JMK5@ns.cc.lehigh.edu (J. Michael Kafes) (04/01/91)
CHRIST RETURNS!
I just finished reading an engrossing book about the Second Coming of Jesus
Christ. It's called THIEF IN THE NIGHT, by William Sears, published
by George Ronald, Oxford, England.
The preface of the book is reprinted below:
...I went back to my desk in the Sports Department, opened the magazine,
and began to study it carefully. It was a shot in the arm. Only this
morning I had felt like a detective who was trying to solve a crime one
hundred years after the deed had been committed. Until this moment, the
trail had been very cold. At least this article encouraged me to go on
with my search. Apparently thousands of people were still as keenly
interested in solving the mystery as I was, even after more than a century.
I took a folder out of my filing cabinet and with a soft black pencil
wrote on it: "The Strange Case of the Missing Millenium."
The magazine article consisted of sample headlines from newspapers all
over the country. Editors had been asked to submit to the magazine some
imaginary headlines, headlines which, the editor felt, would be capable of
arousing the greatest possible excitement.
They had chosen some dandies:
SCHOLARS PROVE SHAKESPEARE REALLY MARLOWE
NO MORE WINTER EVER
HOLY GRAIL FOUND IN WALES
CONAN DOYLE CONTACTS EARTH
SANTA CLAUS NO MYTH
I chuckled. The morning that all these headlines were printed would
certainly be a day to run for the hills.
There was one particular effort that instantly gripped my attention.
According to these hard-boiled newspapermen, this headline, if authentic,
would be the most electrifying of all. This one, they said, would really
rock the world back on its heels. It consisted of only two words:
CHRIST RETURNS
I had been working on just such a news story for two years. I had
accidentally come upon what I considered to be an amusing and puzzling
mystery, and had already spent two years trying to solve it. It all began
harmlessly enough when someone handed me a book written by a namesake of
mine, Clara Endicott Sears. No relative. At least so they told me around
Searsport and Vanceborro in Maine. If I had known what lay ahead, I might
have burned the book right then and there.
I was working a night-wire for the United Press at the time, so I had a
few hours in which to sit and think. In Clara's book I found an
entertaining and fascinating story about the people who had eagerly awaited
the return of Christ during the nineteenth century.
My big surprise came when I learned that magazines and newspapers in that
day had actually printed stories about this spectacular event. Some were
told in jest, some in ridicule, and some with deadly seriousness. In the
press and on the streets, you could savour every emotion:
CHRIST--COMING OR NOT?
END OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
JESUS AT THE DOOR
TERRIFYING COMET ALARMS EARTH
THE ADVENT: TRUTH OR HOAX?
Everyone enjoys a good suspense story, especially the kind of thrill
implied in the threatening words: "The end of the world!" The prophets of
doom had run the gamut, from the literalist who said, "The world will come
to an end on Thursday, November 23rd at seven p.m. beginning in the Ohio
Valley and spreading north through Michigan", to the earnest student of
Scripture who warned that "in that day the stars shall fall from heaven and
the earth be removed from her place."
There is no greater suspense story than this. It is filled with terror
and magic, and it had been told with fantastic fervour in the 1840s.
Excited reports spread through the United States, Britain, Canada,
Europe, Asia, even to Africa and Australia. People throughout those
regions were strongly warned to prepare for the sudden appearance of
Christ, the results of whose "coming" promised to be either delightful or
disastrous, depending on the teller.
The vast majority of people went on their way with tolerant, amused
smiles. They pitied the victims of such fanaticism. Many, however, found
it a time fraught with fear and panic.
In pamphlets, on the platform, in the pulpits, and in the press, Bible
scholars called upon a non-listening, uninterested world to repent.
"Now is the hour!" they threatened.
Many believed them. Whole families sold their homes and possessions.
Others cashed in their bank accounts and gave away their worldly goods to
the unbelieving. Some prepared special ascension robes. Tradition states
that some went up into the hills on a fatal, chosen day, to await the
descent of Christ upon a cloud, only to be greeted by a downpour of rain.
I examined actual legal records in which some of the zealous deeded over
their property to the coming Christ. An entire village was prepared for
His coming. It was called Heaven (Paradise), and was established as His
American residence.
A passionate madness seized people in widely separated sections of the
Christian world at that time. Why? Why did they all expect Christ? Why
at that particular time?
It was a puzzling, first-class mystery story. It was as though a
"millenial" virus had suddenly infected people in five continents. As I
read about the colourful, amusing, and sometimes shocking things that
happened in these widely scattered parts of the world, I became curious,
and that curiousity was the beginning of this volume.
I can't honestly say whether it was in the Library, the Museum, or by the
Cave of Elijah on Mount Carmel that I suddenly found myself engrossed in a
fascinating full-time study. The growth of interest had been gradual, but
eventually I was determined to find out whether the return of Christ was a
myth, a mistake, or the greatest unsolved mystery of our age.
One day in the reference room of one of the endless libraries I haunted
during this period, I experienced a sudden, unique thrill, the sort the
archeologist must feel when his pick strikes a wall and he sees it crumble
before his eyes, revealing an ancient, exciting new world, at the very
moment he was about to abandon his search.
I discovered I was NOT on a wild-goose chase! Among those dusty library
shelves I found a fellow-detective, and in his company the excitement of
the chase began all over again. Professor E.G. Browne of Pembroke College,
Cambridge, had broken the ground before me. He, too, apparently had been
fascinated by the same story and had already unravelled a part of it. He
wrote likening it to the story of Christ:
"I feel it is my duty, as well as pleasure...to bring the matter to the
notice of my countrymen..."
Later I traced Browne's searching steps in the Holy Land; I read the
letter in his own handwriting in which he made plans to come to Israel to
meet this great Figure. He admitted that he would not rest until he had
settled the matter in his own mind.
I found that a contemporary of Browne's, the renowned Jowett of Balliol
College, Oxford, had echoed this feeling. He, too, had chanced upon the
story that now lay open before me. He wrote:
"It is too great and too near for this generation to comprehend. The
future alone can reveal its import."
Both Professors Browne and Jowett associated their discovery with the
return of Christ. They both expressed keen interest in the relevance and
import of the story. Now, after several years of careful research and
study, I too, had arrived at this same conclusion. I decided to take up
the story where they had left it and to follow it to its end.
The following chapters are the record of my seven years of search; they
offer my solution to this intriguing century-old mystery. They suggest
that our modern newspapermen are one hundred years too late in wishing that
they were able to print the dramatic headline:
CHRIST RETURNS
In fact, our press has been scooped by over a century. You will find
here considerable evidence to show that when the newspapers and
publications of the 1840s printed their stories headed, "Return of Christ
Expected," they were printing not fancy, but fact, even though they were
unaware of the nature of the story at the time, and were totally unable to
substantiate its truth in that hour.
If what I have uncovered is the truth, then (according to the testimony
of the hard-boiled newspaper editors of the West) it is the most shocking
and dramatic story that anyone could possibly tell in print.
But will anyone believe me?
You are now starting where I started a few years ago on "The Strange Case
of the Missing Millenium."
(This preface is indicative of the "page-turning" nature of the book!
The book is THIEF IN THE NIGHT, by William Sears. Happy searching!)
Michael Kafes
JMK5@NS.CC.LEHIGH.EDU