2 Thessalonians 2:1-5; 13-16

Transcription

1 Thessalonians 2:1-5; As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, 2 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. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. 4 He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? 13 But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. 16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, 17 comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word. 1

2 Thank God! At the risk of stating the obvious, today we celebrate Thanksgiving. Perhaps I should qualify that and say American Thanksgiving. Lots of cultures celebrate their own version of Thanksgiving, including of course Chuseok. Similar to Chuseok here in Korea, in America Thanksgiving is a holiday centered around family. And as with Chuseok, the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year as people crowd airports, train stations, bus depots, and highways to visit family near and far. The date of Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November. That date became fixed in 1942 [SLIDE], when Franklin Roosevelt was president, and the country was at war in the deserts of North Africa and the islands of the Pacific. But it was Abraham Lincoln, nearly 80 years earlier, when the country was at war with itself, who had declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. Before that, Americans didn t celebrate Thanksgiving on a regular basis. Some presidents declared national days of Thanksgiving in a particular year in response to a specific event. But it was Lincoln who made the day a national holiday. He did so in 1863 during the height of the American Civil War. You would think that the middle of a civil war would be a strange time to give thanks for anything. What was there to be thankful for when the country was tearing itself apart? I m going to let President Lincoln himself answer that question. Here is an abbreviated version of his proclamation declaring the creation of the Thanksgiving holiday [SLIDE]: The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so 2

3 extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. No human counsel has devised nor has any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, has nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife 3

4 in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. The language is more formal than we are accustomed to, and the sentences much longer than we use today, but there is a dignity in these words that is perfectly fitting for the occasion. The tone mixes mournful lament for a nation at war with reverent gratitude for blessings nevertheless received. Even more amazing than the eloquence of Lincoln s Thanksgiving proclamation are the circumstances in which it was written. The country was at war! A civil war, no less! And 1863 was the bloodiest year of the War. Only four months earlier, in July, Union and Confederate troops had fought the bloodiest battle of the War at Gettysburg, resulting in more than 50,000 casualties. And yet, it is within that context of violence of brother against brother, American against American, that Lincoln pauses to declare a national day of Thanksgiving to acknowledge the gracious gifts of the Most High God. Although the proclamation doesn t cite Scripture, the fact that it was written during the country s greatest crisis brings to mind Paul s closing words of his first letter to the Thessalonians: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18). In all circumstances. Lincoln was president of a country, half of which was at war with the other half, and the outcome was still uncertain, yet he could survey the ground and look up to the heavens and still feel a sense of immeasurable gratitude. Paul expresses a similar gratitude in today s reading from 2 Thessalonians. The Thessalonians are not in the midst of a war, civil or otherwise, but they are gripped by an anxiety that the end of the world is at hand. Amid the fear and fervor that had 4

5 taken hold of the Thessalonians, Paul writes a letter in which he gives thanks to God for them, his brothers and sisters who are beloved by the Lord. Last week we read a passage from 1 Thessalonians and today we jump ahead into 2 Thessalonians. Like Paul s first letter, this second letter also bears Paul s name, and it is addressed to the church in Thessalonica, but for a number of reasons many scholars of Paul have their doubts about both of those claims [SLIDE]. For one, in that first letter Paul writes about the impending coming of the Lord, with the expectation that Christ will come in his lifetime. Yet in 2 Thessalonians Paul hits the brakes on that idea. He says that other things must happen before Christ returns. The lawless one must be revealed. This is a mysterious figure who will lead a rebellion against God and who will seek to make himself an object of worship. Curiously, Paul doesn t mention this figure in his first letter to the Thessalonians. For this reason and several others that we don t have time to go into, some scholars argue that, rather than Paul himself, a disciple of Paul wrote this letter, and probably many years after the first letter. In the ancient world it was common practice to attribute a piece of writing to a famous historical figure. This gave the words more weight, more authority. We still do this today [SLIDE]. Einstein did not say half the things that are attributed to him. But if you put the name Einstein after a quotation, or insert him into an anecdote, people will pay more attention to it. The internet has only amplified this kind of false attribution. As Abraham Lincoln famously warned [SLIDE], you have to be especially careful about what you read on the internet. Then there are other scholars who make the case that 2 Thessalonians was indeed written by Paul [SLIDE]. They argue that Paul s first letter, in which he suggested that Christ would soon return, had so affected the Thessalonians that they were 5

6 thrown into a fervor. They stopped working and watched the skies, waiting for Christ to appear to them. When Paul heard this, he wrote a second letter to ease their minds and also to encourage them to remember their calling as God s chosen, which meant being chosen not only for salvation but chosen to follow in Christ s footsteps with good works and words. To be perfectly honest, I can see both sides. There s a good case to be made for Paul as author and a good case that someone is writing in Paul s name. Ultimately, for our purposes, it doesn t make a difference. Whether or not Paul wrote this letter is a matter for biblical scholars to debate, but that kind of critical study of Scripture can take us only so far. Our concern is more practical: What does this letter mean for us? What is Paul (or the voice of Paul) saying to us who live in a vastly different day and age from when this letter was written? Maybe I overstated that a bit. While our context in 21 st century South Korea is certainly different than the context of first-century Thessalonica, there is one similarity between the two. Now, as then, there is a lot of fear and anxiety in the air. For the Thessalonians, that fear and anxiety had to do with the second coming of Jesus, which they thought was imminent. After receiving Paul s earlier letter, the Thessalonians got themselves worked up into a frenzy. They thought Christ was coming tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, many of them stopped working. We re reading only chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians, but if we were to read chapter 3, we would hear Paul telling the Thessalonians to get back to work, and suggesting that whoever doesn t work shouldn t eat. As far as we re concerned, we may not be obsessing about when Christ will return, but a lot of fear and anxiety has been stirred up in recent months by North Korea s advancing missile program and how the American administration may respond to it with military force, and what that would mean for all the people who live on the 6

7 Korean peninsula. North Korea has gotten a lot of coverage in America recently, but much of it has been awful. When it comes to North Korea the American media is guilty of sensationalism. Some of that may be due to the fiery rhetoric that has come from the White House. But still, reading or watching many of the stories, you would think that war was imminent. At times the media seem intent on stirring up fear to generate ratings. The media here is much more sober while still taking the threat of North Korea seriously. Yet despite all the coverage of North Korea in America [SLIDE], somehow only 36% of Americans can identify North Korea on a map. That was the result of a survey that appeared in the New York Times earlier this year. Amid the uncertainty surrounding issues of war and peace, it would be easy for us to be shaken and alarmed, as the Thessalonians were. Instead, let s consider Paul s words to them [SLIDE]: 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 and alarmed to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here (2 Thess. 2:1-2). Paul seeks to assure the Thessalonians. The day of the Lord will come, and when it does there will be no mistaking it. But that day is not now. Other things must happen first. The lawless one, who will lead a rebellion against God, must be revealed and defeated. I m going to avoid speculating on this figure of the lawless one whom Paul says will come before Christ returns. I m going to avoid speculating because that s all I could speculate. And frankly, that s what Paul is telling the Thessalonians not to do. He s telling them to turn their attention away from speculating on the future Is the day of the Lord coming soon? Is it at hand even now? and focus instead on what the Lord is calling them to do here and now. Paul doesn t want them to speculate on the identity of the lawless one. He himself is not at all concerned with the identity of this person. That would only lead to more fear and anxiety. Instead, he mentions it to 7

8 them to soothe this anxious congregation, to remind them, as he has already told them, that Christ will triumph over all manner of evil. Paul then makes a sudden and dramatic shift in his letter in verse 13. He reorients the Thessalonians away from all talk of speculation by offering a word of thanksgiving [SLIDE]: But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord (2 Thess. 2:13). It s an abrupt shift. The effect is jarring. It s like suddenly pressing reset. That s what gratitude does. It reorients us. Gratitude takes us outside ourselves and turns us toward the one to whom we give thanks. Gratitude fixes our attention away from ourselves and all our fears, anxieties, grievances, and jealousies and fixes our eye on the gracious giver. Gratitude reminds us who we are and whose we are. That s what Paul tells the Thessalonians. He reminds them of their calling in Jesus Christ. God chose you as the first fruits for salvation, he tells them (2 Thess. 2:13). And he tells us. God chose you. You did not choose God; God chose you for salvation [SLIDE]: For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess. 2:14). Amid all of life s uncertainties, amid rising and falling economies, amid everchanging political winds, amid threats and rumors of war, there is still one thing in which we can be certain God s enduring love for sinners like us. For it is such sinners whom God calls, whom God beckons into the arms of his love. It is such sinners whose hearts God comforts and strengthens in every good work and word (2 Thess. 2:17) [SLIDE]. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to this teaching (2 Thess. 2:15). When you feel restless, as will inevitably happen in our 24/7, always-on world, rest in the truth of God s steadfast love. In this love we can be certain. Thank God! 8