2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

Imagine you are a Christian during difficult times.

I know it’s a stretch, but I believe in you.

Now imagine living under Vlad III of Romania. He is known for killing people by impaling them on pikes, and some even more disturbing practices. You might think “This is certainly the lawless one of Second Thessalonians chapter 2.” But you would be wrong.

What if your leader was Ivan IV of Russia, whose bouts of mental illness and paranoia led him to kill people he distrusted, at one point killing and injuring 3,000 in a massacre. There is a reason he was called Ivan the Terrible. Lawless one?

What about England’s Oliver Cromwell, who badly treated Catholics and rounded up priests. Opposing and exalting himself above every so-called god or object of worship?

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Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

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There are many things that may make people believe the end is near.

Disease:

In the first Bubonic Plague, the plague of Justinian, 15 to 100 million died or 25 to 60% of the population of Europe.

In the second Bubonic Plague, the Black Death, 25 to 50 million people died, or 30 to 60% of the European population.

In the third Bubonic Plague, 12 to 15 million people died worldwide.

CoViD has killed between 7 and 36 million people so far.

AIDS has killed 44 million people so far.

The Spanish Flu, so-named because countries other than Spain were not publishing their struggle with disease because of the first World War, killed between 17 and 100 million people.

Famines:

The Chinese Famine of 1907 claimed about 25 million lives.

In the Great Chinese Famine between 1959 and 1961, between 20 and 50 million people died.

Natural Disasters

As many as 4 million people died in the 1931 China floods, and as many as 2 million in the 1887 flood of China’s Yellow River.

500 thousand died in a cyclone in what is now Bangladesh in 1970.

316,000 people lost their lives in the 2010 earthquake.

War:

During the Crusades, originally a war between empires, but devolving into a war between Christians and Muslims, over 1 million people died, perhaps as high as 9 million.

In the US Civil War, over 200,000 soldiers were killed in action or died of the wounds later. Nearly 400,000 died of accidents or disease. Over 50,000 died in military prisons. 50,000 free civilians died. 60,000 slaves were documented to have died, and tens of thousands more who died of disease were not documented. In total, between 600,000 and 1,000,000 people died in the 4 years of the war, when the US population was 31 million.

In World War II, over 70 million people died, over 3% of the human beings on earth.

That is a lot of death and misery. Many may fear it is the end of the world. Others may hope it is the end of the world, if only for relief from suffering.

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Paul is writing to the church in Thessalonica Greece, and warning them about the possibility of fake news.

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.

2 Thessalonians 2:2, NRSVue

How many natural disasters have claimed lives?

How many diseases have taken their toll on human populations?

How many despots have ruled portions of the earth?

How many wars have slain combatant and non-combatant?

I’m not expecting word, letter, email, or Tik-Tok from Paul. But there is a temptation to be “shaken in mind or alarmed … by spirit” when we see leaders whose bouts of mental illness and paranoia lead them to kill people they distrust.

Our minds are willing to entertain the question “Is this disease the end of humanity?” We fear smaller wars becoming large wars, and large disagreements turning to international violence.

What can we do?

The first thing we can do is written clearly in the book.

No, not the Bible.

On the cover of this book:

“Don’t Panic.”

This is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and while I would not use it as a guide for living, the words on the cover give us good advice.

And while we’re not panicking, we can hold on to the promise that we do not have a God of the Dead, but a God of the Living.

How we understand that may vary. There are many views on eschatology – that is – the study of the final things, or the last things.

But the promise is that a God of the living, and a redeemer who is risen, will support our lives in the face of death, and even after death.

So I’m not giving you a Save the Date card for the end of the world.

What I’m giving us is a challenge:

When everything seems to be against us, disasters, food scarcity, disease, war, and despots: remember that humanity has survived these and many other trials, and we are still here. Remember that our God is a God of the living. And with that reassurance, continue to work for good in the face of evil, for truth in the face of falsehood, for life in the face of death, and for hope in the face of doubt.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,

who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope,

comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, NRSVue

Amen.

Let’s sing CH 377 Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.