Revelation 21:1-6
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
Do you teach them about the rapture? That’s the question a woman asked me as I sat at Starbucks trying to write a sermon. On Thursdays before I preach, I usually head to a coffee shop or the library to write. It’s not uncommon for someone to strike up a conversation—I guess it’s not every day you see someone sitting in public with a Bible open.
On this day, a woman and her husband sat at the same large table as me. I could feel her eyes on me. I knew what was coming. I made the mistake of looking up from my screen—and she got me.
“So, are you a Bible student?”
No, I’m a pastor here in New Pal.
“Well, you’re awfully young to be a pastor…” (Like I haven’t heard that one before.)
“What’s your church?”
When I said, “Cross of Grace Lutheran Church,” the back-and-forth stopped, and she proceeded to tell me how great her church and her pastor are.
Then, either noticing my intentional body language—literally leaning away—or the way I kept glancing back at my half-written sermon, she ended the conversation with one last question:
“Do you teach them about the rapture?”
The rapture? I thought. I tried to come up with a kind response instead of simply saying, “Uh… no.”
“Well, in my tradition, that’s not something we focus on…” I said.
And goodness, was she disappointed in that answer.
“Well, you gotta teach them about the rapture. It’s the most important thing.”
The most important thing? There’s so much I could have—should have—asked:
What do you mean by rapture?
Why is it the most important thing?
What does your pastor say when preaching about it?
Who do you think gets left behind—and why?
But I had a sermon to finish, after all.
I’ve never preached on “the rapture.” I don’t think I’ve ever even preached on a passage from Revelation. So, wherever you are, lady, this one’s for you. Because you’re partially right—it is important for us to understand what the rapture is, the bad and harmful theology behind it, and what we might imagine in its place when we talk about life after death.
Some of you know all about the rapture. Maybe you grew up in a more fundamentalist church or were terrified by the Left Behind series in the mid 90s. Others of you, good Lutherans that you are, may only have a vague idea of what it means. But all of us have been exposed to some version of this belief.
Usually, when people talk about the rapture, it’s part of a theology called dispensationalism. You may have never heard that word, but you’ve definitely seen signs of it—like every time you pass a billboard like this, now how’d that pan out?
Or this…
Or when you notice our culture’s fascination with the apocalypse and end time predictions.
Not to bore you too much, but the idea of the rapture was invented by a British preacher named John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. He took the traditional understanding of Jesus’ return and split it into two parts. First comes the rapture: Jesus appears in the sky, snatches up born-again Christians, and whisks them off to heaven for seven years. During that time, God inflicts wrath on the earth and Christians watch safely from above. Then, after those seven years, comes the final return of Jesus to fight the battle of Armageddon (mentioned in Revelation) and establish an earthly kingdom.
This whole timeline is a patchwork—stitched together from one verse in 1 Thessalonians, three from Daniel, and a single verse from Revelation. Behind all that is a bad theology and a harmful hermeneutic—a way of reading and understanding the Bible.
First, this approach takes the Bible literally, as if Revelation were some sort of roadmap to the end times. But, as you’ve heard us say before, we mustn't read the Bible literally—we’re called to read it literate-ly and seriously, taking into account the many voices and genres that make up Scripture. Revelation is apocalyptic literature, a kind of writing well known to the seven first-century churches it was written for. It’s not a crystal ball—it’s a prophetic vision full of metaphor and symbolic imagery, not a literal forecast of future events.
Second, this theology takes a few out-of-context verses to offer false certainty about what’s to come, rather than wrestling with the mystery of faith. The Bible gives us many different images of Jesus’ return: a banquet in Luke, a wedding feast in Matthew, paradise, green pastures, even a return to Eden. But none of these say when this will happen. In fact, Jesus says clearly: “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36) Jesus doesn’t want us trying to piece together a divine timeline. He wants us to live in hope and with trust.
And perhaps the biggest thing the rapture gets wrong is this: the idea that we’ll float off to heaven and away from all this; that our souls get to finally escape the pain of this world and just be with Jesus. But here’s the thing: the Bible never says we’re just souls that happen to have bodies. We are both—body and soul—and they will not be separated. Resurrection always includes the beautiful body God gave you.
And what if—just hear me out—what if at the end of all things, we don’t go to heaven… What if heaven comes to us?
Which is exactly what Revelation says. God establishes a new heaven and a new earth here, in our midst, and God takes up residence with us. Doesn’t that sound more like the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ? The God who entered into our suffering? The God who heals what is hurt? The God who accomplishes the divine plan through seemingly insignificant people, places, and things.
It should be no surprise, then, that God would come down to this broken world—full of broken people—and heal it until there are no more tears, no more mourning or pain or death, and make a home here with us. That sounds like the God we know in Jesus.
Lutheran theologian Barbara Rossing, an expert on the rapture and end-times thinking, says people are drawn to rapture theology because they want to see the Bible come to life. They want to connect Scripture with their own lives. They want to experience God—and think that can only happen if they leave this place.
But the truth is: the Bible is coming to life and we do experience God—in this world, in our lives.
The Bible comes to life everytime we feed someone who is hungry, give water to someone who is thirsty, wipe the tears trickling down one’s cheek, visit the imprisoned and detained, relieve someone’s pain, or welcome the immigrant.
We are in the presence of God here on earth every time we come to the table, when we share meals with our friends and our enemies, or as Jesus says, when we love others as he loves us.
Those acts—those holy, small, grace-filled acts—create little pockets of heaven on earth. They allow us to experience God right here and now, until that great day when God comes to live among us forever, making God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
So no—the rapture isn’t the most important thing.
But trusting that God will come down, give us new life, and dwell with us in a world made new, free of pain and suffering and death?
Now that sounds more like it.
Amen.
