the list goes on. On the
other hand, I tend to recoil from certain tendencies that often
accompany a belief in the Second Coming of Christ: belief that most
people in the world are deceived and will suffer God’s wrath,
discouragement of people from participating in politics on the basis of
the idea that this world is bad and only Christ’s coming will solve
problems, the spiritual stress the concept places on me to get my
spiritual act together right now, etc.