Due Date

With just a snippet of information, I knew the future. Holding the unopened envelope up to the bright sun, two letters written by an ultrasound technician – “rl” – became visible, and just like that, I knew the gender of our baby. My still-pregnant wife questioned what exactly I thought I was doing . . . since I apparently forgot our conversation from several minutes earlier about not finding out the baby’s gender.

Once I glimpsed the contents of the envelope, I knew a daughter was coming into our lives. But precisely when she would arrive remained somewhat of a mystery. Doctors took into account gestational information, used high-tech gadgets to peer into my wife’s womb, listened to the strength of the heartbeat, and then announced the date they predicted our daughter to arrive. But despite all that brain power and technology, any family can tell you how often babies are actually born on their due dates.

Listening to the preacher who emphatically predicted Jesus’s return on May 21, 2011, I couldn’t help but draw parallels. He knew one snippet of information: Jesus is coming back to Earth (Revelation 19, Acts 1:1-11, 1 Thessalonians 4:16). Then using various calculations and estimations, he supposedly peered into the Scriptures and predicted the date Jesus would arrive.

Predicted due dates are notoriously slippery things, gestationally and spiritually. Gestationally, they rarely pinpoint the exact date of birth, often missing the mark by days, weeks, and even months. We had been told throughout our pregnancy to expect a baby in October. Our daughter arrived in August – a month and a half early. And, yes, her abrupt arrival did catch us off guard.

Spiritually, predicting the date of Jesus’s return so slippery, it’s like trying to walk upright using roller skates on a steeply-pitched sheet of smooth ice covered with grease-coated banana peels. “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36, my emphasis). Instead of focusing on and trying to figure out the specific date of His return, we are told to continually “be ready, because the son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him” (Matthew 24:44), kind of like a baby abruptly arriving sometime during the last trimester.

Both a baby and Jesus will appear on the scene whenever God determines the time is right according to His master plan, whether or not we have prepared for either event. Based on my experience with our daughter’s birth, it is no coincidence that Paul warns us, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night . . . suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).