II Thessalonians 1-3: The Second Coming as Retribution Against Evildoers (Saturday's Reading!)

One of the key themes among persecuted and oppressed groups is the idea of the second coming as the great balancer of the scales against injustice. As you listen to the African-American spirituals, you will hear the themes of political and economic restoration (“All God’s Children Got Shoes”, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”, “Go Down, Moses,”) and at the same time a heavy emphasis on the second coming and eternal life(“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, “Deep River,” “Gabriel Blow Dat Horn”). When things are not going so well on earth, heaven and the second coming becoming powerful and sustaining themes.

The face of evil in chapter 2 is symbolically presented in “the man of lawlessness,” in other places called “the anti-Christ.” The final victory over evil is described as a victory over a man. For John, in Revelation, the man is identified by code as “666” or “616” depending on the manuscripts you read. In Hebrew numerology “666” would have been the spelling of "Caesar Neron" (the emperor Nero) and “616” would have been "Neron" (See Bruce Metzger's Breaking the Code for more on this. Many generations have had a symbolic representation of demonic evil , who represent all that is contrary to the cause of Christ. Hitler has been the most dramatic representative in our time, but there are many others.

The last section of the letter cautions against idleness. I had a retired pastor once tell me that he suffered from “indolent fever” (in other words, “laziness”). My guess is that we all have times of “indolent fever.” There is a form of second coming theology that does feed into this. When I was in college, there were several students who thought they should drop out of school because Christ was coming soon. Similarly, there are some Christians who are so second-coming oriented, they don’t think it is worth taking on AIDS, population control and world hunger, nuclear disarmament, relationships between Christians and other religions or other pressing issues of our time. The second coming becomes the ultimate “bailout” for the challenges and evils of our time. Paul calls on the Thessalonians to a combination of hope in the coming Christ and hard work. That still preaches.