How soon is soon? Why does Jesus get a pass?
Question: Imagine if you will, you have a best friend who routinely promises you that he wants to get together with you and your family “soon.” Now imagine that same friend never shows up. You grow older, and eventually die without his promise being fulfilled. What kind of friend would make that promise and never deliver? How soon is soon? Why does Jesus get a pass? “Behold, I am coming soon.” (Revelation 22:12)
Response: I’ve always been amazed that I just don’t hear people talking about this verse:
Matthew 26:62-64 (ESV): “And the high priest stood up and said, ‘Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?’ But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, ‘I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
If Jesus wasn’t lying and the Bible is true, then Jesus has been coming on the clouds of heaven and with great power ever since Good Friday two thousand years ago. And yet we obviously haven’t recognized him, just as Jerusalem didn’t recognize him as he wept over them on Palm Sunday.
But he did say to the High Priest, “You will see from now on.” So, he must’ve seen and not recognized. But a day would come (Probably 70 AD, the destruction of Jerusalem, one generation after Jesus spoke these words) when the High Priest would see–perhaps he ran in terror from the slaughtered Lamb (Rev. 6:15) “calling to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and (or, ‘that is’) from the wrath of the Lamb.’” Or perhaps he bent the knee and confessed praise to God, for eventually every knee will bend and every tongue confess (Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10, Isaiah 45:23). Whatever the case he didn’t “die without [Christ’s] promise being fulfilled” for the time of death was the fulfillment of the promise.
Jesus, the Truth, does not get a pass. We see the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the Light, every day but don’t recognize him. But we will recognize him, and hopefully when we do, we will have come to love Him. Perhaps this is what you meant. If it isn’t, I entirely understand the sentiment (I get so frustrated with how long this is all taking–see 2 Peter 3:15. We’re not alone in this). However, I do believe that this is what the entire Bible is saying and, particularly, the Revelation. We’ve butchered the Revelation with modernistic (and unscientific) notions of spacetime AND our (the institutional church) lust for power. For anyone who’s interested we’ve posted a transcript of our Revelation series on line, originally it was published as a book titled “Eternity Now,” but the recent sermon transcripts are better: https://relentless-love org.s3.amazonaws.com/…/Revelati….
This is largely an attempt to answer your question biblically–your question, which has been my question as well. I must say that I’m always rather shocked to see that when I wrestle with the Word in Scripture–really taking it/Him seriously–it/He always seems to give an answer better than that for which I had even hoped. This world is insanely confusing, painful, and disappointing. But I believe he’s in you formulating the questions, causing us to ask the questions, and preparing us for the day (the seventh day, the eternal day when it is finished and everything is Good) when he will reveal himself as the answer–not a dead idea that we think we’ve captured in our brains but the living lover of our souls who has romanced us into complete and willing surrender.
In the End (Jesus is the End), all that will matter is that you have desired his “parousia,” his presence, his coming. On that day, I expect to turn around and say, “That was soon! But while I was in it, it felt like a thousand years.” Peter writes “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 willing that any should perish (literally, ‘be perished, be lost’).” We are those that exist at the end of the sixth day of creation, with the seventh day in our hearts. I think he utterly delights in your longing “The Spirit and the Bride (the Spirit is in the Bride) say, ‘Come’…He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen.” (Revelation 22:17,20). And it helps me to remember that when I was a child, my parents often said “soon,” and to me it seemed like a thousand years. I had good parents and it turns out that they weren’t lying.
Sorry to write so much. I just love your question. I think it verbalizes what we all are feeling and what we all should feel, as long as we don’t resent his “parousia,” his appearing, for it wasn’t as we expected having grown up on apocalyptic and unbiblical junk food.