What to Expect When You're Expecting … Jesus to Return

Introduction

When I was a kid I more or less fit the compliant first-born stereotype. The mostly obedient kid who ate up the accolades whenever I succeeded at something. Now, I wasn’t a perfect kid. Most of us weren’t. One secret disobedience I indulged in through much of my junior high & high school years was … (please don’t judge me when you hear this!) taking my Walkman to bed with me and listening to baseball games on the radio after I was supposed to be asleep. The original headphones had died and I’d gotten a pair of small wired earbuds (younger friends, these were still sort of new-ish and cool in the mid-to-late 90s, we were still a decade away from iPhone EarPods, not even close to wireless anything!). These earbuds conveniently allowed me to appear entirely asleep with just one earbud in. Had my parents checked in on me and found the Walkman, they would’ve confiscated it and, based on what I recall of confiscations back then, I might never have seen it again. As much as I loved listening to those games, I did so with just a bit of apprehension, a touch of fear that my parents would catch me in the act and I’d lose my Walkman and the joy of baseball.

Sometimes we treat God like a parent in that same way. Jesus might show up when we don’t expect him and we’ll get caught and so we’re kind of nervous and apprehensive and a little afraid. To a large extent, I think we get this as a by-product of our individualistic, introspective culture. We’re conditioned to focus on our self, a unique person separate from everyone else. On top of that we’re conditioned to focus on our self, our gaze turned intently inward. And so thinking about Jesus’ return can produce introspective worry and apprehension.

This anxiety induced by our culture is only exacerbated by certain pop Christian ideas and theologies about the return of Christ. The last 50 years have seen a lot of books, movies, etc, that are frankly designed to profit off of scaring Christians with sensationalized near-horror-genre takes on the return of Jesus. That’s left a scar on the psyche of the Western Church.

We affirm every week that “Christ will come again,” specifically that “he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.” Should that make us afraid or nervous? And furthermore, even if we’re not apprehensive about Jesus’ return, what does waiting and watching mean? Are there certain things we have to do? Anxiety might kick in for some with the questions “Am I doing enough?”, “Am I doing the right things?” and “Am I doing enough of the right things?”

That’s a lot of question marks. To sum them up, we need to know two things: “Should I be afraid of Jesus’ return?” and “How do I know if I’m waiting correctly?”

Today we’re reading Jesus’ own take on his return, in which we’ll find the answers to those questions, dispelling fear and worry and guiding us through confusion or uncertainty. To our question, “Should I be afraid?”, Jesus answers by reminding us who we’re waiting for. To our question, “Am I waiting correctly?”, Jesus provides some actionable description of what waiting looks like. So we’ll focus on those two things now: who we’re waiting for and what waiting looks like.

Who Are We Waiting For?

Our Loving Shepherd-King

In vs 32, Jesus begins with these tender words: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

This title “little flock” emphasizes vulnerability. A flock of sheep is already a group of vulnerable animals; a little flock, even more so. I think Jesus is also expressing a note of tenderness and affection, addressing his followers with this diminutive label.

What words do vulnerable people need to hear more than “Do not be afraid?” “Fear not” is no empty platitude here; the reason we don’t fear is that it’s our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Think about that - God’s kingdom, not grudgingly or stingily parceled out, but given out of God’s good pleasure! It makes God happy to give us the kingdom. So what is the kingdom, so far as Jesus describes it here? In vs 33, the outcome of God’s delightful gift that we can sell everything we have and give the proceeds away. This kingdom here is connected directly to provision. The kingdom is not mere stuff, to be sure! We’ll come back to the how the kingdom affects our relationship to stuff later on, but what’s important here is that God knows our vulnerability, loves us tenderly, and is delighted to give us everything we need.

I wonder how Jesus’ followers might’ve heard these words that day. Addressed as a beloved flock of vulnerable sheep, they were told they didn’t need any earthly wealth because God is delighted to give them everything they need. I wonder how many of those disciples would’ve immediately thought, I’m like a vulnerable sheep, but “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” In the face of my need, “he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.” Though I’m small and vulnerable, “I will fear no evil, … your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” God gives us the kingdom, just like “you prepare a table (a banquet) before me, … you anoint my head with oil,” treating me like I’m a king. There’s a rich consistency here. Jesus isn’t making up something new; he’s providing words of deep and real comfort with the same language, the same imagery, the same beauty that God’s people have used since David (and before)!

Should we fear? Jesus reminds us who God is with words meant to wrap us up in an expression of love that recognizes our vulnerability and fear, hits our awareness of our own need with a glorious promise, and steeps us again in that rich, deep beauty of our ancient connection to our loving Shepherd. But that’s not all…

Our Extravagantly Kind Lord

Verse 35–38 provide another answer to the question, “So who are we waiting for?” These few sentences give us a mini parable about Jesus’ return. Jesus starts with a couple instructions: be dressed for action, keep the lights on. He then tells us about household servants waiting for the head of the household to return from a wedding feast. This is not a couple hours of festivities like weddings today. One adjacent Jewish source specifies seven days of feasting for a new bride and three for a widow remarrying. Think of John 2 where Jesus saves a wedding feast by creating roughly 150 gallons of additional wine. These celebrations were big deals!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the servants have to be constantly ready for their master’s return. They didn’t have a written itinerary, a flight number to track, or a Find My Master app on their phones. Waiting and watching at the ready was the only option. Jesus says, “It’ll be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes.” Some English Bibles say “blessed [or, fortunate] are those servants” and that’s good too. It’s the same word repeated in the Beatitudes (“blessed are the poor in heart,” “blessed are those servants”). It’ll go well, that’d be fortunate, it’ll be happy for them. Exactly how fortunate, though?

Imagine how much energy a week-long wedding party would take out of you. Introverted friends, I’m sorry, you’re excused from this part of the assignment: you don’t have to imagine that if you don’t want to. Now after an event like that, you’re probably going to walk home. Depending on what part of Palestine you lived in then, closer villages in populated areas were a few miles away (an hour or so walk) while less dense areas could require 2-3 hours of walking to get to the nearest village. Maybe this head of household is at a wedding in his own town and only needs 10 minutes to get home; maybe it’s a farther village and he’s got a day’s journey or more. Jesus doesn’t say; that only adds to the mystery of the timing of his return. Now put yourself in his shoes: you’ve just been at a long, potentially exhausting family celebration for days. You’ve walked home. How are you feeling? Me? I’m feeling like it’s unwind time. If I had enough energy, I might empty my suitcase into the laundry hampers or at least try to get it near the laundry room. I want my kids to put themselves to bed. I want some comfy clothes, a drink, a snack, and a spot on the couch. I want time to relax with a comfort show maybe. Look at the middle of vs 37 though! “Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, and will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” The servants have stayed dressed to serve; their lord gets dressed to serve them. They’ve waited for him; now he waits on them.

How extravagant this is! This is a complete and utter upheaval of societal expectations. The extravagant, unexpected, upside-down love of God is on full display right here, right in the very story Jesus uses to call his followers to vigilance and readiness while we await his return. How’s that feel in the face of anxiety and trepidation? We may feel apprehensive, but Jesus’ own words set us up with the expectation: when we watch and wait for him, he returns to exalt us!

To summarize, who are we waiting for? Our shepherd happily prepares a banquet for us sheep and royally anoints us. It delights our loving God to give us the kingdom! Our master will return to upend conventions and to extravagantly, generously make a big deal out of us!

What Does Waiting Look Like?

Let’s briefly revisit each of those metaphors: they each commend some concrete ways to wait.

Faith-filled Resistance to Materialism

Jesus tells us about a Father who delights to give us a kingdom, just like the good Shepherd of old provides for us and treats us like royalty. The application in vs 33 is “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

This is one of those big, bold Jesus instructions (like we’ve seen a few times this summer), that make us pause and ask, “Yeah, but … literally?” How much of our possessions? Alms to whom? And we start nickel-and-diming our Lord’s instruction. “What percentage do we sell? Ten, like a tithe? 30? 75? Everything?” “How do we know the right people to give alms to? Do they need to be worthy? What if they spend the money I give them on drugs?” We create a tornado of inner complexity and whether we mean to or not, we get so caught up in contingencies that we don’t really hear Jesus. If you really need answers to the questions “How much possessions do I sell?” and “Who do I give to?”, start with the answers “more stuff than you think” and “more people than you think.”

Here’s the reality. We currently live in a materially indulgent context. And not everyone in the room has the same amount of material excess. And we go through ups and down as individuals and families. Yes, details, fine. We are force-fed a cultural narrative that wealth is winning. Financial experts and influencers tell us how to live a rich life. All week at work, we are driven to produce - why? So that we can take the money we’re compensated with and consume. When we can sit still long enough, we feel the exhaustion of that hamster wheel. But how do we get off? We have to figure out something! Jesus’ words hit hard here: to wait for his return, to wait for the Father to give us the kingdom necessarily means rejecting the urge to live for earthly treasure. The materialism we live under is, simply put, the dominion of the false god Mammon, and obsessions with productivity, efficiency, consumerism, leisure, and security are just members of Mammon’s enticing entourage. Let me give you some questions to take with you and wrestle with. What does it look like to live in a country that absolutely relies on currency, wealth, economic growth, and stability, without worshipping any of those things? What does it look like for you to have money, but not worship wealth? What does it look like to work hard, but not worship productivity. What does it look like to live in Mammon’s world, but worship Jesus instead? Feel free to get practical with Jesus’ own words. How many possessions do you need to sell to know you’re waiting on the kingdom, not trusting earthly treasure? How many alms do you need to give away to know that you love your neighbor more than you love your stuff?

Ok, deep breath? Yeah, that’s hard. I confess, I’m preaching at me as much as much as anyone else in the room. I know me, and I know places where Mammon has too much pull in my life, and I’m so uncomfortable with Jesus’ words myself. I figure, if I need to hear hard words like that, someone else here might need to as well.

Normal Servant Stuff

Ok, last bit is easier. What else does it look like to wait for Jesus to come back? The mini parable has some things to show us. First of all, let’s think about what was so basic it didn’t need to be explicitly emphasized. What were the servants doing while they waited? “Normal servant stuff.” It’s your job to prepare food? Prepare food so it’s ready whenever your lord returns. It’s your job to sweep the floors? Make sure they’re clean whenever your lord returns. Wash clothes, tend flocks, repair furniture, make the bed? Make sure that’s done when your lord returns. This may seem so obvious it doesn’t need saying (Jesus didn’t need a sentence in his story about any of these details!) but let’s consider it this way: what’s your job right now? Not just a 9-5, but what does God want you to do every day while you’re here waiting and watching? Some of us have a keen sense of purpose and could immediately answer that with a personal mission statement - cool! Others of us may feel like we’re doing the right thing now and that’s all we can keep doing till there’s a different next right thing - also great! Doing what you’re meant to do is waiting correctly. There’s so much variety in this! Some of us are married; some are single. Some work in an office with others; some work at home. Some earn a paycheck; some work without pay. Some parent; some care for elderly relatives; some do both; some do neither. Whatever you’re given to do, that’s your “normal servant stuff.”

So what does it mean to wait correctly? It means to do your “normal servant stuff” well. If you’re curious what “doing that well” means, you ask, “How am I loving God and loving my neighbor in these things?” Those are always valid ethical criteria. Waiting and watching also means not doing those things for their own sake. What do I mean? Routine, repeated, steady, faithful life is awesome! That’s following Jesus and being his disciple; what Peterson calls “long obedience in the same direction.” We repeat faithful behaviors week after week. We come to church and repeat the liturgy and patterns of worship week after week. We repeat our whole calendar (sacred and secular events alike) every year. Repetitive faithfulness is healthy, wise, commendable, and not quite enough! If that were the whole story, it’d be easy to feel like you’re in a rut. Maybe you’ve felt that? Maybe faithfulness sometimes feels less steady and more stuck? We want to wait consistently but does anyone love that feeling of, “Haven’t we walked past that same tree like 3 times already?” This is why we need the perspective of the return of Christ. This isn’t an endless cycle; “normal servant stuff” isn’t meant to be a record that skips. We need to wait for our Lord to return because this story has a climax, a culmination, a conclusion. It’s not looping ad infinitum (or worse, ad nauseum); it’s going somewhere. This isn’t a circle; it’s a spiral. We have both repetition and direction. Liturgy needs apocalyptic hope and apocalyptic hope needs liturgy!

Conclusion

Thank you so much for hanging with me for that. Quick review, OK? The return of Jesus can be a weird tricky thing. It can feel anywhere from scary to nerve-wracking to confusing. We struggle to know how we should feel about his return and how we should wait.

To answer our question, “how should we feel?”, Jesus invites us to rest, to trust in who he, who God is. We’re waiting for a shepherd who loves us to happily give us a kingdom. We’re waiting for a lord to flip the script and honor us when he finds us waiting.

Then, to wait well, Jesus calls us to resist the idolatry of materialism. Since we’re being given a whole kingdom, we need not treasure earthly wealth. Like those household servants, our lord will expect to find us doing our normal servant stuff. In whatever shape our lives are taking right now, we ought to be lovingly and faithfully engaged in our normal routines, without forgetting our hope. All our repeated obedience is aiming toward Jesus’ return, the climax of our story.