“Coming soon!” The phrase, though timeworn, feels timeless in generating excitement.
“See, I am coming soon,” begins this morning’s Scripture lesson. “Let everyone who is thirsty come,” echoes from its ending. Come, Lord Jesus! “Surely I am coming soon. Amen!”
That’s a haunting truth to consider – maybe not so much because you doubt that you’ve been saved by God’s grace and grace alone. But maybe more so in the eternal reality of praising God not just for 10,000 years (as amazing lyrics of grace propose), but praising God for the infinity of all time and space. To my heart, that prospect of never-ending divine adoration in the very presence of God and the Lamb feels at once incredibly exciting and, well, a little spooky.
When pondering the return of Christ, perhaps one’s depth of longing for (or anxiety about) that moment strongly correlates with one’s current circumstances. If you essentially possess everything you need – good health, financial and material security, loving family and friends, a faith community in which to abide, it’s frankly hard to imagine requiring anything more than that with which God has already blessed you. But many of John’s original and current hearers experience something vastly different.
In the prophet’s first audience were large numbers of disciples who suffered intensely because Jesus was their Lord and Savior and because his example was a lamp unto their feet and hands, heart and mind. These good folks well sensed their already-sad situations further deteriorating in precisely the nasty and sordid ways to which John alludes throughout the book of Revelation: The oppression of rampant lust and greed, the wickedness of widespread corruption and violence, the senseless brutality of plagues and other calamities, the outbreak of war and rumors of war.
So also today, for God’s adopted children across large swaths of this world, the faithful suffer deeply for their belief and practice in parts of west Africa, the Middle East, south and east Asia. For these beleaguered saints, the frightening dreams of John’s Revelation are not mysterious puzzles that need solution. Such utter sin and evil are their daily reality; it is out in the open and on full display – literally in front of God and everybody. Which stirs the human groans of an obvious daily prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come!” Come sooner rather than later, to make all things new!
And maybe so also for us, here today, in the many spaces and locales of hell on earth where you and I wrestle with notions of justice, and with expectations for renewal, and with hope of righteousness. From our fearful, ever-present realities, the prayer like a global chorus repeats in endless loop: “Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come!” Come sooner rather than later, to heal the nations. Now listen to the Word that God has spoken through the New Testament prophet John –
“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. …
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen. (Revelation 22:12-17, 20-21)
Revelation, in effect, reminds God’s adopted children that their Father in heaven isn’t just constantly doing good things for everything God creates. The Lord also is somehow actively straightening-out even the most crooked of people, events, and circumstances, thus bending glory unto the Lord God, thus showering his people with justice, renewal, and righteousness. Revelation insists that God is persistently working to save everything that Father, Son, and Spirit created. And pray for the gift of humility: No one whom God adopts as a precious, beloved child is ever a completely finished product. And God longs to make each and every one of us more like Jesus.
Of course, God’s efforts to fashion us more and more like Jesus battle a fallen Creation’s determined efforts to stubbornly put themselves in direct opposition to the Lord and his work. Which is why we gather for the work of weekly worship: To glorify and praise God, to confess how far short we’ve fallen in being who and what God created us to be, to relish in the assurances of the Gospel’s Good News, and to abide in Revelation’s hope of a new and exponentially better world to come. In worship we remember that Jesus is “coming soon.”
Care, anguish, sorrow melt away, Where’er Thy healing beams arise.
O Jesus, nothing may I see, Nothing desire, or seek, but Thee.
This Christ Jesus who is coming soon invites by the Holy Spirit the weak and the weary, the pale and the downtrodden, to come to him and accept God’s grace. This Christ Jesus – the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end – welcomes those dying of spiritual thirst to his side for the forever quenching of their thirst. Come, Lord Jesus! “Indeed I am coming soon!”
Anticipation of the Lord’s return intends not to scare or frighten any of God’s dearly beloved – nor should John’s Revelation prompt wild guessing about the exact day and hour of Christ’s return. No, what Jesus through John wants is for us to stay alert – well aware of who and whose we are, well awake to what God in Christ is doing, well empowered by the Spirit’s equipping to be the hands and feet of Jesus in carrying out God’s work.
Through the book of Revelation, the Holy Spirit invites God’s people to a kind of quiet attentiveness to Christ’s coming again among us – not just at the end of measured time, but also every day in the here and now. John isn’t just talking about the future; he’s also talking about the present – a time when God infuses the earth with the glimpses of the bright, watery future that God has in store for you and me. Coming soon, and hopefully very soon!
May the patient grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s holy people. Amen.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during morning worship on Sunday, February 15, 2026. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Stan Mast, and Christopher C. Rowland inform the message. It is the last installment in Pastor Grant’s series on Revelation. Find earlier installments at FirstPresWaukon.com/sermons.