Tuesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, August 31, 2021

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11

Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, “Peace and security,” then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.  But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief. For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober. For God did not destine us for wrath, but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.

St. Paul continues to speak to the Thessalonians about the last day, when the Lord Jesus will return.  “Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.”  Although these Gentile Christians still struggle with the meaning of the Resurrection of the Dead, Paul feels certain that they do grasp the doctrine of the uncertainty of the time of the Lord’s coming, which will initiate this Resurrection.  The Lord himself emphasized to his Apostles that no one would know beforehand the time of his arrival, and that it would be sudden, without warning: “Then two shall be in the field. One shall be taken and one shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill. One shall be taken and one shall be left. Watch ye therefore, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come” (Matthew 24, 40-42).  Paul compares our Lord to “a thief at night”, which indeed the Lord says of himself: “But this know ye, that, if the owner of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch and would not suffer his house to be broken open” (Matthew 24, 43), and, “Behold, I come as a thief” (Revelation 16, 15).  “When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”  The condition of our life on earth is one of constant struggle to find food to eat, clean water to drink, and shelter against the elements.  The struggle might be with nature or with other people.  In the West, for the past century or so, we have gained the luxury of acquiring and storing food for the next day, and of taking our dwelling places for granted.  For a great part of the world this is not true, and it happened only sporadically in ancient times in the case of an abundant harvest and peace with the surrounding nations.  But this state exists temporarily, as history teaches us.  Rather than patting our stomachs and congratulating ourselves on the “peace and security” we enjoy now, we ought to thank God for what he has given us and to pray that he will sustain us the next day, too.  But we should always be ready in case there is no next day.

“For all of you are children of the light and children of the day.”  The light is truth, and the truth is the Gospel of God.  To be “children of the light and of the day we must know the Gospel of God and to know Jesus Christ.  “But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief.”  Paul speaks of the darkness of ignorance, here, but there is also the darkness of sin: “We are not of the night or of darkness.”  St. John speaks of darkness in his Gospel: “And the light shines in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1, 5).  The Greek word here translated as “comprehend” also means “to seize”, and “to overtake”.  John could be saying that the darkness did not understand the light — the Lord Jesus — or that it did not seize it in order to destroy it.  When Paul says that “We are not of the night or of darkness”, he means that we do not belong to the enemies of Christ who tried and failed to seize him, or who refused to understand him.  

“Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.”  This verse is explained by the verse that follows it in the biblical text, but which for some reason is not included in the lectionary reading: “For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that are drunk, are drunk in the night.”  Those who live in the darkness of sin — sin which not only prevents understanding but even the desire to understand — are not “alert and sober” but are “asleep” and “drunk”.  The verse following this is also not included in the lectionary reading: “But let us, who are of the day, be sober, having on the breastplate of faith and charity and, for a helmet, the hope of salvation.”  That is, in the spiritual world of struggle against temptation, we must be “sober”, meaning alert and aroused lest the enemy strike us while we are unprepared.  To defend ourselves  and to advance in the spiritual life, we wear the “breastplate of faith and charity”, which protects our heart, and the “helmet of the hope of salvation”, which protects the brain.

“For God did not destine us for wrath, but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.”  From all eternity, Almighty God willed for us to be saved and when he created us, gave us free will so that we might align our wills with his, leading to our salvation.  This salvation was obtained for us by Jesus Christ after we had sinned and lost this alignment.  “So that whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with him.”  Here, Paul reverts back to his earlier use, at the beginning of his Letter, of sleeping and waking, that is, as the state of the dead and the state of the living.  He reasserts that all the holy ones, those who have died and those still alive at the time of the Lord’s coming “may live together with him.”  

“Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.”  The Greek verb translated here as “build up” means “to edify”.  We who share this common destiny in heaven with Christ should edify one another with virtuous words and works.  To lift our neighbor’s burden, is to edify those looking on.  To walk away from gossip, does the same.  Since we are to be “gathered together”, we need to help one another to become holy in this life, living each day as a preparation for the last day.