Christ's Return (Luke 21:25-28)

The metaphor I always use when I think of the signs of the end of the age is one I experienced fishing with my dad as a kid. I remember the first several times I tried fishing, my dad would explain to me what it would feel like to have a fish bite the lure. Despite his descriptions, I never was sure if I was getting a bite, or just snagging something along the bottom of the lake. That is, until I did finally get a real bite. After the fact, the difference was unmistakable.

This is what looking for signs of the end times is like. Over the centuries since Christ’s ascension, people have been convinced that the broken world they experienced wasn’t just a broken world. The suffering, wars, famines, diseases, and natural disasters they lived through had to be the end of days. They never were. We all experience how every generation ages into a time when they are living in the worst of times. Even when such times are demonstrably better than days from that generation’s youth.

The Day of the Lord will be unmistakable when it comes. That is a small encouragement for those of us who go through tough times, which includes every generation. We may feel like we are in the worst possible days, and that the end has come. However, when the end comes it will be different. For one thing, Christ will appear to all “in a cloud.” Even that phrase is likely not going to be like what we picture when we read it. But rest assured, it will be clear if you live to see it.