Patience, Rapture Tok & Waiting for God

Sermon from Sunday, September 28 at 9:30am

The Rev. Megan Collins

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You guys. What happened this week?

Christianity has been in the news a lot more over the past few months, but this week was next level. Of all the things on my bingo card for the ways Christians would make the news, Rapture Tok was definitely not on there. Rapture Tok got so big that it made it out of TikTok and onto the front page of the news. For those of you who weren’t a part of that conversation this week, or who are wondering what the rapture even is, let me catch you up. 

The rapture is an idea developed from an interpretation of some things Paul wrote in the letters and some images from the book of Revelation. It became wildly popular with the release of the fictional books in the Left Behind series. The general idea is that there would be this day when believers would suddenly be taken up into heaven, all at once, leaving behind empty cars that crash into each other, homes with dinner still cooking on the stove. What would follow would be this time when everyone who was left here on earth would face a horrible period of torture. 

Do Presbyterians believe in rapture? No. We don’t. We do believe in resurrection, but we don’t believe in left-behind rapture. If you are interested, you can visit the following links:

Presbyterian Outlook

NT Wright on the Rapture

Apparently a few months ago a man in South Africa made a prediction that the rapture would happen on Tuesday or Wednesday of this past week. For some reason it took hold across social media. There were tons of videos of people online preparing to be raptured this week, and some others questioning what was going on. But of all the videos I saw, this one might have been my favorite.  

I’m not saying you can’t believe in the rapture.

I don’t, but you can.

But if you do believe in the rapture, the Bible is very clear that we do not know when Jesus will come back, so predicting the rapture is not a thing.

And if you do believe in the rapture, it is definitely not okay to decide who else you think will make the cut, and then ask someone in your "left behind" column to walk your dog.

But here’s something I have to admit to you. Even though I don’t believe in this left behind rapture theology, I think I have something significant in common with those who do.

I also get impatient with God.

I don’t believe in the rapture, but I do get the impatience. 

If you believe in the rapture (which again, I do not) I can understand how an impatience for God to do something would let you believe that maybe, just maybe, it could happen on Tuesday. 

I’m feeling impatient too, not for a rapture of some select group of people, leaving behind everyone else to suffer, but I am impatient for God to act.  I look at the world, and everything happening in it, all the injustice and violence and just chaos, and I want God to do something about it, like yesterday.  We’re running out of good ideas down here God. We need some help.

Do something. Bring peace. Overthrow evil. Lift up those who are marginalized. Bring justice. Heal the people who are sick. Fix all the problems. 

God, do something, soon. Maybe next Tuesday? 

I know that God’s timing isn’t mine. But I get impatient.

We’re in this series where we are talking about how we come closer to God, as we let ourselves walk in step with Jesus. When we do that, the fruit of the Spirit the letter to the Galatians talks about becomes evident in our lives. When we’re connected closely to God, it shows up in how we live. We’ve talked so far about love and joy and peace, and today’s fruit is patience.

I’m not always a patient person.

Maybe you’re not either.

It’s hard enough to be patient with the people in our lives. It can feel even harder to wait on God. Maybe you know that feeling. Whether it’s all the chaos in our country and in our world, or a personal crisis you are facing, we want God to move, soon. It’s not just the impatience with the daily stuff, the traffic on the way to work, waiting on the person in front of you in line that breaks us. It’s those deeper questions: ‘God, where are you?’ When are you going to do something?” So what do we do when God seems slow? How do we have patience for God?

Here’s the good (or maybe not good) news, depending on how you hear it.

The Bible, from start to finish, is a story about people waiting on God. 

This problem is not new to us. 

Exodus 16:35 “The Israelites ate manna forty years . . . until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.”

In Exodus, the people of God are held captive in slavery. God frees them in this miraculous story where the seas part on both sides and they walk through on dry land. But then they are wandering out in the desert, and they start to complain. It’s hot. They’re hungry. They’re tired. God does this provide them with this food, manna, to eat everyday. But they waited on God for 40 years.

Isaiah 9:6-7 “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders . . . Great will be his authority, and there shall be endless peace . . .”

The people of God in Isaiah are waiting for the Messiah to come, the one who they believed would make everything right. 

Luke 1:30-33 "But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

The long awaited Messiah is finally coming. But first Mary will have to wait 40 weeks for this baby to be born. 

Luke 2:52 “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.”

Jesus is born but now they have to wait for him to grow up. Can you imagine? The one who you have been told will save the whole world now lives down the street from you. But you have to wait like 30 years for him to grow up enough to do it. 

Luke 23:55-56 “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.”

Jesus had grown up and healed and taught and done miraculous things. But then he died. They know he has said he will rise again. But they have to wait. 

2 Peter 3:8-9 “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.”

The early church believed Jesus when he said he would come back again. But they thought it would likely be within their lifetimes. But as time went on they began to realize it might not be as soon as they thought.  

The Bible is a story about waiting for God.

We are still waiting on God. 

So how do we wait with patience?

Well, the Israelites complained a lot in the wilderness, but slowly, they began to learn what it meant to trust God one day at a time. When God gave them manna, it was just enough for today. The only way to survive was to trust that God would show up again tomorrow. Maybe that’s what waiting patiently looks like for you right now. Maybe it’s taking what God has given you for today, even if it feels small.

As the Israelites waited, they also held onto hope, that one day, they’d reach the Promised Land, and it would be a place of justice and freedom, of all the things they have been longing for.  Maybe that’s what waiting patiently looks like for us too, holding onto hope that God is still leading us toward something better, that God's future includes justice, not just for you, but for those the world keeps leaving behind, or pushing aside.

It reminds me of the old hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” where is says we have “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”  You can wait patiently for God, even when things are difficult, by seeing what God has provided for you today, while also believing there is something better coming. Today God is giving you some mushy bread in the wilderness, but God hasn’t stopped working on a better future.

We trust God’s provision for today and hold onto hope for tomorrow. 

Now, waiting patiently doesn’t mean doing nothing until things change. One of the ways we keep from growing impatient is by doing something in the meantime. Think about the women at the tomb. Jesus had died. The one they thought would change everything was gone. But what did they do? They didn’t give up.They didn’t run away. They didn’t rot on the couch. They prepared the spices. They did what they knew to do, the one thing they could do, even when it felt like God wasn’t there. 

Sometimes the way you are patient with God is just doing what God has already asked you to do. So you continue to pray, even when God feels silent. You can show up for the people around you, especially the ones who are hurting. You keep serving, even when no one notices.You  love loud in a world where that’s not often popular. For those of us who struggle with patience, this gives us something to do. We keep moving, because if “God’s not done yet, so neither am I.” Your faithfulness today is working toward that future God is preparing, that one you are waiting on.  Do the next faithful thing.

I know that patience is hard. It does not come naturally to us. In Psalm 13, it starts out:

Psalm 13:1 “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” How long must I wrestle with my thoughts   and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?

I love this. This is us! How long, O Lord! Will you forget me? Are you hiding from me? How long are you going to leave me here with my own thoughts? With how sad I feel? How long will these enemies in the world seem to win? But look at what it says just a few verse later:

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;    my heart rejoices in your salvation.

But I trust.

Perhaps the three hardest words in the Psalms.

I am impatient with you, God. But I trust in you, and in your love.

This is really the root of what it takes for us to be patient.

You trust in God. You trust that God is doing something, even when you can’t see it. You trust that God will fulfill all the promises. You trust that God has not forgotten you. 

And you don’t have to do that alone.

The Israelites had to wait 40 years. That’s so long. But they didn’t have to wait on God alone. They had each other. They prayed, and worshiped and argued and complained, but they did it all together. That’s something we see throughout the texts we looked at today. 

When Mary learned she was pregnant with the Messiah, her first instinct wasn’t to wait it out alone, it was to go be with someone who would understand. She traveled to see Elizabeth. 

In the early church, after Jesus ascended, the people didn’t scatter, they gathered together. Acts tells us they were constantly together.

We don’t wait on God alone. We wait together. We help each other be patient. 

That’s part of what the church is for. This is where you bring your impatience. Maybe you’re growing impatient with God as you see everything awful happening out there in the world, and you’re losing faith that God is going to do something. Maybe you have been waiting for God to show up in your life in a specific way, but it’s hard right now. You don’t have to carry any of that alone. The only way to really wait on God with patience is to wait together. You can bring all of that, here. 

So… will the world end next Tuesday? Or the Tuesday after that? 

Who knows? But I don’t think so.

But I guess I do get why some people are hoping for it.

I get the longing for God to just step in and fix it all.

But most of the time, that’s not how God moves.

Most of the time, God doesn’t show up in the sky with trumpets, but in fumbled prayers and taking one next faithful step and in a community of people who trust that even when it feels like nothing’s happening, God is still working. Because we’re not a Left Behind people here.

We are the people who stay together.

We stay present and faithful and We have this really stubborn love for this world God gave us. Maybe that’s the real invitation of this fruit of the Spirit, of patience.

Not just to wait for God to do something big, but to recognize that God already is.

Even now.

Even here.

Even in us.