I hate Tax Day. Every year, it stresses me out. I'm always just gritting my teeth to find out how much I owe this year. Even after I discover just how bad the damage is, it's a relief, because at least the anticipation is over. Once April 15 comes and goes, I breathe a bit easier.
This year, at least there was something a little out of the ordinary to add some interest to what is usually a pretty rotten day. That night, for those of us intrepid enough to be awake, there was a blood moon. Of course, here in western Pennsylvania, most of it was obscured by clouds. But it was up there, if you kept your eyes open. My wife even got a couple little snapshots of it, mostly shrouded, but recognizable. Unfortunately we don't have a camera with a proper telephoto lens, so it ended up looking like a tiny, orange-ish LED on something electronic. Still, I appreciated the effort. As for me, I was tired, and I knew about the clouds, so I stayed in bed. I thought it was great that my wife was interested enough to stay awake, though. She never does that, normally.
It's always fascinating when God arranges for something unusual to happen up there in the heavens. Most days roll into the next day, and the next, with little variation. There's a sameness about it all that can feel tedious--especially when part of the sameness is a world that is torn by wars, violence, murders, and nations raging against the sovereignty and goodness of God. Even the U.S. seems to be practicing its impersonation of a Psalm 2 nation. In the midst of the tedium and the darkness, a change--any change--is good. So when a sign in the heavens appears, people take note, and hope.
Of course, the blood moon phenomenon carries particular fascination with evangelical Christians. Most of us Joel 2:31 somewhere in the back of our psyches..."The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Powerful stuff, right? That's why evangelicals get a little excited when there's a blood moon. Coupled with the phenomenon itself is the double-whammy: when blood moon tetrads (four of them) happen on Jewish holy days. Historically, that has happened almost never. Only eight times in the last two millennia, if I remember correctly. On the few times when it has, something really momentous has happened in the life of the Jewish people. In 1492, for example, Ferdinand and Isabella issued an edict expelling all Jews from Spain. A tetrad of blood moons also happened in 1948, which is when God regathered the nation of Israel again for the first time in almost two thousand years. The phenomenon happened again in 1967, which is when God give Israel the victory in the Six Day War. So you see, the correlation is a little spooky. John Hagee, and other prophecy experts, predict that something major will happen over the next two years as this tetrad covers four Jewish holy days. Implicit in the tantalizing prospect is the question: "will the Lord come again?" So there's been considerable buzz about this.
Along with the buzz has come the disdain, of course--and it may surprise you that it doesn't just come from secular voices. Among evangelical clergy and theologians, it has become trendy to pooh-pooh any excitement over Jesus' imminent return. Many of them are rejecting the rapture and the Millennial, earthly reign of Christ, which I consider to be sad and misguided. But I won't delve into that here...that's a whole other article, or series of them. The part of the disdain I want to focus on for our purposes is a rant that goes along these lines: These Christians that are obsessed about blood moons and the end times are enemies of the Gospel. They just want the Lord to return and spare them the responsibility of reaching the world for Christ. That particular rant is often parroted to the point of being overplayed. It's getting old, really--even older than the prophecy programs that really do jump to far too many conclusions. At least those are upbeat...the trendy end-times naysayers just negate, and that's very tiring to listen to.
Don't get me wrong; there's a needed caution within the anti--end-times-exuberance of the eschatological Ebenezers. (I saw a chance at alliteration, and I went for it.) There really is a big problem with the idea that Christianity consists of 1) pray the salvation prayer and get baptized; and 2) sit in a church pew, sing hymns, and watch for prophetic signs until Jesus comes back to rescue us from all these sinful people. That's unrepentant sin, as it is a willful disobedience of the one, big job Jesus gave us before He ascended: the Great Commission. Remember the Parable of the Talents? The master gave his servants funds that, while he was away, they were to put to good use. Remember what happened to the guy who did nothing--who buried his trust money in a handkerchief? None of us want to be that guy.
So, sensible precaution, granted. We get it. Aside from that, I really believe that the trendy, anti-end times-exuberance police are missing the point. They paint the motivations of us all with too broad a brush in assuming that everyone that gets pumped about blood moons is a Gospel-slacker. For one thing, being vigilant about the quickly-advancing return of Christ has historically not served as a wet blanket for evangelism; just the opposite. If we have any love for people at all (and how can you actually know God and not love people--1 John 4:7-8), prophecy fulfilled is a reminder that we're on a deadline! It's getting closer all the time! Prophecy spurs evangelistic fervor, instead of dampening it! Furthermore, we watch for His returning because....He told us to. If you haven't done so lately, I'd encourage you to read the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25:1-13. The closing verse has Jesus giving us the moral of the story: "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour." Vigilance about Christ's return is simply a matter of obedience--as long as that vigilance doesn't detract from our other obedience to the Great Commission. So the next time someone rolls their eyes at you in response to your eager watchfulness, I encourage you to remember that our job isn't to be fashionably cynical, or to impress those who are; it's to be obedient. Keep watch.
Here is another reason, however, that watching the signs of the times is a perfectly natural, and healthy, thing to do for Christians. It's not that we don't love people; it's that we really, really want to see God. Let me give you one of those $100 words that we're taught in seminary. Don't worry, there won't be a quiz. The word is: theophany. Theophany is a fancy word for an exciting event: when God breaks through into human history. Historically, God sometimes determines that the best route is to cut out the middle-man and come to us directly. When God spoke to Moses out of a burning bush, that was theophany. The biggest example was when Jesus was born in human form of a virgin and lived among us. MAJOR theophany. These are the stories in the Bible that fill us with wonder and awe. Just think of it; how powerful those encounters must have been! The Red Sea parts. God leads His people by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. How can anyone not thrill at the idea?
On the other hand, the fact is, God hasn't done that in, well, quite awhile. Jesus died, rose again, and ascended to the Father. The Holy Spirit came upon the Church in flames of fire on the day of Pentecost. He did pretty amazing things throughout the New Testament. We live in a time, however, when it seems like God hasn't broken through to human history in quite some time. This links us back to what we were discussing earlier: the world seems a mighty dark place. Wars, violence, murder, persecution against Christians...all of this amounts to a heavy weight that Christians feel deep in their souls. The church in the Western world, furthermore, seems to be dwindling. Church attendance is down everywhere. Most churches are plateauing or declining. Dare I ask it?--do we fight with a temptation to feel that the Gospel is actually losing in our culture? If this is the weight we carry around in our souls, it's no wonder that many of us really want God to break through. We're tired. We're lonely. We're sad. We feel lost. We just want some assurance that the Lord is still there, and that He's still on His throne. We desperately want Him to come and save this wretched world from itself.
Do you know what's wrong with that desire? Nothing.
Still, I'd like to gently suggest there are some things we might be missing, and it might be because we just aren't looking in the right places. Maybe it's hard for us to see it, since we spend so much time in our self-made boxes of wood, steel, concrete, glass, and drywall. The truth, however, is that there are plenty of signs that God is right here with us. Think with me on the words of Psalm 19:1-4...
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
and their words to all the world. (NLT)
As you know, I didn't grow up around here. I come from the Land of Flat. That said, western Pennsylvania still blows me away, even though I've been here awhile. I sometimes ask myself whether you guys experience what I do when I'm outside. When you see the huge hills covered in green timber...when there's a morning mist wisping among the trees, and a river sparkling down there at the bottom of a ravine...does it still seem like magic to you? It sure does to me. Of course "magic" isn't the right word--"miracle" is better. Remember Dr. Suess' famous book, Horton Hears a Who? The people on the little micro-world were saved from oblivion by shouting in unison, "WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!" Also, this beautiful world that God has made practically yells itself hoarse glorifying God, day in and day out. He designed it to do that. He knew that we would feel lonely and frightened sometimes. He knew that, as a toddler anxiously scans the room to make sure that daddy is still in view--that he is safe--we would need that reminder that God is still in charge. So He made a good world for us. He filled it with heart-stopping beauty, just so that we would have no doubt that a miracle-working Father created, and sustains, this masterpiece of His. There's no way that a world like this just happened to happen. And it's not like He finished the work, signed it, and walked away. No, this is a work of art that requires constant, creative power just to continue existing. It's a work in progress, in fact, and it is Christ's own creative power that keeps it spinning. As Colossians 1:17 reminds us, "He holds all creation together." So you see, every day is theophany, when you think about it. Every bird that sings, every sun that sets--God made that happen, just then. There's your Abba gently saying, "I'm right here, my son. I'm here, my daughter."
More significant than the theophany that is daily happening around you is the theophany that constantly happens in you. We picture God the Father sitting up there on His Throne, and Jesus, God the Son, sitting at His right hand. We know He will come back for us someday, but we get stuck in Acts 1 mode. We scan the skies, waiting for Him to come back. We track global earthquake frequency. We stay up to the wee hours to catch glimpses of a blood moon. Like I said earlier, there's nothing wrong with this, so long as the motives are right. In all this watching for His return, however, we lose sight of the fact that He is also here. We get stuck in Acts 1, forgetting to turn to Acts 2. It was never Jesus' plan to leave us hanging, alone, waiting forlornly at the train station for Him to come and take us home. When He started talking more and more about "leaving," His disciples started to get scared, and sad. He hastened to tell them that He wouldn't be leaving in the way they thought. He would never truly leave them alone. In John 14:18-19 He reassures them: "No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me." (NLT) The wonderful thing about God's love is that He knows it is not good for us to be alone. He loves us, and wants to be with us, more than we're even able to suspect. Even at the time of Jesus' departure, He made this promise: "...be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (NLT) In John 14, Jesus was describing how He would keep His promise, even though He would ascend. We wouldn't be orphans. He didn't want our hearts to be troubled (vs.1). Instead He laid out the arrangements already made so that they would continue to experience theophany all day, every day: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you." (vs. 16-17, NLT) "Later," of course, means the Day of Pentecost. That promise was fulfilled long ago. If we walk with the Lord, we now have the full blessing of the permanently-indwelling Holy Spirit.
Even while we wait for the return of God the Son, we should never feel that we have been left alone in a big, evil, scary culture. So, why do we? We, of all people, should be the last ones to lament, "where is God?" Those are the world's lines, according to Jesus. A lost world has no frame of reference for experiencing a God who is here with us, now and always. They are missing the spring of living water, welling up to eternal life. They do not have the Holy Spirit abiding 24-7 in their souls, breaking through into their personal stories every day. It's understandable for them to feel lost and alone. It does not make sense for us, however. Again, why do we feel like that? The answer is that we do not listen. We do not walk with Him as we ought. It is no wonder that we feel God is nowhere to be found if the sum total of our relationship with Him is to spend a couple of hours singing hymns and listening to someone preach on a Sunday. Too many of us sing about Him, and listen to someone talk about Him, yet never taking the time to get to know Him, to experience Him, for ourselves. Let's be honest: it's not likely that we will, either, unless we take a critical look at how we are living. Every waking second, we fill our time, our minds, and our ears with so many distractions. Not to say that we shouldn't be about our responsibilities, but all of those things can and must flow from the friendship, strength, and center that we experience as we talk to Him and listen, really listen, to Him as He speaks to us from His living and active Word. He doesn't want you to be alone, so He gave you brothers and sisters in the church to listen to, pray for, and support you. In fact, He sometimes comes to you through them. If you do not make the time to live with your Christian family in authentic community, you will feel needlessly alone. If all you are and do does not proceed from that center, you will feel just like the orphan that Jesus pointedly does not want you to be. God's perceived absence is not His fault.
Will this particular series of blood moons usher in the return of Christ? Wouldn't it be fantastic? But the answer is the same as it's always been. Maybe, maybe not. I'm in the same boat as you. I get tired, and burdened, and I really want Him to come and take me home with Him. There's nothing wrong, or unscriptural, about being vigilant, watching the signs, yearning for theophany. If this doesn't turn out to be "the big one," however, I don't want you to get all downhearted. In a real way, you don't need to wait for God to break through into your personal history; He is already right there, with you. He never left you to begin with. His Holy Spirit is a seal upon your heart, an inner beacon which constantly whispers, "I am here, and you are my child" -- if only you will listen. In the meantime, you and I have a job to do. There are plenty of people that you see, every day, that ARE orphans, lost and alone. God put you where you are so that you can reach out your hand to them and say, "come home with me." He put you there to love them home.
And if this tetrad of blood moons doesn't turn out to be THE time, you and I can still be very much encouraged and hopeful. I definitely take them as a sign. At the very LEAST I take them as God's message and sign to His children. The message goes, "I haven't forgotten my promise, no matter how it may seem to you. I'm trying to get as many to come home as possible; I don't want anyone left alone. But I will come, when the time is right. And it will be soon."
"The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief." -- 2 Peter 3:9-10 (NLT)
