"The Day of the Lord" or "the Lord's Day".
August 27, 2024 - Tuesday, Memorial of Saint Monica
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3A, 14-17
The excerpts from the second letter of Paul to the Thessalonians come from the beginning and the end of chapter 2. In this way, we are unable to fully grasp Paul's message regarding the major problem the Thessalonian Christians were struggling with: the second coming of Christ.
In the Gospel, Jesus spoke about his coming on Holy Tuesday (see Mark 13:24-27). In the Acts of the Apostles, two men in white robes told the disciples, who had just witnessed the ascension of the Lord, that "this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). Paul had also spoken about Jesus' coming during his days in Thessalonica (see 1 Thess. 1:10). The Thessalonians were so eagerly awaiting God's Son to return that they stopped doing anything else.
"The Day of the Lord" is usually associated with the day of punishment of sinners and liberation of the righteous. Amos, Joel, and Malachi presented it as a terrifying event—"a day of darkness and gloominess" (Joel 2:2; Amos 5:20, Malachi 3:23). In apocalyptic literature, it is an event that shatters the present world and precedes the coming of the Son of Man (see Mark 13:24-27) or the emergence of a new heaven and a new earth (see Rev. 21:1). However, there are two problems: time and interpretation.
First, let us tackle the issue of interpretation. "The Day of the Lord" can be any world-shattering experience. Mark puts the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD and the terrifying vision of the collapse of the world side by side (see Mark 13). When I saw documentaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the nuclear tests conducted by the US on the Marshall Islands, I understood why those who experienced and survived it compared it to the end of the world. However, we should remember that the phrase "the Day of the Lord" belongs to apocalyptic literature, which despairs about this world and sees the only solution to its evil and humanity's sinfulness as its destruction and a new beginning. But that is not good news.
The second issue is its timing. Nobody knows it, and those who tried to predict it, thank God, have always gotten it wrong. Some say it can come soon, and taking into account our ecological crisis and the possibility of nuclear war, there may be some truth to it. But in this case, it will not be "the Day of the Lord" but rather "the Day of Adam." However, I firmly believe that the Lord will not allow us to destroy this beautiful earth He created, and there are enough sensible people who will prevent such a disaster from happening.
Every time life gets tough, climate changes affect our lives, wars and armed conflicts plague our world, and economic crises affect family life, we tend to invoke the phrase "the Day of the Lord" and begin to speculate about the end of the world. The New Testament makes it clear that such an approach is not healthy. Instead, we should always remember that each Sunday we celebrate "the Lord's Day," Christ's victory over sin and death, and meet the victorious Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Instead of speculating and trying to predict the timing of "the Day of the Lord," as people of Easter, let us spread the fruits of Christ's victory and our encounter with Him from Monday to Saturday in our families, places of work, and neighborhoods.