THE RETURN, PRESENCE OR PAROUSIA OF CHRIST Although a scripture says every eye will see Christ at his return, others say he returns like a thief in the night meaning not easily seen if at all.  It is not a matter of scriptures contradicting but of complementing one another because a possible resolution is that at first his return is difficult to perceive but later becomes increasingly easier to see until it is clear to all.  For example Matthew 24:42 says “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come,” showing that Christians must stay alert to see that Christ has returned.  However in the same chapter of Matthew but at verse 30, Christ says “all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”   The weight of the scriptures is made clear though by considering other verses.  For example 2 Peter 3:10 says “the day of the Lord will come like a thief;” 1 Thessalonians 5:1 similarly says “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”  Acts 1: 9 says of Christ “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, a cloud hid him from sight, and two angels told them Christ would be returning the same way as he went up to heaven.  He had gone up visible then became invisible due to the cloud.  Reversing the order, he would return invisible but become visible.  During World War I, World War II, and the smaller wars in the Cold War period of the 1900s, many people said they perceived Christ’s return.  In the wake of the 9-11 tragedy and increasingly deadly natural disasters, people have said the same thing.  As a spirit being Christ is normally not visible but able to manifest himself as invisible anytime he may wish to do so. Way back in the late 1800s the Bible Students movement said they believed Christ had in fact returned a bit earlier invisibly in 1874.  They also said that 1914 was significant in that it began a times of woes brought upon people on the earth, which it in fact did since that was when World War I began.   On what did the Bible Student base the belief that Christ had come back invisibly in 1874?   For example, they felt that the book of Daniel had foretold a speeding up of communications and transportation such as happened in the latter part of the 1800s.  The year 1799 also seemed significant in that it was when Napoleon Bonaparte had captured the Pope, thus showing an end to the kind of papal power that had begun long before with Pope Leo I.  They recalled for example that the book of Daniel had spoken prophetically of 1,260 day periods and 1335 day periods.  From 1799 they subtracted 1260 and got 539.  Next they looked up historical events in the year 539 A.D.  It was in the same time period as when the Roman Catholic Pope Leo I had strengthened the power of the Roman Catholic Church.  Leo I had been able to intercede with both Attila the Hun and the Ostrogoths (also known as the Vandals), thus enhancing the Church’s hand in political affairs until 1799.   While the Bible Students stood firm about 1874, the Jehovah’s Witnesses who broke away headed by the Watchtower Society corporation made other mispredictions as to when the end would be although holding to the year 1914 as marked.  For decades until 2010 they taught that people in the Generation alive in 1914 would never die but live to see Armageddon followed by paradise on earth. As said, though, the Bible Students hold fast to 1874 as the date Christ returned invisibly and to 1914 as the time when major woes broke out on earth.  They believe too that many Bible prophecies about the Jewish people have been fulfilled and others will be.  For example, God had promised the Israel for Abraham’s descendants but for almost 2,000 years the Jewish nation of Israel had not existed.   However in the late 1800s the British Empire gave the Jews permission to start returning to their ancestral homeland and own property there.  Finally in 1949 Israel was restored as a modern nation.  It defended itself in the Six Days War, and Bible Students believe that it will continue to exist and bring about many blessings for all humanity.  Many of the Jewish people have returned to Israel and far more still will. Bible Students believe earth will continue to experience difficulties as mankind has to learn the ways of peace before all of God’s kingdom blessings are enacted.  Not all but some feel the collective series of events (WWI, WWII, H-bombs, Cold War, Al Qaeda, etc) form a kind Armageddon to be followed by the coming of true peace, harmony between humans and nature, our planet earth being restored to beauty such as the Garden of Eden had, general resurrection with people enjoying lasting good health and eternal life.