May 11


Second Coming
Matthew 16:27-28


Do you fear death?  Especially, do you fear a death of violence and humiliation?  Christ's disciples had at this moment a chance to feel that fear, and so he shows them the other side of that death:  the glory to come.

  • Reward delayed is reward denied to most of us.  So our Lord tells them that some shall see it happen.
  • Indeed, very shortly three of them will, for they will be on the Mount of Transfiguration with him.
  • Note, please, that he shows them "the Father's glory" - not his own.  He and the Father are one, and he has come to do his Father's will.
But what was he referring to?  Many have said this passage must be false, because his second coming did not happen in the lifetime of his disciples.  However,
  • He could be referring to the Transfiguration, where Peter, James and John saw him transformed into the glory of God.
  • Even more, what earthly glory could compare to that of the Resurrection of our Lord?  Many saw that too.
  • At Pentecost, the disciples see the beginning of the kingdom of God--the establishment of the church.
Things are sometimes not what they seem.  The disciples see a man with little in the way of material goods, the Suffering Servant portrayed by Isaiah the Prophet, and yet he speaks to them of glory.  There is a parallel to that in our lives, too.
  • Before we came to Christ, how did the Word appear to us?  Was it not something scorned, derided by the world?  Indeed, the suffering servant is the visible form.
  • But after we come to know the living Christ, the Word appears quite differently--the precious and glorious Word of God.
Whether we speak of the Bible or of Christ himself as the word, these things are true.  The world has not yet seen him in the Father's  glory, but someday every knee shall bow to that glory.  Jesus came, in his first advent, in the form of a man, like us.  He did so that when he comes again, in the glory of the Father, we will be in the same glory.  Christ became man and lived among us so that we might, someday, become like him and live with God forever.