October 22nd doesn't mean much to most people these days, but it holds a very special place in the hearts and minds of Adventist Christians. It was on Oct. 22, 1844 that biblical scholars predicted the Second Coming of Christ.
Finally, the time was about to arrive when Jesus would return to rule the world in justice and peace. Together, the faithful donned white robes. They gathered on hilltops praying and singing in joyful anticipation. When the day came and went, however, they left dejected and came to view Oct. 22 as "The Great Disappointment."
The first generation of Christians fully expected the return of the resurrected Jesus was imminent. With the passing of the apostolic age, however, hope in the immediate return of Christ waned and the church adjusted to the delay of the Parousia (return of Jesus). Then, during America's 'Great Awakening' among Protestant churches, a new wave of interest began to form around discovering the actual date when Jesus would return.
From his home in upper state New York, William Miller, a convert to evangelical Christianity, began serious study of the prophecies concerning the end of time. From the book of Daniel and Revelation, Miller concluded that a 'day' in the Bible actually represented a year. His calculations predicted that the earth would be cleansed by fire between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.
After March and April 1844 passed without incident, however, Miller's associates then cited biblical typologies pointing to October 22, 1844. For some, the 'great disappointment' experience devastated their faith. For others, it became the foundation for several Adventist churches, the largest of which is the Seventh-Day Adventist Church with a membership of more than 10 million adherents.
Miller himself remained pessimistic about the state of the world. His confidence rested in the hope of a future heralded by a celestial reign. Had Miller lived to see the two world wars, Nazi concentration camps, Bolshevik savagery, the killing fields of Cambodia, and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Albania, his pessimism would have been bolstered by other great disappointments about human behavior.
Yet there is reason for hope over human failures. Adventists themselves generally lead admirable lives and occasionally raise heroes among their number. One of these was John Weidner, who organized the Dutch-Paris underground movement during the Second World War. At great risk to themselves, Weidner's group of 300 members managed to rescue more than a thousand Jews, often complete strangers, by protecting them from the Nazis and guiding them over the Alps to safe haven in Spain or Switzerland.