Who here remembers Harold Camping? A mere five months ago he was the talk of the town, impossible to neglect. “The end is coming,” he and his followers were saying. “Judgment Day--the day of the Lord's return to rapture his elect to heaven--will absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, occur on May 21, 2011.”

Except, what happened? Well, in a word, nothing! And so, after having worried and excited many, many people (including some who, as a result of his predictions, sold their homes and gave away their possessions), Harold Camping faded into the background.

Or, did he? Actually, although very few are paying attention to him (and deservedly so!), when May 21st came and went, Harold Camping revised his prediction as follows. The only thing he got wrong about May 21st, he says, was the nature of the rapture and of Judgment Day.

It was spiritual, not physical! God still raptured his elect into heaven, he claimed, but he did so spiritually, not physically. And so, by the way, he also said, the world will still end on October 21st, 2011, exactly as he has predicted!

Why do I bring this up? I bring it up because, up until this week, whenever I have the portion of Paul’s letter to the Philippians that we read as our second reading today, I have treated him as an ancient version of Harold Camping!
“Rejoice in the Lord always;” Paul writes, “again I will say, Rejoice. ... The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, ... And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Last week, when we gave Bibles to our second and seventh graders, I said that, as deep as you can go in the Bible, it will always draw you deeper. This week, I’ve been drawn deeper into today’s second reading.

For most of my life I’ve assumed I understood what Paul was saying in today’s second reading and that, like Harold Camping, Paul is simply wrong or, at least, mistaken. I’ve assumed, in other words, that when Paul says, “Rejoice! The Lord is near!” he’s saying that Jesus is coming back to judge the earth and bring an end to life as we know it and, moreover, Jesus will be doing this soon.

Obviously, then, according to the way I was understanding Paul, Paul, like Harold Camping, is simply wrong. If, as we believe, Paul wrote this letter somewhere between the years 50 and 60, some 714,000 days have gone by since Paul said, “The Lord is near!” Paul must be mistaken, I assumed, the Lord is not very near!

Or so I assumed. But remember, however deep you go in the Bible, it will always draw you deeper and deeper! What if what Paul is saying is absolutely true, but not in the way that either I or Harold Camping assumed? What if Paul is saying something entirely different?

What if what he is saying is absolutely true? And what if it has the power to absolutely transform your life? Wouldn’t you want to say, along with Paul, “Rejoice! The Lord is near!”?

Let’s just pause to reflect for a minute on the word, “near.” It’s one of the most important in the Bible!

What does the Bible say is near? When John the Baptist starts preparing the way for Jesus, he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

One chapter later, when Jesus begins preaching, what is his message? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Several chapters later, when it’s time for Jesus’ disciples to continue and carry on his message, what does Jesus command them to say? “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Each of the gospels, describing each of these events, use just these same words. When Jesus is near, the Kingdom is near. That’s what John the Baptist said about Jesus. That’s what Jesus himself said. And that’s what Jesus commands his followers to share with others. “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

As Jesus’ days on earth were drawing to a close and his disciples were becoming nervous about the days to come, Jesus says, “when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” And, as we’ve heard, Paul adds, “Rejoice! The Lord is near!”

I’m not alone in having thought that what Paul was talking about was the nearness of the end of life as we know it. That’s been the unquestioned view of scholars for hundreds of years. Some were embarrassed by it (much as many Christians are embarrassed today by Harold Camping). Some were delighted by it; in effect, saying, “See? Paul didn’t know what he was talking about!”

But, what if Paul did know what he was talking about? What if “Rejoice! The Lord is near!” means something different than what I and others thought it did?

Maybe it’s just this simple: maybe “near” means, near! As in, maybe “near” means, you don’t have to wait to meet, to see, or to experience Jesus. Rejoice! The Lord is near!

Maybe “near” means “the kingdom of heaven” isn’t something that arrives after we die or after life as we know it ends! Maybe “near” means exactly what it says! “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” The living presence of Jesus is near, ready to be seen, experienced, and encountered! Rejoice, then! The Lord is near!

I’ve mentioned before that a bunch of us have been getting together to read and discuss Leonard Sweet’s book, Nudge, Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There. We got together yesterday to talk about Sweet’s chapter on sight and vision. It’s fair to say that none of liked the chapter of found much of value in it ... until, as we talked about it, something remarkable began to happen.

This thing that one person read sparked something that someone else read that sparked, in turn, something someone else had read. The chapter that, when we sat down to talk about it, seemed to have nothing much of value in it, had so much of value in it that we didn’t even have enough time to finish exploring it!

That’s what I think Jesus and Paul are getting at! The Kingdom of heaven is near! It’s near, but it isn’t obvious. It needs faith--or, in other words, trust--to be able to see what’s there but hidden from us.

We see what we expect to see is another way of putting it. We see what we believe we will see.

And so it is with the Kingdom of God and the presence of the living Christ in our world. We see what we expect to see. People of faith see the hand of God at every turn.

People of faith can also help others see God at every turn, however! We can help point out or remind people that, just because something isn’t obvious, doesn’t mean that it isn’t real and powerful. God can use us to just kind of nudge toward, as the subtitle of that book puts it, “Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There”!

For far too long, I realize now, I’ve been misunderstanding St. Paul. For far too long I’ve seen Paul as an ancient version of Harold Camping, mistakenly thinking that “The Lord is near” meant that Jesus would be coming soon, as in, the End of Time.

I now see that Paul--and Jesus before him--simply meant what he said. Because of the resurrection of our Lord, the Spirit of God is making the presence of Jesus alive and available to us, everywhere and all the time ... if we have that faith--the eyes--to see it.

He means what he says! “Rejoice! The Lord is near!” In Jesus’ name. Amen!