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Jesus came back on a Saturday night. Mike and I were sitting in his car after the prayer meeting, discussing the return of Christ, and had just observed that it could happen that very night. The remark had not been prompted by any singular event or sign. We said the same thing every Saturday night.

I was a new Christian at the time and had only recently learned about the return of Christ. My friends spoke of it as "the Rapture," a term that seemed more suited to a romance novel than to religion. The Rapture, they explained, was when Jesus would return to collect his church shortly before the Second Coming. They found this teaching in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians and in the mysterious Book of Revelation. I had read Revelation but had not been able to make much sense of it. I did not doubt its truth; I simply took it at face value.

Now, it seemed, the Rapture had arrived, just as Mike started to read a verse from his Bible. He was cut off midsentence by an unearthly howl that sounded like something from beyond the grave. It began soft and low, barely registering on our consciousness, but soon built to an eerie crescendo. Mike and I looked at each other in wide-eyed amazement. This could only be one thing: the "last trump," the shout of the archangel.

The eerie call continued to sound as Mike and I sat in his car and waited to be caught up into glory in the blink of an eye. I felt an initial wave of relief that I was fully clothed and that Jesus would find us talking about the Bible. That should look pretty good on my record, I thought. I suppose my panic might have returned had I realized that Jesus probably would consider this thought evidence of pride.

Mike began to pray. I followed suit, but with less confidence. It occurred to me that we had blinked several times since the "trump" began to sound. If Jesus was coming for his saints, he had either overlooked us or decided to leave us behind. Like a driver trying to push start a stalled car, I began to bounce in my seat, hoping that one of the jumps would start me up to glory.

What had begun as a clear tone ended in a piercing howl that made the hair on the back of my head stand on end. As the sound trailed off in the night, I blushed to realize that it had not emanated from heaven or hell, but from the dog next door. We would have to wait another day for Jesus to come.

I was disappointed—and relieved. My ambivalence was partially fueled by the way this doctrine was sometimes presented. Sometimes it seemed that the prospect of the imminent return of Christ was held over my head as a threat. Those who spoke of the nearness of Christ's coming tended to do so with the grim satisfaction of a mother warning her erring child, "Wait until your father gets home!"

I noticed that Jesus, too, had spoken of his coming in terms that sounded ominous. He said that it would come upon people without warning (Matt. 24:42, 44). He warned that some would be taken and others would be left behind (Matt. 24:40-41). But his point seemed to be that it would be preferable to be caught up. Somehow the preachers I heard made both alternatives sound like a threat. They warned that it would be embarrassing to have Jesus come back while we were doing something that Christians shouldn't be doing. What if I was in the theater when Jesus returned? What if he came back before I quit smoking? How, they wanted to know, would I explain myself?

These were sobering questions, to be sure. But I was troubled by a more pragmatic concern. I was worried that I did not normally sleep in pajamas. What if Jesus came back in the middle of the night, like the bridegroom in the parable of the virgins? I did not relish the thought of suddenly appearing before the heavenly host in my shorts. Those who will be caught up in the Rapture, I had been told, take their bodies with them. Far better to be among the dead, who leave their bodies behind when they are called into the presence of God. Nervous about the possibility of embarrassment when that day came, I started wearing jeans to bed.

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September 2005, Vol. 49, No. 9