"As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2)
Countless young men and women have sought guidance from their parents about the matters of the heart, asking in some form or another, "How will I know when I've found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with?"
And countless mothers and fathers have replied with a twinkle in their eye, "Oh, you'll know. Don't worry. When it's true love, you'll know it."
There's something funny to me about that repeated exchange across the generations, since typically the parents who give their response remember what it was like when they were young asking, "How will I know if I'm in love?" And for so many of them, when their parents first gave them the same mysterious advice, they had been frustrated at how ambiguous it seemed; now, when the tables have turned and their own children are asking the question, they find themselves coming back to the old line, "You'll know. Don't worry--you won't be able to miss it when love gets a hold of you." And they say these same words to their children, not to frustrating the next generation, but precisely because there's not really any better way to put it. There is no litmus test or rubric. There is no parting of the clouds with a ray of sun falling on the beloved. There is no scientific proof. There is only the sudden gripping awareness that you have been caught hold of by love and, well, rather like Elvis sang it, you "can't help falling in love." And so, the older generation keeps coming back to the best words they know to answer the question of each new generation: "You'll know. Don't worry--you won't be able to miss it when it happens. You'll know."
I find myself hearing similar echoes when I read these verses from what we call Second Thessalonians, which many of us heard back this past Sunday. Except the question being asked and answered in this first century letter isn't "How will I know if I'm in love?" or "How will I know I've found The One?" but rather, "Did we already miss Jesus' coming in glory?" I know it might seem hard to believe, but there were at least some early Christians who found themselves looking around at the world, seeing that life was pretty much continuing on as it always had, and wondering if maybe they had missed something. Had Jesus already come? Did the "day of the Lord" that they were taught to hope for already happen and maybe they didn't realize it? Or, even more pessimistically, was this it? Was life-as-they-knew-it as good as things were going to get, and maybe should they lower their expectations a bit and settle for the status quo? In short, the question is, "How would we be able to tell if we were experiencing 'The Day of the Lord'?"
And in response, the answer from the author of the letter feels a great deal like a wise parent with a knowing smile and a twinkle in the eye: "Don't you worry--you won't be able to miss it. When it happens, you'll know." In other words, it's not a response meant to gin up fear and anxiety, but hope and assurance. "We beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed," he says. In other words, "Don't worry. You haven't missed anything. Jesus' great and glorious coming to restore all things hasn't happened yet, and you didn't sleep through it. When Love comes to make all things new, you'll know it. In fact, you won't be able to miss it."
Part of the reason behind these verses, then, is to calm the worries of early Christians who didn't know what they were really waiting for or how long they were supposed to wait. They had been told from the very beginning that Christ was not only risen from the dead but coming in glory, and that God was going to set all things right and make all things new--but a good many of them assumed that Jesus was coming in a matter of maybe days, weeks, or months, rather than years, decades, or... millennia. So after having heard that Jesus was coming "soon," and that the Day of the Lord was nearing, and then nothing happened that felt like what they were expecting, you can understand why some might have looked for a voice older voice and asked, "Uh, did we miss it? Is it over? Is this all there is?"
Everybody who is new at love is a little uncertain of how it works and what to expect, right? Same thing for those who were just figuring out what it means and what it looks like to be loved by Jesus. "How will we know that this is the real thing?" we ask. "How will we be able to tell that the time has come?" And of course, sometimes folks think they are looking for a set of predictable signs or events in world history. There have been folks for all of the last twenty centuries convinced they had the date of Jesus' coming in glory firmed up and locked in on a certain date on the calendar, or they knew what events would trigger it. A great many self-described end-times experts have published predictions, called out the headlines they thought would usher in the Kingdom of God, and then all proceeded to be wrong. Every last one of them, so far. Maybe the coming of Jesus really is a lot like finding "The One" and falling in love--maybe all you can say is, "You won't be able to miss it. When it happens, you'll know."
At least as far as today's verses, that's how the author of Second Thessalonians begins. "Don't worry--you haven't missed it. You won't be able to miss it when the real thing happens. You'll know." That kind of answer frees us up not to obsess over the timing or trying to predict when Jesus will come. It frees us from constant fear, from constantly looking over our shoulders for ominous signs or secret messages, and from the worry that we might miss out on the party. And instead, we are freed for something: we are freed to pay attention to the needs of the people around us, the opportunities we have to share our faith in this day, and the direction of God in our everyday ordinary lives. We don't have to be constantly nervous about whether today is the end of the world when Jesus comes in glory and instead can simply focus on today as a gift of God in this world and where we will cross paths with people who bear the face of Christ for us as we bear the face of Christ for them. When I'm not constantly overcome with "fear of missing out" (what they sometimes abbreviate as FOMO), I can actually be more present to the people in the world around me, instead of seeing everything merely as cogs in an end-times countdown clock.
And there's one other thing that these verses do for us. By assuring us that we won't be able to miss the day of the Lord because of its sheer obviousness, it reminds us not to settle for the brokenness of the status quo as the final verdict. Instead of saying, "This is the best it will ever get, so learn to like it," over all the pain and suffering of the world, the New Testament says, "It is not God's will to leave the world broken, or to abandon creation. It is God's intention to make all things new." That's important, because quite frequently the loud voices of our culture will tell us, basically, to settle. You know how the logic goes: "Look, in an ideal world it would be great if there were no war and everybody got to eat, but hey that's not realistic, so you should only care about your own belly and your own skin. That's just how it is." Or sometimes it's, "Look, I would love to help out all the hungry people or the ones sleeping in their cars, or the ones fleeing from rubble piles and war zones, but we've got to look out for Number One in this life, so that's all we can hope for." All of that thinking is aimed at getting us to stop hoping for the fullness of God's great restoration of all things, and just to fall in line with supporting the status quo.
But the writer of Second Thessalonians points in the opposite direction. He says, rather, "The coming Day of the Lord will be so dramatic and so complete a renewal of creation that you won't be able to miss it. So don't give up hoping for it to happen, and don't settle for merely accepting the crookedness of the Way Things Are as the most you can ever aspire to. Keep holding out the vision of a new creation. Keep holding out the hope of a love that sweeps you off your feet. Keep holding onto to the promise that when The One we've be waiting for comes in glory, you won't be able to miss him. You'll know."
That's the word for us today: don't give up hope, don't let fear of the future freeze us in our place, and don't fall for any ploy to settle for less than the fullness of God's Reign that Jesus will bring in his own good time. He is worth waiting for. And, like anybody who has ever been loved before can tell you, when he shows up to meet us, we'll know.
Lord Jesus, free us to use this day well while we wait in hope for your coming in glory.
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