NOTES for Luk 17:26-37
Judging by the Savior's words, His return will take the world by surprise. Yet it would be more accurate to speak of an expected surprise: it is no accident that He Himself compares the situation to the great flood and the destruction of Sodom. Why should this be so? The New Testament books say enough about the day of Jesus' return and the triumph of the Kingdom. Clearly, the problem is not a lack of information. It is more a matter of how seriously we take it. Today it is no secret that even among Christians, many respond to the subject of Christ's second coming in a somewhat misguided way.
On the one hand, Christians today are afraid of it. This is hardly surprising: horrors and disasters are often associated with the Savior's second coming. Of course, the Book of Revelation speaks of upheavals and catastrophes, but it nevertheless ends with a description of a new heaven and a new earth, and of Jerusalem descending from heaven, the symbol of the triumphant Church. Yet many ignore this ending, and today even Christians more often use “apocalypse” to mean not revelation, which is what the corresponding Greek word means, but a last and final catastrophe that will put an end to humanity's existence.
On the other hand, it is also no secret that many Christians today are content with medieval ideas about rewards and punishments after death, about paradise and hell, whose roots should be sought less in the Bible than in traditional Egyptian or Greek religious ideas. For many Christians, Christianity has come to be associated less with the Messiah and the coming triumph of the Kingdom than with securing a happy afterlife by fulfilling one religious prescription or another. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Savior's return becomes that very expected surprise even for the “Christian” world. And judging by the Savior's words, there can be no question of preparing to meet Him and the Kingdom at that point: a person either lives the life of the Kingdom and is then “taken,” or does not and is then “left.”
This is hardly surprising: a Christian's life in the Kingdom is a long process. It is precisely a life that changes a person, sometimes slowly, but steadily. Until the Savior's return, such people may live side by side with those who have no part in the Kingdom. When He returns, it will be too late to begin living a full spiritual life, for putting down roots in the Kingdom takes time as well. Of course, a final choice can be made even on the day of Judgment. But then, those who make it will probably have to be saved, in the apostle Paul's figurative expression, as though by leaping out of a fire. Not the best option, but better this way than not at all.