Monday, December 6, 2010

God's Airplane (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

Delivered in Trinity Chapel, 12/6/10


Way back when, before I aspired to go to seminary, before God called me to do all this, I had a relative who had gone to Princeton Theological Seminary! My brother and I had dinner with him, and we got to bombard him with questions about religion. My brother asked the ever-popular “Is Jesus the only way to God” question.


Let's call my seminary graduate Jack. Jack smiled and told us this analogy. You've probably heard it before. There's a mountain, and God is at the top, and we're all on the mountain, climbing to the top, and each one of us sees that his path gets to the top, and we look over and we see someone else climbing on their own path, and we shout over, hey! My path gets to the top! Come on over! But the other fellow says, I can see the top from here, too. So, the conclusion is that all paths lead to the top of the mountain. Brilliant! Case closed!


Of course, now that I have been to seminary myself, some questions come up, like HOW DOES HE KNOW? In order for him to make that statement that all paths lead to the top of the mountain, he would have to have a big picture view of the mountain. That means that he is not on the mountain himself. He has placed himself over the mountain in an airplane looking down.


He got this airplane from a seminary professor who got it from his own professor and all the way back to some guy who decided that all roads led to God and he needed to come up with an analogy, so he made up the story about the mountain. Now, am I knocking the airplane philosophy? Not at all. Philosophy should always pull back to see the big picture, but listen what Paul is saying in first Thessalonians 5. We have our own airplane. This Bible.


Paul's message today is about Advent and the Day of the Lord Coming. How is the day of the Lord coming? Like a thief in the night. That's the new testament spin on the old testament day of the Lord theme. Jesus says it, Paul says it. The day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night. Do we believe this? Yes. Do we know when this going to happen? No. Do we know the time or the season? No. Do we know the chronos or the kairos? No. Does the Son know? No. Are we going to be taken by surprise? No!


This is where our airplane kicks in. We may not know the time but we know that it IS GOING TO HAPPEN. That's more than a lot of people know. The people who ARE going to be taken by surprise. And we know HOW it is going to happen. Like a thief in the night. Jack has a faulty airplane, a seminary professor, nothing against seminary professors, but WE have a well-crafted airplane, one that gives us an excellent view of the lay of the land. We have the Bible, but we can't just fly this plane all willy nilly. We can't pick and choose verses out of context. That's not flying the airplane right. We can't get a good big picture that way. Remember, context is king, or “king and queen” as my ESV footnote says. We keep the context and we're flying the plane right.


Here's a great example, because it's Advent and this is another day of the Lord reference. Matthew 24: Jesus tells about two men in the field. One is taken and the other is . . . left behind, eh? Two women grinding at the mill. One is taken and the other is . . . left behind! Ooh. It's the rapture! Look out! Don't want to get left behind! Wait a second. If we look at the context, if we jump back a few verses, we hear Jesus say the day of the Lord will be like the days of Noah, when people were just going about their business, getting married and having babies, and then the flood came and swept them all away. Context! This ain't the rapture. You WANT to get left behind in this scenario. This is the chaff being blown away and the wheat remaining. Left behind is GOOD. Guess we have to rewrite the novels.


God has given us an amazing airplane, and when we leave Ambridge, PA as I am doing in 29 days, 2 hours, and forty six minutes, we are going to encounter a lot of people who are just cruising around in the darkness, asleep as Paul says, not knowing that the Day of the Lord is coming at all, and we're also going to encounter people who have studied, and studied hard, and they are preaching the rapture, or they are preaching that all roads lead to the top of the mountain.


It's going to be tough. Pray for me, and I'll pray for you, too. Use this airplane to the fullest. It has its own mountain philosophy, you know. What does the Bible say about the mountain? Here's Christianity's take. NONE of the paths leads to the top of the mountain—NOT ONE! Ours is a God who descends from the mountain, picks us up and brings us to the top. Ours is a God who sacrifices his only Son on a cross, so that we can live forever with him. The cross is kinda shaped like an airplane, too.


AMEN.