Fr Alex Swain

Beloved in Christ,

It always astounds me that predicting biblical prophecy is so popular among certain fringe (and even mainline) protestant traditions.

Take, for instance, the rapture.

The rapture is a theology which developed in the 1800s within the United States. It is based off a misunderstanding of one biblical verse (1 Thess. 4:17), but wow has it gotten popular. (I suspect the Left Behind fantasy series made it all the more popular, too.)

Numerous evangelicals make a somewhat constant noise about the sure coming of Christ soon—that the rapture is nigh. Some of them even have the guts to try to guess when Christ is coming! The most recent prediction fad was a few months ago.

It got so popular that a whole subsection of TikTok began talking about it, known as “RaptureTok.”

Unfortunately for these would-be-biblical-literalists, the Scriptures make very clear that no one knows the day or hour of Christ’s return—and no one ever will. (Mathew 24:36, Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7, Matthew 24:42-44 for starters.)

Today’s Gospel also mentions the rise of false messiahs and false prophets and false saviors in the end times. Jesus warns us not to go after them. That hasn’t stopped charlatans for centuries, perhaps even millennia, claiming to be the second-coming of Christ and amassing a cult following. But always to no avail.

There is a kind of desire we have as humans for certainty. For clarity. For things to be this-or-that rather than muddled and confused and unclear.

But life is, unfortunately, often unclear. And such is the case for Christ’s second coming.

Christians tend to be an advent people. We are a people awaiting the arrival of Christ once more. We are a people between two events—the first and second coming of Christ.

We are a people who live in the end-times. They are muddled and unclear. They will likely last quite a bit longer, since we’ve been living in the end-times since the incarnation of Christ.

And as we continue living in these times, may we strive to know one another, ourselves, and most importantly, our God all the more clearly. That is something we can come to know—even if the date of Christ’s second coming will remain clouded in the unknowability of things.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Alex