And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb. 9)

They were "doomed to a slow, suffocating death." In a small pool, a back eddy of Eagle Creek, young steelhead and salmon no bigger than minnows were trapped behind a sandbar. Jim Robertson had been fishing for early summer trout, but seeing the plight of the fish, he leaned his fly rod against a tree and set about to rescue them.

In "Pool of Death," he writes, "Already the water in their pool was becoming stale and accumulating a slight scum on the surface. If I had a shovel, I thought, I could easily dig a channel through the sandbar." Instead, he used his hands. When a narrow channel eventually opened, the flowing water caused the sandy sides to slough off. He worked hard to open a generous channel and then "stood back to watch the fish flow out—but no fish flowed out." The fingerlings were schooling in the far side of the pool.

Jim tried chasing them toward the outlet to no avail. "Since there was no one else around, I puzzled aloud, ’Fish, can’t you see that I’m only trying to save you?’ But they could neither hear nor understand me. I thought about how an incarnation (inichthyation?) might help the situation. I could become one of them."

Finally, he resorted to catching them one at a time in his cupped hands and tossing them into the main stream. The smaller, slower ones were easiest to grab; the larger, faster ones eluded him. He was able to scoop up four or five dozen and release them into the living part of the stream. "The rest were too hard to catch. I had to leave them to their ’freedom.’"

Picking up his rod, he looked back and was stunned to see a rescued fish starting to work its way from the river back to the stagnant pool. "After shooing it downstream, I kicked in the sides of the channel to close it. I didn’t want those I had freed going back, even if it meant permanently sealing in those that remained in the pool."

When I read Robertson’s piece, I marveled at its insights into the Second Coming. The original Fisherman used his hands to save us. Though stuck in this stagnant pool, the stronger, faster "fish" still try to cling to their "freedom." At some point, the Rescuer must kick in the channel.

Adventists are clear about the fact of the return of Jesus. But why does Jesus come back? Here are two typical answers to that question, and one suggested by the fisherman’s story.

1. Jesus returns when the gospel goes to the whole world. "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come" (Matt. 24). However, this text raises more questions than it answers.

How does one practically measure "throughout the whole world"? Do radio waves carrying Jesus messages overhead qualify? Can we calculate based on "people groups entered"? What does it mean to "enter"? Has every people-group been entered when every language has a Scripture translation? Have we "finished the work" when a Christian church is within walking distance for all people on the planet?

Moreover, we run the risk of following the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy—"after this, therefore because of this." Other signs of Christ’s coming are false prophets, sun and moon darkened, and stars falling, but do we claim Jesus comes because of these?

The vital question is, Why? If Jesus requires that everyone experience an equal and adequate chance to "hear the gospel," that likely won’t happen. Obviously, people are born every second—do we count them as well? Or maybe, depending on what the term "gospel" means, it’s already happened. I’m getting confused. Time to move along.

2. Jesus returns when his character is "perfectly reproduced" in his children. Again, this raises numerous questions. How many children is enough? Half? All? And what sort of perfection is called for? If we don’t pass the character test, could we hold off Jesus forever?

Deuteronomy, chapter 9 provides enlightenment. The Israelites are crossing over into the Promised Land after forty years of wild wandering. What could they be thinking? Moses knows them well:

Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ’It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land.

This is a precursor to entering heavenly Canaan. It’s not because of our righteousness that Jesus comes back. The contemporary current against which we struggle is filled with sloth, lust, egoism, and deception. 1 Peter, chapter 2 describes the "chosen people"—the elect—as those who "have received mercy." The conclusion of the song of Moses and the Lamb in Revelation, chapter 15 is "God, You alone are holy." Here is the refrain of the redeemed.

Pauline is a former student who returned to visit me in my office. She was radiant with Christ’s love—she was born again. I asked her what she had learned that changed her life. She leaned forward and intoned reverently, "It’s not about us. When we think it’s about us, we start to look at exteriors and judge people. It’s all about Jesus."

3. Jesus will return when life here becomes so bad that he is losing more people than he’s gaining. One huge message in the parable of the pool of death is this: God is interested in numbers. In Matthew, after detailing the tribulations of the end times, Jesus adds, "And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened." Jesus will show up to save the most people possible by kicking in the channel. I like that reason for his return.

When I’ve heard, "Jesus has waited to return so that he could save us," I’ve thought, But there will always be more people to save.1 Apparently, however, things will become so bad that even the remnant would turn back to the sand bar. How could this be?

At some point, the world’s fragile economic structure will bend, sway, and topple. What currently passes for bedrock decency and manners between people will vanish. I caught a glimpse of this when patience frayed and tempers flared during the 1970s gas shortages. (And today, whenever a flight is cancelled.) But even before the impending collapse, we can find hints of how God can’t get through to us.

Years ago, I registered for the National Do Not Call Registry, a patently providential intervention that prevents telemarketers from reaching me on my telephone. My computer is not nearly as security conscious. I have deleted thousands of electronic offers for Swiss watches, sweepstakes winnings, mortgage deals at 2.8 percent, pharmacy discounts for Cialis, Nigerian money transfers, and all manner of bodily enhancements, none of which interests me. With this mudslide of information, I’m pretty sure I have deleted other things that I might actually like, but because of the state of spam marketing, I’m not interested in giving anyone a chance.

Maybe this is how it is just before Jesus comes back. The world cannot trust Christians or their gospel because some of the messages we send have been shallow, corrupt, and manipulative. Like others, Christians hate and lie and steal and poison the environment and kill and torture—or condone these practices—until the world deletes without thinking twice. In North America, my freedom has eroded because I’m drowning in information and instant messaging (today’s great IM). I’ve lost not the ability but the desire for input. As described in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, in a trivial culture, truth is submerged in a sea of irrelevance.

Bombarded with news of tragedies from all over the globe, I can lose the ability to care—I might as well just plug in an iPod and tune out. The mutilations that result from leprosy (Hansen’s disease) are literally the result of losing the ability to feel. Today’s leprosy is a deadening of feeling, or as Jesus describes it, "’because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold.’"2

I think at that point, when we cannot trust and cannot feel, when we effectively close off godly influences as well as evil ones, we might start heading back to the pool. Everything around us looks murky, with the sides sloughing off. In the midst of murkiness, Jesus returns—not to deal with wickedness (which he did at the cross)—but to rescue those who allow him to scoop them up and hold them wriggling in his cupped, scarred hands.

At the front of the Des Moines, Iowa, Seventh-day Adventist Church stands a narrow vertical stained-glass window of blues, reds, and purples with a swath of aquamarine swirling throughout. The window depicts three angels, but their typical aspect is changed. Here their heads are down, they’re descending, not ascending—and they appear to be surrounded by trailing clouds of bubbles.

They are diving underwater. The three angels are willing to throw themselves into a foreign element, like pelicans crashing beneath waves or flying fish piercing air.

Jesus also descended from another dimension. Diving down, He "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2). And, he promises, it will happen again.

He holds his breath and takes one last dive.

Notes and References

1. As Hector Belioz muses, "Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils."
2. Fortunately, Jesus still heals leprosy today.

"Why Jesus Comes Back" is part of a forthcoming book published by Pacific Press.

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