Last week, before Easter, I , professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the 麻豆传媒映画School of Theology: Why do Christians, who commemorated Jesus鈥檚 crucifixion and resurrection last weekend, await a second coming?
Why didn鈥檛 the Christian messiah get it right the first time?
Maier met my impertinence with a thoughtful expression of what Jesus鈥檚 teachings mean 鈥� and how they can be interpreted differently by different Christians.
First of all, he says, the idea of messianic arrival common in Judaism and some other traditions does not necessarily translate the same to the Christian model. There are, he says, two significant streams in Christianity that differ on the meaning of the coming 鈥� and even on its definition.
鈥淵ou might say that heaven on earth arrives when you practise Jesus鈥檚 ethics 鈥� love of neighbour, caring for the poor and so on 鈥� so that the whole tradition of messianic promise as represented by Jesus is not the kind of militaristic model that you might be able to find in the Hebrew Bible,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a completely different sort of understanding that is centred in a particular kind of ethics.鈥�
Maier cites Martin Luther King, whose argument was that the way to overcome racial violence is not by responding with violence but rather to resist non-violently and, if people resist non-violently, that will result in a transformation of the world.
But, I ask, does that mean that, when Jesus returns, everyone will live in a state of heaven on earth, or does it mean that when all humans live out the teachings of Jesus 鈥� bringing forth a world of peace, non-violence and love 鈥� Jesus will return?
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a really good question and the answer to that question is yes,鈥� says Maier. 鈥淐hristians have disagreed about that. Some Christians have argued that when a worldwide reign of love is achieved, this then will be the expression of Christ鈥檚 reign on earth. This will embody the end of history that God intends in Jesus. That鈥檚 one point of view. The other point of view is that this reign of love will only come when God intervenes on history so as to bring about this reign of love by a divine coming鈥� One is a kind of gradual transformation of creation and the other is kind of a divine intervention of creation. Christians have really disagreed about which one is the correct one to imagine.鈥�
In the 19th century, Maier notes, a more liberal current of theology began to view the scriptures more poetic and symbolic than literal.
Maier shares a joke about a physicist and a priest on an airplane. 鈥淭he physicist turns to the priest and says, 鈥業sn鈥檛 it just, Jesus loves you this I know for the Bible tells me so?鈥� And the priest turns to the physicist, to the cosmologist, and says, 鈥業 don鈥檛 know. At the end of the day, isn鈥檛 it just twinkle, twinkle little star?鈥欌��
鈥淲e have to be really careful about flattening out language of religion into commonsensical equations,鈥� says Maier. Even if we do not accept the Bible as the received, literal word of God, we should not dismiss the complexity of ideas and concepts it raises.
鈥淚s there going to be a literal second coming? I think the point is not so much the second coming, as it were, so much as the belief in God鈥檚 promise that all of God鈥檚 creation, whatever creation is, is ultimately held lovingly in God鈥檚 hands,鈥� says Maier, describing what he calls 鈥渁 theology of hope.鈥�
This will not be palatable to the people reading the Left Behind series of Revelations-inspired apocalyptic novels. But Revelations is the perfect example of poetic language that isn鈥檛 intended to be read literally, he says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a language that prompts our imagination and invites us to use our imagination to seek to live out as faithfully as we can in the present,鈥� Maier says. It is about prompting questions that inspire people to consider big ideas and to motivate us to live in the best way possible.
To talk about the second coming literally, and speculate what the world will look like the day after, would trivialize the topic, he says.
鈥淲hat we鈥檙e really talking about here,鈥� he says, 鈥渋s the ultimate thing to which we should be steering our imagination. What is the ultimate thing to which we should be directing our lives? In that sense, then, you might say that the theology of hope is really a theology that asks us how we should live today, now. How we might practise the ultimate end of the world now, in our present moment, how we direct our lives, how we treat our family, how we treat money, how we treat the planet. To speak in those kind of ways is to make these questions more serious because that鈥檚 what we are all doing, whether we know it or not, one way or another, just by virtue of how we live our lives.鈥�
The simplistic question I started with 鈥� why does Jesus have to come twice? 鈥� diminishes the complexity of the theology I am trying to get at.
鈥淪o all this language of the second coming, the messiahship of Jesus, the restoration of all creation.鈥� Maier says, 鈥淭he rubber hits the road, really, when we ask the kind of questions that ask us what ultimately is governing our lives.鈥�
@Pat604Johnson
