Where Is the Coming?

This week’s reading was written by someone very close to the Adventist situation—conceptually speaking. It warns against those who will come and question where the Second Coming is and why it has not happened. The Bible reading comes in the middle of a slew of striking invective against "false teachers"—almost certainly those who teach a "heterodox" version of Christianity. (Note how these teachers "entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error" [2:18]; how they are worse off for having once agreed with the writer and since disagreed, than if they had remained pagans [vs. 20–21]; and how they are compared to dogs who return to their vomit [v. 22]).

This is clearly a passage about differing doctrines regarding the Second Coming and a warning against those who do not believe it will occur soon. There is a Job-like appeal to the power and greatness of God, a warning that the Coming will appear quickly and without warning, and advice that the best way to make sure to be on the right side is to live a good life.

All speculation about early Christian power struggles to define "orthodox" doctrine aside, there still remains the very specific question broached by this passage: "Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of the creation" (3:4). This statement, in a nutshell, tells us why those who wrote, read, and were talked about (we do not, of course, have the heretical side of the story) in the second book of Peter are our conceptual cousins. "Where is this coming he promised?"

This coming has been promised for 2000 years, and in our own Adventist tradition more seriously for 150 more. The text and its warnings try to remove even the option of doubt from our minds by calling into question the character of those who ask and threatening judgement on those who differ, even while attempting a kind of answer that resolves the theoretical difficulties. God is the one in charge; God’s time is different from ours; the Coming will be unexpected; and the best way to make sure of one’s being on the right side is to live a blameless life—that is, live according to Christian teaching.

One can even detect a precursor of Pascal’s wager in verse 14: "[S]ince you are looking forward to this [the day of the Lord, with great destruction], make every effort to be found spotless, blameless, and at peace with him." The best way to avoid destruction is to be orthodox. And, if the destruction is such that "the heavens disappear with a roar" and "the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare"—then, in such a case, surely the better part of valor is continuing to believe.

Even so, the question remains. One can even sense within the violent rhetoric an insecurity—what if the "scoffers" are right? What if we, and our religious experience, and the life we have given ourselves to, as a community—what if all these are mistaken? What if the coming is not coming, so to speak, and we have been living a lie? Such a thought is clearly unthinkable in the psychological world of the committed believer. Therefore, it must be put away, countering the most dangerous kind of heretic—the budding heretic within.

Still, the question remains. "Where is this coming he promised? . . . [E]verything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." One hundred fifty years after the founding of a denomination based on an experience and a conviction that such an event was imminent, and 2000 years after these words were written, the question still resounds, and it provokes an uncomfortable response in anyone who has found hope, or meaning, in a religious movement that centers around the belief in or expectation of a Second Coming of Jesus, the Christ.

Meaning and Hope

In the finding of hope and meaning, in the very good things about the religious life itself, ironically, the beginnings of a response to the question might be found. One must have found meaning or hope or some good thing in the experiences that surround this aspect of the Christian message in order for the question of the delay to cause any worry at all. If the Coming were not important, then there would be no problem with its being delayed, indefinitely, if necessary. Meaning and hope are at the heart of the problem.

The question of meaning is related to one’s present experience. If one finds meaning, there is something rewarding about being in the world. The present experience of being with other believers as the Second Coming of Jesus is talked about, the feeling of togetherness, the sense of purpose, the sacrifices shared—all these are meaningful activities, engaged in because Jesus is coming again. The being with, the sharing, the togetherness, the purpose, the sacrifice—all these goods are threatened when the purported reason for their existence is doubted. No wonder the author of 2 Peter gave such a strong response. His life, especially the goodness of his experience, was called into question.

Even so, the goodness somehow remains. Togetherness, sacrifices for a cause, the experience of purpose, sharing with others—all these are good in themselves. If they were not, it is hard to see why distress would accompany them being called into question. If they were bad, then jettisoning them would only engender relief, not distress.

There may be an answer in the case of Joshua Himes and the Great Disappointment. After being disappointed, he threw his not-inconsiderable talents for organizing and fund-raising into relief work for those affected by the Disappointment, and later he entered into antislavery work. Togetherness, purpose, sacrifices, and joy—all are shared goods and need to be oriented toward an object worthy of them.

In addition to meaning in shared activities in the present, there is also meaning in hope for a better future. The dynamics of hope are interesting, and it has been the lot of Christians to recover the meaning of hope from more secular thinkers in the twentieth century. Hope implies a future, a future better than the present, and it implies the willingness to work for such a future. In every disappointment, in every difficulty, if hope can be found, there is, within such a feeling, the orientation and urge toward its fulfillment. If there is hope for the future, that hope means that such a future is thinkable, and therefore, to some degree realizable.

A great thinker once said "every tragedy is the disclosure of an ideal." Realizing that there is hope, that it somehow miraculously arises again and again from the ashes of disappointment, gives one faith and strength to pick up and carry on in the task of waiting and working.

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