Reverse Rapture

This week as my Lectio Divina has focused on Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, verses 42 and 43 have prompted me to ponder whether end times speculation such as popularized in the Left Behind books gets the “rapture” backwards when it suggests the faithful are removed and the wicked left behind. Here in the parable, the weeds (children of the evil one) are taken away and burned and the righteous shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

As I reflected on this, my mind went a little farther to Matthew 24:36-44 where Jesus was answering his disciples’ questions about the end of the age and told them that neither he nor the angels knew the day, but only the Father (v. 36) and that the Son of Man would come at an unexpected hour (v. 44). He made the comparison to the days of Noah when the flood took away the wicked and Noah’s family was left, which introduced Jesus’ observation that one would be taken and the other left, which is often assumed to refer to the “rapture.” If the analogy is applied consistently, the children of the evil one in the Parable of the Weeds are the ones taken to be burned while the righteous will be left to shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 that the Lord will descent from heaven and both those who have died in the Lord and those left alive will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, which is often assumed to relate to the “rapture,” but it lacks any mention of those who are left behind and focuses on being with the Lord forever. Though Paul didn’t say so explicitly, if Jesus is returning to reign in his Kingdom, then it would seem that those who meet him in the air to be with him forever, would return with him to his Kingdom.

Such imagery matches the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. John 12:12-13 says that people in the city heard the Jesus was coming and went out to meet him and accompany him back into the city, which matches an understanding of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, that those who meet Jesus in the air will accompany him back and welcome him as King. Luke 19:41-44 seem to emphasize that people who had been traveling with Jesus breakout into praise as he descends from the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem. This focuses just a little earlier in the events of that day as Jesus weeps over Jerusalem in stark contrast to the cheering crowd accompanying him. Matthew 21:9 and Mark 11:9 seem to bring these two groups together by saying that some followed (those who had been traveling with Jesus) and some went ahead (those who had come out of the city to meet Jesus). If Jesus’ Triumphal Entry is a metaphor or precursor for his return as the Eternal King, the two groups would seem to parallel those who have died and those who are left alive in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

I know my dispensational, pre-millennial friends are rehearsing all of their reasons for understanding the “rapture” the other way around. I grew up in a church in which dispensational, pre-millennialism was the presumptive though not official teaching, and a number of folk (including my parents) were quiet dissenters, though I never got an overview from those folk. I learned that whole schema thoroughly, but I was never able to square it with my own investigation of Scripture. Only when reading more broadly as an adult introduced me to Reformed Theology did I find a way to assemble what was to me a more satisfactory model. In 1991 CRC Publications (Christian Reformed Church) published my high school youth curriculum (student and teacher) based on that theology called Coming Attractions. It is out of print, but I believe a few copies may be available on line.

My point, however, is not to argue with or try to convince my dispensational, pre-millennial friends, but by questioning the direction of the “rapture,” to nourish our spiritual journeys with Jesus. I do not think Jesus intended in either Matthew 13 or 24 to give some sort of chronology of future events, such as might be asked of an Ouija Board, fortune teller, or psychic. In fact, I do not believe that is a legitimate use of any of the Bible’s eschatological material. Nor do I think Jesus is giving a moralistic scolding, “Now don’t you be a weed. You need to be wheat.” At the most obvious level, Jesus is clearly telling us there will be weeds and wheat, and we can leave sorting them out up to God and God’s angels. This much the same message as Psalm 37:1,8,30-40,  “Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrong doers. … Do not fret – it only leads to evil. … The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their refuge in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and rescues them; he rescues them from the wicked.” Paul ended his discourse on the Lord’s return in 1 Thessalonians 4:18 by saying, “Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” Taken together, we are being encouraged not to be anxious or fearful, but to trust that God is at work and with us even (especially) when we are struggling and discouraged.

In Matthew 24:42-44, Jesus encourages us to be awake, watchful, and ready whether conditions suggest expectation or not. I suggest that this is not as much about some checklist of events prerequisite to the Lord’s return as it is about being attentive to God’s presence and activity within and around us. That by the Holy Spirit and informed with Scripture, we can perceive God at work and be encouraged by that whether others see it or not.

I don’t know how intentional the lectionary developers were of the connection between the Parable of the Weeds (with its subtle allusion to “rapture” thinking) and the account of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:10-19a, which they paired in the readings for next Sunday, but the image of Jacob at the base of a ladder with angels ascending and descending evokes something of these “rapture” images of our coming and going with Jesus. Interestingly, there is some textual ambiguity about whether the Lord is at the top of the ladder or alongside Jacob at the base of the ladder. Without delving into the scholarship here, I find the ambiguity intriguing. God is both by our side and at the pinnacle of our spiritual aspirations.

After Jacob awoke, he exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!” … “This is none other than the gate of heaven.” In my meditations this week, the juxtaposition of the Parable of the Weeds and Jacob’s Ladder with the “rapture” reflection, has stimulated my wakeful watchfulness for the presence of God on my journey with Jesus. Whether you agree with my eschatological theology or not, I hope that sharing these reflections with me has also sharpened your awareness of God at work within and around you. Ask yourself, where has the Lord been in the places you have been this week, and maybe didn’t know it? What ordinary places, people, and events have been the very gate of heaven for you this week?

One last word on the word “rapture.” It does not occur anywhere in the Bible (which is why I put it in quotes). That in itself doesn’t mean too much. “Trinity” does not occur in the Bible either. Though there are some antecedents of the concept, the word “rapture” does not show up in Christian theology until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. My sense is that the constellation of biblical allusions akin to the “rapture,” when taken together, are a metaphorical lens through which to recognize both God at work even in the seemingly evil and destructive events of human history and experience, and to participate in what God has given us with hope and joy, even in the face of discouragement and difficulty. I propose considering contemplating the “rapture” as a gate of heaven through which you recognize that God is in the place where you are.