Day 262: Those We've Lost - Irvine Baxter

DAY 262

                              Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic                     

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty-eight    Tuesday 1 December 2020

Those We’ve Lost

Irvine Baxter, 75 “Predictor of the End of Days”

“’We are on the brink of the greatest prophetic fulfillment in 2,000 years,’ the Rev. Irvin Baxter Jr., founder of Endtime Ministries, told his listeners as he opened an April episode of ‘End of the Age,’ his television program. ‘It appears that all the pieces of the puzzle are in place for the final seven years to Armageddon to begin yet this year.’ ‘The way it appears to me that it’s coming down,’ he told his listeners, ‘it is very likely that you and me and the entire world will enter the final seven years to Armageddon yet in 2020.’ Mr. Baxter, who was 75, died on Nov. 3. An announcement by Endtime Ministries said the cause was complications from Covid-19, a disease that, in other broadcasts, Mr. Baxter had implied was a punishment from God for the world’s sins, …” - From an ongoing newspaper series by the same title.

A traditional opening hymn for the first Sunday of Advent is a familiar text by Chares Wesley:

Lo! He comes with clouds descending, once for favored sinners slain;

is the opening line, the final verse concluding with the cry of the church for 2,000 years:

O come quickly, O come quickly, alleluia! Come, Lord, come.

In between the first and second advents of Christ, Christians have been attempting to corelate the second event with contemporary events in history. With the proliferation of technology, news becomes instant, and sincere Christian teachers like Irv Baxter seek to narrow the information field to a point where they believe they can indicate when Jesus will be coming back. It is our human desire to deal with ambiguity, a desire to have things nailed down. But faith in Jesus asks for an abandoned trust in the total absence of objective evidence, and this includes all that pertains to his second advent. All he asks is that we be ready.

Reflective question: As we celebrate the first advent or coming of Christ this season, what do you believe about the second coming of Christ?

Reflective Scripture: Matthew 24:36 – “But about that day or hour no one knows, …”

Reflective hymn:

“Coming Again” – John W. Peterson (1921-2006)  

Marvelous message we bring, glorious carol we sing,

Wonderful word of the King, Jesus is coming again.

Coming again, coming again,

May be morning, may be noon, may be evening and may be soon!

Coming again, coming again; O what a wonderful day that will be –

Jesus is coming again!