A certain man, Herbert Washington by name, was so taken up with the idea of Christ’s second coming and rapture that he became a pain in the neck to his coworkers. So his coworkers hatched a plan to pay him back in his own coins. One day, when Herbert went to the washroom, they lay their work clothes on their chairs and hid in the supply room. When Herbert came back from the washroom, he thought the rapture had taken place. The Muslim janitor, who was part of the joke, pretended to have witnessed everyone disappear and ran around the office feigning panic. Herbert fell to the ground clutching his heart and screaming, "I knew you'd forget me, Jesus! What did I do wrong?" He was taken to a local hospital where he was diagnosed of heart attack. He recovered after undergoing bypass surgery. "We didn't mean to scare him to death," said one of his coworkers. "He's just always talking about it, so today we decided to turn the tables on him."

Like Herbert, the Thessalonians to whom Paul wrote were obsessed with the nearness of the second coming of Christ. In his second letter to them, Paul reprimands the Thessalonians for giving up work and living in idleness (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). Apparently some of them thought that the Lord’s coming was so near that there was no point in providing for the future. Such excesses on the part of believers give non-believers the impression that the second coming of Christ is a fear factor fabricated by Christian preachers to scare people into accepting the faith. Paul’s opponents in Thessalonika were making such claims.

Written about the year 50-51 ad, Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is believed to be the oldest book of the New Testament. Paul had preached in Thessalonika where he established the church. He then moved on to Corinth. There he heard that the young church in Thessalonika was under persecution. So he sent Timothy to go and find out what is happening. Timothy came back to Paul with his report on the crisis of faith among the believers in Thessalonika. That was when Paul decided to write them this letter (1 Thessalonians 3:5-6).

The enemies of the church in Thessalonika were saying that Paul’s teaching that Jesus would come back to take his followers with him was Paul’s own fabrication. To support their case they pointed out that some of the first Christians who thought that Jesus was coming back to take them with him were already dead. In other words, they were deluded in their belief. Paul’s response is that their death does not mean that they will suffer any disadvantage when Christ comes. At Christ’s coming the dead will rise from the dead and, together with the living, they will meet the Lord in mid-air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

If it was problematic for Christians of Paul’s time to believe in the second coming of Christ because some of them were dead, it is even more problematic for today’s Christians. Many centuries have passed since Paul’s time and yet we have not seen Jesus coming in the clouds. Paul himself who believed he would be one of those still living when the Lord comes (1Thessalonians 4:17) is long dead. Besides the notion of the Lord’s coming in the clouds was based on a flat earth theory, such that as he descended every eye would see him. Such a scenario is more problematic today given what we now know that the earth is spherical. No wonder, then, many Christians today do not take the belief in the second coming of Christ seriously. As a consequence many throw away the baby with the bath water.

Yet the basic faith of the church on the second coming of Christ is that “he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” Anything more specific than that with regard to how and when he will come is not an essential part of the faith and can often prove to be counterproductive. The best way to prepare for the second coming of Christ is not to engage in speculations of how and when and where it will be but, as Paul says, to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all” so that we “may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13).