What we are given in the closing verses of this last chapter in the Bible is our vision, our hope, our prayer, our preaching, our prophecy: “See, I am coming soon ....” Jesus, the Risen Christ, is coming soon, as has been promised from the beginning. That time gets closer with each passing year, each passing day. The time is closer now than it was yesterday, closer this year than last year — certainly closer than it was around the turn of the first century, when most scholars believe that the Revelation of John was written.

            Yes, this primary source in our tradition tells us, Jesus is coming soon. That is our faith. That is our hope. This promise was made in A.D. 95 or 96: “See, I am coming soon ….” And yet … here we stand, some 2,000 years later. What shall we make of “coming soon” in 2019? And what is it that we are waiting for? These are good questions. There are no simple answers — at least not to the one about “coming soon.” The Revelation employs as its stock-in-trade highly symbolic language; to be sure, “coming soon” is symbolic — and also relative, especially when we consider texts like 2 Peter: “… with the Lord one day is like a thousand years ... But the day of the Lord will come ….”¹

            Yes, the day of the Lord will come. Jesus — the Lord — is coming, “soon.” We have little choice but to take that on faith, with an open understanding of what soon entails. Let’s let soon mean what it will, and consider whom we are waiting for, and how we shall wait.

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