Robert Harris’ latest book The Second Sleep is set in a time 800 years from a moment of world catastrophe. Civilisation has returned to conditions close to those of the Middle Ages. Christians interpret this as a decisive act of judgement brought about because of humankind’s over dependance on science and technology. History is now moving towards the ultimate healing of the nations.
Harris was formerly a political journalist and in a recent radio interview was asked for his take on on Brexit and events around it. He said that he found the present ‘political narrative’ astonishing, implausible and ‘not easy to satirise’. What interested me more than anything, however, was his comment that something lies behind Brexit that is not clear and that ‘something is coming . . . there is something in the air coming.‘
People have been experiencing feelings like this forever. Good and bad have felt on a personal level that they were ‘walking with destiny’. ‘We can still rise now’ and all that. Whether speaking out of faith in God or some indefinable, irrational conviction the impression that something is about to happen can be strong. Within the Church there have always been men and women who have lived in expectation of immanent ‘revival’ or convinced that the conditions for the return of the Lord have been fulfilled.
Paul pictured this as a day of radical cosmic cleansing when everything that ever made us cry would be swept away, when the birth pains would cease and a New Creation established. From the earliest days this has excited Christians and many have claimed to see signs in their social/political climate that the return of the Lord was immanent. Even in the first century AD in the Christian community in Thessalonika Christians were preparing for this to the extent that work and family life were being neglected. In his letters to them Paul emphasised the importance of personal responsibility in all areas of life, living as people of the Kingdom as they waited for the Kingdom to come.
This does not mean that we should not have our eyes on the end of all things when Jesus will return as Lord of the Universe. This is where the whole of human history is heading. But as Jesus Himself has warned it is not for us to know when this will happen. What is imperative in these waiting times is that we embrace our responsibility to promote and live according to the values that will be established forever when He returns. We are called to live as people who believe that ‘something is happening’ and the final outcome is in the hands of God.
John Wesley was once asked what he would do if he knew the Lord was returning tomorrow. He took out his engagement book, turned up the appropriate page, showed it to his questioner and said: ‘This is what I would do.’ There can be nothing better for us when the Lord returns for him to find us faithfully bearing our witness, carrying out those things we have been called to do.
