Homily 9 — First Thessalonians 5, verses 1 to 11

“But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.” [a]

Nothing, it seems, is so curious, so fond of prying into what is obscure and hidden, as human nature. And this tends to happen to it when the mind is unsettled and not yet mature. Children of the simpler sort never stop pestering their nurses and their tutors and their parents with question after question, and there is nothing in their questions but “When will this happen?” and “When will that?” This also comes from living in comfort with nothing to do.

So there are many things our mind is in a hurry to learn and grasp already, and above all the time of the end. And what wonder if we feel this way, when those holy men themselves felt it most of all? Before his suffering the apostles come to Christ and say, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24, verse 3). And after his suffering and his resurrection from the dead, they said to him, “Tell us, are you at this time restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (from Acts 1, verse 6). There was nothing they asked him sooner than this.

But it was not so afterward, once they had been granted the Holy Spirit. Not only do they stop asking about it themselves, and stop complaining that they do not know, but they hold back those who suffer from this untimely curiosity. Listen, for instance, to what blessed Paul says now: “But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you.” Why did he not say that no one knows? Why did he not say that it has not been revealed, instead of saying, “You have no need for anything to be written to you”? Because that would have grieved them more, while speaking this way comforted them. By the words “You have no need,” as though the question were both superfluous and unhelpful, he does not let them inquire.

For tell me, what good would it do? Suppose the end were to come in twenty years, or thirty, or a hundred: what is that to us? Is not the end of his own life the end of all things for each individual? Why are you curious? Why do you agonize over the end of the whole world? But it is the same with us here as in everything else. In other matters we leave our own private affairs and busy ourselves with everyone else’s. We say, “So-and-so is sexually immoral, so-and-so is an adulterer, that man has robbed someone, this one has insulted someone.” But no one takes account of what is his own; each thinks of anything rather than his own concerns. So here too each of us neglects to think about his own end and is eager to hear about the dissolution of everything. What concern is that of yours? If you make your own end a good one, you will suffer no harm from the other, whether it is far off or near. This is nothing to us.

That is why Christ did not tell it: because it was not to our advantage. “How was it not to our advantage?” The one who kept it hidden knows why it was not to our advantage. Listen to him saying to his apostles, “It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1, verse 7). Why are you curious? Peter, the leader of the apostles, and those with him heard this said, as though they were looking into things too great for them to know. [b]

“True. But in this way it would be possible to stop the mouths of the Greeks.” How? Tell me. “They say that this world is a god. If we knew the time of its dissolution, we would have stopped their mouths.” Well then, is it this that will stop their mouths — to know when the world will be destroyed, or to know that it will be destroyed? Tell them this: that it will have an end. If they do not believe this, they will not believe the other either.

Listen to Paul saying, “For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.” He means not only the common Day of all, but each person’s own day as well. For the one resembles the other and is related to it: what the one does for all together, the other does for each in part. For the end of all things took its beginning from Adam, and that Day will be the close of it; so even now one would not be wrong to call the present an end. When ten thousand die every day, and all are waiting for that Day, and no one is raised before it, is this not the work of that Day?

And if you want to know why it is hidden, and why it comes like a thief in the night, I will tell you how I think it can well be accounted for. No one would ever have practiced virtue his whole life long. Knowing his last day, a person would have committed countless sins, then come to the font, and so departed. For even now, when the fear that comes from not knowing shakes everyone’s soul, they all still spend their whole earlier life in wickedness and give themselves up to baptism at their last breath. If they had been fully sure about this matter, who would ever have practiced virtue? Many have died without being enlightened, and not even this fear has taught them, while they lived, to practice what pleases God. If this fear had been taken away as well, who would ever have been self-controlled, or who gentle? Not one.

And here is another thing. The fear of death and the love of life hold many back. But if each person knew that tomorrow he would certainly die, there is nothing he would not dare before that day. He would murder whomever he liked, get satisfaction by taking revenge on his enemies, and commit ten thousand crimes.

For a wicked man who has given up hope of his life here has no regard even for the man clothed in purple. So the one who was convinced that he must die in any case would take revenge on his enemy, and only after first satisfying his own soul would he meet his end. Let me mention a third thing as well. Those who love life and are passionately attached to the things of this world would be destroyed by despair and grief. If one of the young knew that he would meet his end before he reached old age, he would feel as the most sluggish of wild beasts do: when they are caught, they become more sluggish still as they wait for their end. [e]

Besides, not even brave men would have had their reward. If they knew that they must certainly die after three years, and that before that time it was impossible, what reward would they have earned for daring dangers? Anyone might say to them, “You throw yourselves into danger because you are sure of your three years of life; you know it is not possible for you to die.” But the one who expects death from every danger, and knows that he will live if he does not expose himself to danger but will die if he attempts this or that — he gives the greatest proof of his zeal and of his contempt for the present life.

I will make this plain to you with an example. Tell me: if the patriarch Abraham had known beforehand that he would not have to sacrifice his son, and then brought him to the place, would he have had any reward? And if Paul had known beforehand that he would not die, and then despised dangers, what would there have been to admire in him? At that rate even the most sluggish man would rush into fire, if he could find someone he trusted to guarantee his safety. But the three young men were not like that. Listen to them saying, “O king, there is a God in heaven who will rescue us out of your hands and out of this furnace. And if not, let it be known to you that we do not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up” (Daniel 3, verse 17, as the Greek Old Testament reads it).

You see how many advantages come from not knowing the time of our end — and there are more besides these. For now it is enough to learn these. This is why he comes like a thief in the night: so that we may not give ourselves up to wickedness or to laziness, and so that he may not take our reward from us. “For you yourselves know perfectly well,” he says. Why, then, are you curious, if you are convinced? And that the future is uncertain, learn from what Christ has said. That he said it for this very reason, listen to what he says: “Watch, therefore, for you do not know at what hour the thief is coming” (Matthew 24, verse 42). For this reason Paul also said: [f]

Verse 3: “When they are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will by no means escape.”

Here he hints at something he also says in his second letter. They were in distress, while those who made war on them lived at ease and in luxury. And while he was comforting them in their present sufferings by speaking of the resurrection, the others were mocking them with words taken from their forefathers, saying, “When will it happen?” The prophets also spoke of this: “Woe to those who say, ‘Let him make haste, let God hurry his work, so that we may see it; and let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so that we may know it!’” (Isaiah 5, verse 19). And again: “Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord” (Amos 5, verse 18). He means this Day. For he is not speaking simply of people who desire it, but of those who desire it because they do not believe in it. And “the day of the Lord,” he says, “is darkness, and not light.” So see how Paul consoles them, as if he had said: “Do not let them take their prosperity as proof that the judgment is not coming. That is exactly how it will come.”

But it may be worth asking: if Antichrist comes, and Elijah comes, how can it be that “when they say, ‘Peace and safety,’” sudden destruction then comes upon them? These things do not let the Day come upon them unawares, since they are signs of its coming. But he does not mean that this is the time of Antichrist, or the whole Day. That time will be a sign of Christ’s coming; but his coming itself will have no sign. He will come suddenly and unexpectedly. “But labor does not come upon a pregnant woman unexpectedly. She knows that the birth will take place after nine months.” And yet it is very uncertain. Some women give birth in the seventh month, and others in the ninth. At any rate, the day and the hour are uncertain. It is with respect to this, then, that Paul speaks this way. [h]

And the image is exact. There are not many sure signs of labor; many women have given birth on the road, or when they were away from home, not seeing it coming. And he hints here not only at the uncertainty but at the bitterness of the pain as well. A woman may be playing and laughing, expecting nothing at all, and then be suddenly seized by pains beyond words and pierced through with the pangs of labor. So it will be with those souls when the Day comes upon them.

“And they will by no means escape.” This is what he was saying just now.

Verse 4: “But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief.”

Here he is speaking of a life that is dark and impure. Corrupt and wicked people do everything as though at night, escaping everyone’s notice and shutting themselves up in darkness. Tell me, does not the adulterer wait for evening, and the thief for night? Does not the grave robber carry on his whole trade at night? What then? Does the Day not overtake the believers too like a thief? Does it not come upon them too without warning — or do they know it beforehand? How, then, does he say, “You have no need for anything to be written to you”? He speaks here not of the uncertainty but of the calamity: that is, it will not come to them as an evil. It will come without warning to them too, but it will bring them no harm. “So that that Day,” he says, “may not overtake you like a thief.” When people are awake and in the light, even if a robber should break in, he can do them no harm. So it is with those who live well. But those who are asleep he strips of everything and goes off — that is, those who put their trust in the things of this life.

Verse 5: “For you are all,” he says, “sons of light and sons of the day.” And how is it possible to be “sons of the day”? In the same way that people are called “sons of destruction” and “sons of hell.” That is why Christ also said to the Pharisees, “Woe to you, for you travel over sea and land to make one convert, and when he has become one, you make him a son of hell” (Matthew 23, verse 15). And again Paul said, “Because of these things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience” (Colossians 3, verse 6). That is, those who do the works of hell and the works of disobedience. So too the sons of God are those who do what pleases God; and so too the sons of the day and the sons of light are those who do the works of light. [i]

“And we are not of the night or of darkness.”

Verses 6 to 8: “So then let us not sleep, as the rest do, but let us stay awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober.”

Here he shows that being in the day depends on ourselves. With the present day and night it does not depend on us: night comes even against our will, and sleep overtakes us when we do not want it. But with that night and that sleep it is not so. It is in our power always to have day; it is in our power always to stay awake. For to shut the eyes of the soul and bring on the sleep of wickedness is not a matter of nature but of our own choice. “But let us stay awake,” he says, “and be sober.” For it is possible to sleep while awake, by doing nothing good. That is why he added, “and be sober.” Even by day, if someone is awake but not sober, he will fall into countless dangers. So sobriety is wakefulness at its most intense.

“Those who sleep,” he says, “sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.” The drunkenness he speaks of here is not only the drunkenness that comes from wine, but also the kind that comes from every vice. Wealth and the desire for riches are a drunkenness of the soul, and so is bodily lust; every sin you can name is a drunkenness of the soul. Why, then, has he called vice sleep? First, because the man given to vice does nothing where virtue is concerned. Again, because he sees everything as in a dream. He sees nothing as it really is, but is full of dreams, and often of senseless actions; and if he does see anything good, he has no firmness, no steadiness about it. The present life is like that. It is full of dreams and fantasies. Wealth is a dream, and glory, and everything of that sort. The one who sleeps does not see the things that are and have a real existence; he imagines that things that are not, are. Such is vice, and the life spent in vice. It does not see the things that are — the spiritual, heavenly, lasting things — but things that are fleeting and fly away and soon slip from us.

But it is not enough to stay awake and be sober; we must also be armed. If a man stays awake and is sober but has no weapons, robbers soon finish him off. So when we ought to be awake, and sober, and armed, and instead we are unarmed and naked and asleep, who will stop the enemy from driving his sword home? That is why, to show that we need weapons as well, he added: [j]

Verse 8: “Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”

“Of faith and love,” he says. Here he hints at both life and doctrine. He has shown what it is to stay awake and be sober: it is to have “the breastplate of faith and love.” Not an ordinary faith, he says. Nothing can quickly pierce a breastplate; it is a safe wall for the chest. In the same way, he says, surround your soul with faith and love, and none of the flaming arrows of the devil will ever be able to lodge in it. Where the soul’s strength is already taken up with the armor of love, all the schemes of those who plot against it are empty and useless. Neither wickedness, nor hatred, nor envy, nor flattery, nor hypocrisy, nor anything else will be able to get through to such a soul. He has not simply said “love”; he has told them to put it on as a strong breastplate.

“And for a helmet the hope of salvation.” As the helmet guards the vital part in us, surrounding the head and covering it on every side, so this hope does not let our reasoning falter, but holds it upright like the head, not letting anything from outside fall on it. And while nothing falls on it, neither does it slip of itself. It is impossible for anyone fortified with such weapons as these ever to fall. “For now faith, hope, love remain” (First Corinthians 13, verse 13). Then, having said, “Put on” and “Arm yourselves,” he himself provides the armor from which faith, hope and love may be produced and grow strong.

Verse 9: “For God did not appoint us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.” [k]

So God has not set his mind on destroying us, but on saving us. And how is it clear that this is his will? He has given his own Son for us. So much does he want us to be saved that he has given his Son — and not simply given him, but given him up to death. From these thoughts hope is born. Do not despair of yourself, my friend, when you come to God, who has not spared even his own Son for you. Do not lose heart at the evils of the present. He who gave his only Son to save you and rescue you from hell — what will he hold back from now on for your salvation? So you ought to hope for every kindness. We would not be afraid, after all, if we were going before a judge who was about to judge us and who had shown us so much love as to have sacrificed his own son. Let us hope, then, for great and kind things, for we have received the chief thing. Let us believe, for we have seen an example. Let us love, for it is the height of madness for someone who has been treated like this not to love.

Verses 10 and 11: “So that whether we are awake or asleep,” he says, “we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as you are doing.” [l]

And again, “whether we are awake or asleep.” By sleep he means one thing there and another here. Here “whether we are asleep” means the death of the body. That is: do not be afraid of dangers; even if we die, we will live. Do not despair because you are in danger. You have a strong guarantee. He would not have given his Son if he had not been on fire with intense love for us. So even if you die, you will live, for he himself also died. Whether we die, then, or whether we live, we will live with him. It makes no difference; it is no concern of mine whether I live or die, for we will live with him. So let us do everything for that life; with our eyes on it, let us do all our works.

Vice, beloved, is darkness; it is death; it is night. We see nothing we ought to see; we do nothing that is fitting for us. As the dead are unsightly and foul-smelling, so the souls of people given to vice are full of much impurity. Their eyes are closed, their mouths are shut, they lie motionless on the bed of vice. Or rather, they are more wretched than those who are dead in the natural way. Those are truly dead to both virtue and vice; but these are without feeling toward virtue, yet alive to vice. If someone strikes a dead man, he does not feel it, he does not take revenge, but is like a dry stick. So too this man’s soul is truly dry, having lost its life. It receives countless wounds every day and feels none of them, but lies without feeling toward everything.

One would not be wrong to compare such people to those who are mad, or drunk, or delirious. All these things belong to vice, and vice is worse than all of them. Those who see a madman make great allowance for him, since his disease comes not from choice but from nature alone. But how will the one who lives in vice be pardoned? [m]

Where, then, does vice come from? Why are most people bad? Tell me, where do diseases get their evil nature? Where does frenzy come from? Where does a stupor come from? Is it not from carelessness? If bodily disorders have their origin in choice, much more do those that are voluntary. Where does drunkenness come from? Is it not from a soul without self-control? Is not frenzy from an excess of fever? And is not fever from the elements in us becoming too abundant? And is not this overabundance of the elements from our carelessness? When, through too little or too much, we carry any of the things within us beyond the bounds of moderation, we kindle that fire. And if, when the fire is kindled, we go on neglecting it, we make a blaze for ourselves that we cannot put out. So it is with vice too. When we do not check it at its beginning or cut it off, afterward we cannot get to the end of it; it becomes too great for our strength.

So I beg you, let us do everything so that we never grow drowsy. Do you not see that when sentries give way to sleep only a little, they get no benefit from their long watch? By that little they have ruined everything, leaving the way wide open for the one who is ready to steal. We do not see thieves the way they see us; and the devil above all is always pressing on, lying in wait, and grinding his teeth. So let us not doze off. Let us not say, “There is nothing on this side, nothing on that side.” We are often robbed from a quarter we did not expect. So it is with vice: we are ruined from a quarter we did not expect. Let us look carefully around at everything. Let us not be drunk, and we will not sleep. Let us not live in luxury, and we will not doze. Let us not be crazed for outward things, and we will remain sober. Let us discipline ourselves on every side.

Those who walk on a tightrope cannot be off their guard even a little, for that little does great damage: the man who loses his balance is at once flung down and killed. In the same way it is not possible for us to be off our guard. We are walking a narrow road, cut off by cliffs on either side, with no room for two feet side by side. Do you see how much care is needed? Do you see how those who travel such roads guard not only their feet but their eyes as well? If a man chose to gaze off to one side, even though his foot stood firm, his eye would grow dizzy from the depth and plunge his whole body down. He must pay attention to himself and to his steps. That is why it says, “Neither to the right hand nor to the left” (Proverbs 4, verse 27). Great is the depth of vice, high are the cliffs, and much darkness lies below. Let us pay attention to the narrow way; let us walk with fear and trembling. No one traveling such a road collapses in laughter or is heavy with drink; he travels it with sobriety and fasting. No one traveling such a road carries anything unnecessary with him; he would be glad to go lightly equipped, so as to be able to get through safely. No one tangles his own feet; he leaves them unhampered and free to move.

But we chain ourselves down with countless cares and carry with us the countless burdens of this life, gaping about and wandering aimlessly. How do we expect to travel that narrow road? He did not merely say, “Narrow is the way” (Matthew 7, verse 14), but in wonder, “How narrow is the way!” — that is, exceedingly narrow. We too speak this way about things that truly amaze us. “And hard pressed,” he says, “is the way that leads to life.” And he put it well. When we are bound to give an account of our thoughts and words and actions and everything, it truly is narrow. But we make it narrower still, spreading ourselves out and widening ourselves, and splaying our feet. The narrow way is difficult for everyone, but especially for the one weighed down with fat; the one who makes himself lean will not feel how narrow it is. So the one who has trained himself to be squeezed will not lose heart at its pressure. [n]

So let no one expect to see heaven with ease. It cannot be. Let no one hope to travel the narrow road in luxury; it is impossible. Let no one traveling the broad way hope for life. So when you see this or that person living in luxury in the baths, at a lavish table, or in other things, with troops of attendants, do not think yourself unhappy because you have no share in these things. Grieve for him instead, because he is traveling the way to destruction. What is the advantage of the broad way, when it ends in distress? And what harm is there in the narrow one, when it leads to rest? Tell me: if one man were invited to a palace and walked there by narrow paths, painful and steep, and another were being led to his death and dragged through the middle of the marketplace, which would we call happy? Which would we pity? Would it not be the one walking the broad road? So now too, let us call happy not those who live in luxury, but those who do not. These are hurrying to heaven, those to hell.

And perhaps many of them will even laugh at what we are saying. But this is the chief reason I mourn and weep over them: they do not even know what they ought to laugh at and what they ought above all to mourn. They confuse and upset and disorder everything. That is why I weep over them. What are you saying, my friend? You are going to rise again, to give an account of your actions, and to receive the final sentence — and do you pay no attention to these things, but think about pleasing your stomach and getting drunk? And do you laugh at these things? But I weep over you, knowing the evils that await you and the punishment that is about to overtake you. And this is what I weep over most of all: that you laugh! Mourn with me; weep with me over your own evils. [o]

Tell me: if one of your friends dies, do you not turn away from those who laugh at his death and consider them enemies, and love those who weep and grieve with you? So when the dead body of your wife is laid out, you turn away from anyone who laughs; but when your own soul has been put to death, do you turn away from the one who weeps, and laugh yourself? Do you see how the devil has made us enemies and opponents of ourselves?

Let us at last be sober; let us open our eyes, let us stay awake, let us take hold of eternal life, let us shake off this long sleep. There is a judgment; there is punishment; there is a resurrection; there is an examination of what we have done! The Lord comes on the clouds. “Before him,” it says, “a fire will be kindled, and around him a mighty storm” (Psalm 50, verse 3, as the Greek Old Testament reads it). A river of fire rolls before him; there is the worm that does not die, the fire that is not quenched, the outer darkness, the grinding of teeth. Even if you are angry with me ten thousand times for speaking of these things, I will not stop speaking of them. If the prophets did not keep silent even when they were stoned, how much more ought we to put up with ill will, and not speak to you with an eye to pleasing you, so that we may not be cut in pieces ourselves for having deceived you.

There is punishment that never dies and never eases, and no one to stand up for us. “Who will pity,” it says, “a snake charmer who is bitten by a serpent?” (Sirach 12, verse 13). When we do not pity ourselves, tell me, who will pity us? If you see a man running himself through with a sword, will you be able to spare his life? Not at all. How much more, then, when we have it in our power to do good and do not do it, who will spare us? No one! Let us pity ourselves. When we pray to God, saying, “Lord, have mercy on me,” let us say it to ourselves as well, and have mercy on ourselves. It is in our own hands whether God has mercy on us; he has given us this grace. If we do what deserves mercy, what deserves his love for humankind toward us, God will have mercy on us. But if we have no mercy on ourselves, who will spare us?

Have mercy on your neighbor, and you will find mercy from God himself. How many come to you every day saying, “Have pity on me,” and you do not turn toward them! How many are naked, how many are crippled, and we do not bend down to them, but dismiss their pleas! How, then, can you claim to receive mercy, when you yourself do nothing that deserves mercy? Let us become compassionate; let us become full of pity, so that we may be pleasing to God and obtain the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.