The advent hope—the "blessed hope" of "the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2: 13 RSV) is the very spirit of authentic Adventism. But the hoped-for advent has not yet occurred, and to the extent that the hope itself has faded, the nature of Adventism has significantly changed. If the problem of "the delay" has, in fact, changed Adventism, one important reason is that the nature of the advent hope has not been clearly understood.

More than a century and a half ago William Miller and others interpreted some of the apocalyptic chronology of Daniel (namely, the "two thousand and three hundred days," beginning with "the going forth of the commandment to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem," 3:14 and 9 :25 KJV) to mean that Christ would come to the world in judgment and the present age would end in the year 1843. This date was later recalculated and refined to October 22, 1844. To the Millerite Adventists, there was no doubt about the meaning of the advent hope.

Now another hundred years have passed, bringing two world wars, Auschwitz and Hiroshima, automobiles and supersonic aircraft, telephones and television, microwave ovens and personal computers, rock music and electronic church. How does all of this affect the advent hope? Is there not a major problem of delay?

The answer is yes and no. Not yes or no, but yes and no. This paradox is an inevitable consequence of the paradoxical character of hope in general and of the advent hope in particular. For hope is by its very nature a paradox of knowing and not knowing, and the advent hope is a further paradox of eagerness and patience.

Knowing and Not Knowing

To be reasonable, any hope must be based on appropriate knowledge—on what philosophers like to call "justified true belief." Without this kind of basis, hope is nothing more than wishful thinking—an optimistic guess or a pleasant (or pious) fantasy.

But along with the knowing there is always an element of not knowing, of uncertainty, and it is the uncertainty as well as knowing that makes hope reasonable. This not knowing does not raise doubts about what is known that knowledge is still "justified belief." What is not known is something beyond knowledge—the basis of hope.

In the advent hope, as in all other valid hopes, we have definite knowledge that makes hope eminently reasonable. In this case we know, first of all, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah as the supreme revelation of God. Secondly, within that revelation, we know Jesus explicitly affirmed that He would "come again" (John 14:3).

The knowledge that makes the advent hope reasonable is the whole gospel of Jesus as it is recorded and presented in the New Testament documents. Strictly speaking, what we "believe in" is the God who came to humanity in the person of His Son and who is present with us now in the person of His Spirit, rather than our interpretation of the biblical prophecies of the Second Coming of Christ.

As with all hope, furthermore, the knowing on which the advent hope is based is accompanied by an element of not knowing and uncertainty. This neither creates nor reflects doubt about the affirmation of a Second Coming of God in Christ. What is unknown is the time of His Second Coming.

Eagerness

A special characteristic of the advent hope is to be eager. This particular hope wants actualization as soon as possible. What is hoped for is superlatively good. The advent hope does not want to wait.

In the person of Jesus the Messiah, God came to be with humanity (hence the Hebrew name "Immanuel," Matthew 1 :23), and when God comes in the person of Christ a second time, it will be to save those who are waiting for Him" (Hebrews 9:28). The true advent hope therefore is not a paranoid hope for the destruction of a hostile world, or an anxious hope for a favorable verdict in the day of judgment. The advent hope is a radiant, energizing hope for the arrival and presence of God in the person of Christ.

So the advent hope is properly characterized by eagerness. It cannot occur "too soon." The Second Coming of Christ is not an interruption of human existence but its elevation, transformation, and completion. The eagerness of the advent hope creates a sense of imminence.

Anyone who is not eager for the Second Coming of Christ either is not a Christian or does not understand what the advent hope is all about.

Patience

The advent hope is not only eager, it is also patient. Although it would much prefer not to, advent hope is willing to wait. This willingness is what gives the advent hope its remarkable durability, its capacity to survive any delay. The advent hope is patient and durable because the character of God is love.

But God’s love arises from His freedom; it cannot be domesticated and made to function according to human preferences. The way God’s love is expressed at any moment is in principle unpredictable and unknowable in advance. Even though He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises and expectations of the Messiah, Jesus was a stunning surprise.

Mystery and Assurance

At this point it is clear that the fact that Christ has not yet come is not a problem to be analyzed and then solved in the way that, say, a medical scientist seeks to understand the biochemistry of aging, or an automobile mechanic dismantles an engine that refuses to start. Instead, like its theological cousin, the problem of evil, this problem of delay is a mystery to be acknowledged and inspected.

When the element of transcendence and mystery in the advent hope is recognized, there is no demand for an answer to the question, "Why hasn’t Jesus come?"

In the first place, even if we could demonstrate that the reason Jesus has not come is that the church has failed to proclaim the gospel to all the world, or that its people have not reached a sufficient level of spiritual growth, we would still be lacking essential information. For it would be God alone who would define the necessary extent and persuasiveness of the proclamation, and the necessary level of maturity.

In the second place, both the proclamation of the gospel and the spiritual growth of the church involve more than natural and human factors. They require the active presence of the Spirit of God, which is not subject to human analysis or control by individuals, committees, or church councils.

And in the third place, the fact that the planet on which humanity resides is part of a larger universe, and that our struggle with personal and collective sin is part of a cosmic controversy between good and evil means that there may be other transcendent factors for the delay of Christ that will remain entirely unknown to us until alter the coming of Christ.

As in the biblical drama of Job, there may be reasons for the absence of God that remain unknown to humans until after the new beginning of human existence when we enter the immediate presence of God.

Clearly and correctly understood, the advent hope is expressed not in predicting the course of history on the basis of advance information in the Bible, or in developing plans to "finish the work" in a specified amount of time. Advent hope is living in eager anticipation of the coming and presence of God in the person of Christ.

As a matter of fact, the basic purpose of the Bible is not to enable us to write history in advance or to satisfy our curiosity about future events. Rather, the purpose of the prophetic and apocalyptic literature in Scripture is to provide reassurance of the presence and power of God in the face of the apparent supremacy of evil, to encourage and enable the people of God to live with complete integrity and unselfish love.

The genuine advent hope is eager for the Second Coming of God in the person of Christ, but it is willing and able to wait until the time when God himself chooses to come again to humanity. It has no doubt that this Second Coming is part of the gospel of Christ, but it doesn’t presume to know when it will occur. Eagerness for the advent endures because it is patient, knowing that the character of God is love; it lives the good news of God’s love for a broken, distorted world.

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