meeting the Lord

It is a not unknown counterargument to the modern doctrine of the rapture to point out the precise first-century meaning of the Greek word apantesis, "meeting", in the context of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Even so, recent reflection on this text in light of my experience of certain African cultural practices of hospitality would seem to bolster just that scholarly counterargument.

The doctrine of the rapture, a sudden snatching away of believers to heaven to escape the destruction of the earth, is extrapolated from Paul's assurance to the Thessalonians that "we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Th 4:17).   In the immediate background to this verse are "the dead in Christ"; those living, those remaining, those "left" are left in relation to those who have died.  Paul wants the living not to be "uninformed about those who have died, so that [they] may not grieve as others do who have no hope" (4:13).  Thus Paul informs the Thessalonians that their dead in Christ "will rise first", that is, just before or as the living "are caught up in the clouds with them" at the Lord's coming.  Together, the living and the dead in Christ will "meet the Lord in the air."  The Greek word apantesis which the NRSV translates as a verb, "meet", is actually a noun--the living and the dead in Christ will be "caught up . . . into a meeting of the Lord in the air" (4:17).  

The critical point is that Paul has appropriated apantesis, a word from the realm of politics, to describe in anticipation the scene at the coming of the resurrected Jesus.  Just as a delegation of representatives ventured outside their city to welcome an approaching dignitary in the Greek world of the first century, just as they held an apantesis with the king as he was coming, so the living and the dead in Christ will have "a meeting with the Lord in the air" as he "descends from heaven" (4:16).  As the initial reception of the king took place outside the gates of the city to which he was coming, so believers will welcome their Lord "in the air", in the middle zone between departure and destination.  For indeed, just as the purpose of an entourage is to accompany the dignitary to his destination, so believers will not remain with their Lord "in the air".  The middle space is but the point of reception; the goal is to bring the king into his city.

As I prepare a lesson on this text for teaching on eschatology to African church leaders, I am reminded of the welcome we and a group of American church visitors received from a rural African church last month.  Like the first-century delegation coming out to meet the arriving king, so these African Christians lined our pathway outside the gates of the homestead and church premises.  Moreover, just as 1 Thessalonians paints the scene of the Lord's coming with shouts, calls, and trumpets, so we too were met with singing and instrumentation (in this case, drumming).  Of course, the point of all this was not to remain with us outside the gate, never to enter the house; the inhabitants of this village were welcoming us in order to bring us in. Inside a banquet was prepared for us.

If therefore, both the first-century practice of apantesis and an African way of "meeting" in the 21st century shed light on the New Testament's description of the Lord's coming, then an escape of believers to their Lord before the earth's cataclysmic destruction seems not to be the stuff of Christian hope.  Rather, that hope which is truly Christian "catches us up" in making our world a place in which the Lord is pleased to dwell when he comes.

-Joe

joy in the judgment

Today I've been studying Ecclesiastes 3:16-22 in preparation for an upcoming lesson.

In this passage, Qoholeth, the "Teacher" of Ecclesiastes (1:1), ruminates on the fate of human beings.  The teacher does not believe in life after death.  The teacher does not share the voice of Isaiah, that those who die in the Lord "shall live, their corpses shall rise" (Isa 26:19), nor the hope of Daniel that "many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and contempt" (Dan 12:2).  Far from these rare affirmations of resurrection in the prophetic and apocalyptic literature of the Old Testament, the wisdom of Ecclesiastes is that human beings "are but animals" (3:18).  Humans and animals share the same "fate"; they are one in spirit (or breath) and flesh ("dust") (3:19).  Perhaps in rebuttal of a more optimistic view of human destiny, the teacher sees little reason to hope that "the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward" (3:21).  His summary is that "all go to one place" (3:20).

If the teacher's conclusion on the fate of humans and animals was that they die to "one" and the same "place", it was his vexation that "in the place of judgment, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there" (3:16) that led him to that conclusion.  The troubling proposition of the one and same place of judgment (or "justice", Hebrew mishpat) and wickedness, of good and evil, of saints and sinners, leads him to "the one place" of humans and animals.  Because wickedness flourishes in the place of righteous judgment,  in death humans go to the same place as animals.  In the teacher's mind, the reality of the one place of wickedness and righteousness is somehow related to the one place of humans and animals.

What is the relation?  In the teacher's mind, the one place of death follows from the same place of justice and wickedness because "God will judge the righteous and the wicked" (3:17).  The teacher, far from having abandoned hope, clings to faith in the judgment of God.  The wicked's standing, not falling, in the place of judgment, would seem to be evidence of the injustice and impotence of the world's Creator--if but for one equally conspicuous phenomenon.  For, just as the teacher has observed that it is common for the wicked to sit in the judgment seat, lording it over the just, he has observed that all human beings--righteous and wicked--die with the animals.  Just as surely as, in death, "humans have no advantage over the animals", so the wicked, by fact of their humanity, have no advantage over the righteous. Because of the animals, the place of judgment is not in the end overrun by wickedness; the witness of the animals suggests that a righteous God will yet pull the wicked from their thrones.

Consequently, while the perspective of the teacher is not exactly resurrection hope, it is nonetheless biblical faith. If the teacher could not affirm as much as Isaiah and Daniel, Paul and, of course, Jesus (“I am the Resurrection”) (Jn 11:25), he does, like them, “entrust himself to the one who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23). Such trust, moreover, commends a distinctive course of living. For Jesus, trusting God for judgment sealed his own perseverance in love that refuses to return violence for violence. Paul, confident in God's vindication of the righteous through the resurrection of Jesus, counseled the Corinthians to “be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58). The teacher wrote that “there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot” (3:22). Unless we view enjoyment of the work that God has given us to do as evidence of selfishness (as though working for God should not bring us happiness), the teacher's course of action is a welcome contribution to the biblical canon. Joy in our living is not the sign of self-satisfaction but of our justification by faith in God.

-Joe