Living in Hope: Christ’s Return

It was 1971. I was standing in the backyard of a home and gazing into the sky. For a moment, I was caught up and saw a tear; as if the clouds were but a veil that kept me from peering into the heavens.  Out from that opening, the Son of God came forth, and the opening widened as I saw a host of angels follow Him out of those eternal reaches where men could never venture unless taken there, either by death or blessed rapture.

It is with that memory in mind, I share with you what the Reverend Edward Payson described as he imagined that blessed moment when Christ returns. Reverend Payson wrote this for a sermon that he preached to his congregation in Portland, Maine, around the middle of the 19^th century. Please grant me Father the liberty to paraphrase for the sake of those who may read this today. I am sure that Reverend Payson is by your side and you can mention my intentions to him for you are the God of the living; not the dead.

“Look at that point, as Christ’s disciples did when Jesus ascended into the far away ethereal regions, where it was that their Savior disappeared. Now, at that same point, imagine an uncommon, but faint and undefined brightness just beginning to appear. You notice this scene has caught the roving eye of another, and it excited his curiosity. He points it out to a second, and a third person, and soon a little circle gathers; each person sharing with the other what they think it is that they are seeing. Other circles of people form, and similar opinions are offered, in a thousand different locations of the world.  But in all instances, their conjecture would soon give way to certainty—awful, appalling, overwhelming certainty.  While they gaze, whatever it is that excited their curiosity rapidly approaches, and the light inherent in this sighting rapidly brightens. Some begin to suspect what it is, but no one dares to say.  Meanwhile the light of the sun begins to fade before the superior brightness of this sighting. Thousands see their shadows cast in a different direction, and thousands  of others; who had not looked up before, do so now to discover the cause. They all see it clearly. Some have a renewed hope; others fear.  Those who followed Christ, and  who had long been afflicted and persecuted, begin to hope that the predicted, long expected day of their deliverance had arrived.  

The wicked, careless and unbelieving begin to fear that the Bible is about to prove no idle story or tale.  And now fiery shapes, moving like streams of lightening, begin to appear indistinctly amidst the bright dazzling cloud. The cloud descends; rushing down as if on the wings of a whirlwind. Soon, the cloud reaches its destination, pauses; then suddenly unfolding, a great white throne is revealed where sits, starry resplendent and in all the glories of the Godhead, the man Christ Jesus.  Every eye sees him; every heart knows him. Too well do the wicked, unprepared inhabitants of earth know what to expect; and one universal shriek of anguish and despair rises to heaven, and is echoed back to earth. But louder, far louder than the universal cry, now sounds the last trumpet; and far above all, is heard the voice of the Omnipotent God; summoning the dead to arise, and to come to judgment. New terrors now assail the living. On every side, even under their very feet, the earth heaves; as if in convulsions; graves open, and the dead come forth. At the same moment, a change equal to that occasioned by death is affected by Almighty power on the bodies of the living. Saint and sinner mortal bodies put on the immortal, and are thus prepared to sustain a weight of glory for those Whom He knows, or a weight of desolation for those He knows not, which flesh and blood could not endure. Meanwhile, legions of angels are seen, darting from pole to pole, gathering together the faithful servants of Christ from the four winds of heaven, and bearing them aloft to meet the Lord in the air. There, he places them at his right hand side in preparation for his sentence, which is to award them eternal life. Such, my brethren, is the scene that you will one day witness.”