The assurance of Christ’s final Parousia should offer the faithful the greatest confidence that, despite the appearance of this wayward world, the returning Lord Jesus will redeem us, as well as the Earth itself, to the uttermost. For as He is, so we shall be (1 John 3:2). That means resurrection, but it also means our vindication for having trusted in the Lamb’s Word and person as judgment falls upon mockers of The Way (Galatians 6:7). Preaching the End Times better means preaching things will assuredly play-out not only just as Jesus said, but also that he is the abiding guarantor who leads us from the Incarnation, through Holy Communion, to the Final Parousia. The false teachers addressed in 2 Peter, no less than today’s End Times pundits, deprive the faithful of such assurances perhaps in no more egregious way than the denial of Christ’s ongoing parousia through His self-giving in Communion. For them, there is no parousia in “is.”[1] The presence of Jesus suffers reduction to mere sentiment. But the Final Parousia is anchored in the two other great “advents” celebrated by the Church, namely the Incarnation of the Son of God by way of the virgin Mary, and the sacramental presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. It is Christmas and Communion. These advents secure a tight linkage with the Final Advent, so there is an unbroken linear connection through time of “the mystery of faith.” So much so, several traditions of the Christian faith have monumentalized this intimate connection by singing the mysterium fidei during Communion itself: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”[2]
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