Left Behind

When Jesus Doesn't Come Back

The apostle Paul probably ruined a good many people’s lives.

Controversial thing for a Christian to say maybe but it seems true. As an American, in fact, I probably understand Paul’s type better than anyone, as the entirety of my life has been filled with street preachers and tent revivalists and radio evangelists going on and on about the end of the world. And that, sadly, is what Saint Paul was.

A lunatic raving about the end of time.

It’s true.

If you read Paul’s letters carefully and just take them at face value, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Paul was firmly convinced Jesus was coming again in his lifetime. Here and there he says so explicitly, but even when he’s not speaking about the end of the world, it’s hard not to notice the undercurrent of urgency belaying all his writings. Saint Paul was convinced, incorrectly so as it turns out, that Christ’s second coming would be soon. Very soon. How soon you ask? Well, soon enough that you might reconsider any big life changes. After all, it hardly makes sense to try and start a family or invest in a new house or try to get an education if the apocalypse is right around the corner. And that’s what Paul told people. Almost verbatim.

Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

— Saint Paul. Bible, 1 Corinthians 7: 25-32

Assuredly some people listened. How many we cannot say but Paul was one of the most charismatic men to ever live, traveling the earth on (he felt) a mission from God, preaching with a fire and intensity that would’ve frightened Billy Graham.

So I’m willing to bet the number was not small.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Whole tribes of young people talked out of marriage, people talked out of caring about their businesses, people convinced they ought not carry out the normal ritualistic mournings for their dead. Years of life and milestones lost or put on hold because some crazy ex-Jew got hold of a Roman passport and the freedom to travel.

“Jesus is coming back soon! Don’t worry about your regular life!”

But he was wrong.

And every preacher after him that said similar has been wrong too.

Of course, as everyone who tries eventually learns, you can only predict the end of the world for so long before it starts to get embarrassing. Indeed, it seems like some of Paul’s communities ended up waiting for the return of Christ so long that a lot of them were beginning to die. The whole “taken up to heaven with Jesus on a cloud” thing didn’t seem to be working, and a lot of them were starting to wonder if they’d miss the boat on heavenly glory. Ever the optimist, Paul writes and tells them not to fret. He wasn’t wrong in what he promised them. In fact, just the opposite. Those who have died, far from missing out on meeting Jesus in the air, actually get to be THE FIRST to meet him. The dead guys, you see, actually, they’re the lucky ones.

Convenient, no?

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

— Saint Paul. Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

The whole thing smacks of failed prophecy. Of doubling down. Of rationalization and cope and all the other mental tactics people use to protect their sense of self whenever it turns out they’re wrong.

Notice also the “we” there. Used twice. “We who are alive, who are left.” Consciously or unconsciously, by writing that Paul is including himself in those who will still be alive when Jesus returns, the conviction of his personal pre-death salvation seeming to never waver, even after years, perhaps decades of waiting.

It didn’t work out for him though. Whatever you believe about Paul’s immortal soul, his mortal body was killed, unceremoniously and very un-raptured, sometime around 64 AD, under Nero’s persecution of the Christians. The early church may have derided Nero as The Devil incarnate, and indeed there’s a lot of reason to think he’s who they had in mind when speaking about the Antichrist, but, on the mortal plain at least, none of that mattered. Nero got the last laugh. Both Peter and Paul were executed under his reign, ending either man’s eschatological hopes of avoiding death and being transfigured in the sky.

So it goes.

The early church had a profound belief in the imminent return of Jesus.

And it didn’t work out.

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

…

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

— St. Peter. Bible, 2 Peter 3: 1-4 & 8-10

Peter was also engaged in damage control you see. St. Peter, The Rock, The First Pope (if you believe Catholics), was trying to get ahead of things. They’d been going around, preaching the second coming for years now, and, as it kept not happening, the “scoffers” were starting to notice. Despite the fact that if you promise someone is going to show up and they don’t, asking, “So… where is he?” is perfectly valid, instead of acknowledging such concerns Peter instead makes the first rhetorical dodge in Christian history, claiming that the “soon” in “coming soon” might actually be thousands of years… and that’s okay. No bother.

Hey! We’re still right.

Once you see it… it’s hard to unsee.

Honestly, they could hardly be blamed. If the words recorded in the gospels are true, then none less than Jesus himself was responsible for putting such ideas in their heads. In numerous passages Jesus seems to indicate that his return after his death will be “soon”, and not “maybe a couple thousand years” soon but like “some of you here will live to see it” soon.

For example:

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.  When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

— Jesus. Bible, Matthew 10:16-23

Moreover…

And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.

— Jesus. Bible, Luke 21:25-29

And, if we take John of Patmos’s visions seriously, then Christ insinuates his return one final time in the Book of Revelation, in the second-to-last verse of the whole Bible no less.

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! — John, claiming to quote Jesus. Bible, Revelation 22:20.

So, yeah. Jesus seemed to be saying that his return was imminent, so much so that the disciples would still be alive and trying to preach their way through the towns of Israel when it happened.

That was over 2000 years ago.

Which, you might notice, is a funny definition of “soon.”

There’s a sci-fi book called Hyperion by Dan Simmons which takes all this to its logical conclusion. Part of the novel follows a Catholic priest, cavorting through the universe on various space ships trying to preach the good news, but frequently confronted with the fact that the year is 2732. You know, how long are you supposed to wait before you call the whole thing off? If it gets to the year 3000, can we stop waiting then? 4000? 8000? 25,000? At some point, even the most pious of believers have to feel that they’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes. At some point, people just have to wonder if they’ve gotten the whole thing wrong.

Sigh.

I wish I could tie a bow on this for you. You know, I wish I could give you the answers. I wish there were some very logical, reasonable sounding explanation for why it appears as though the prophecies of Jesus and the Apostles concerning his second coming failed and why they really didn’t.

But… if there is I don’t have it.

And trust me. I’ve looked.

I don’t think anyone else has it either.

C.S. Lewis, perhaps the most well-known and prolific Christian writer of the 20th century, certainly didn’t. In fact, he called Matthew 24:34 (a variant of the text I quoted above in Luke) “the most embarrassing verse” in the whole Bible. He was right to say so. These predictions of Jesus, frankly, simply appear wrong.

“Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘This generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”

It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side.

— CS Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”, 1952

Of course, religious people being who they are and Religion being what it is, a whole smörgåsbord of alternative explanations to what Jesus “really meant” in these verses has been offered over the centuries. Indeed, some of the weirder sects of Protestantism could be said to have gotten their start by trying to explain such verses away, and Catholic theology has been squirming on a pin over them for at least eighteen-hundred years. Writing about the problems with such approaches, Reverend Keith Ward, priest of the Church of England and former Professor of Divinity at Oxford, had this to say:

Various Christians have wriggled and squirmed to evade this point; I have done it myself. But every wiggle and every squirm is strained, implausible and, in the end, deceitful. What the sentence says is plain enough. It is only because we know it is false that we look for some other interpretation, to save the appearance of truth. So it is suggested that ‘this generation’ means this age (between the birth of Jesus and the end of the world); so it could be as long as you like (as 2 Peter says, ‘A thousand years is as one day to God’).

But if you can play with words like that, anything can be true. When Jesus says, ‘Surely I am coming soon’ in Revelation 22:20, he means ‘Surely I am coming in quite a long time – at least 2000 years.’ If you can believe that, you can believe anything; things can mean the opposite of what they say.

— Rev Keith Ward, FBA.

It’s a problem.

One to which there is no apparent solution other than that Christianity might just all be nonsense. I don’t believe that but… sometimes I do.

Maybe that’s the way of it.

Maybe that’s simply how it has to be.

I don’t know that you can be genuinely faithful and not leave such options on the table, and I have never trusted people unwilling to at least seriously entertain the idea that they might be wrong. You know… in any relationship there comes a time when the honeymoon phase ends and you see your partner’s flaws, and part of what draws you into a deeper connection is learning to accept them.

Could it be that that’s also true with God?

I don’t know. In my deeper moments though I do get the sense that a certain degree of “mistakes” are actually necessary for perfection. You know, like how pure water doesn’t conduct electricity and pure oxygen makes you intoxicated. The impurities of a thing are often what make it useful and so, cautiously, might I offer the idea that, likewise, in order to be perfect, Christ himself had to have his one mistake?

Maybe that’s heresy. Maybe it’s Taoism. Maybe it’s just cope disguised as clever sounding nuance. Again, as I feel I say all too often, I don’t know. There’s too much good in Jesus for me to abandon the project over one (apparent) inaccuracy, however I, like Lewis, cannot be convinced that the inaccuracy doesn’t exist. Two thousand years isn’t “soon”, and, in the meantime, we all have to learn to live with the fact that we’ve already been left behind.

Amor Vincit Omnia.