Trinity 25
1
Thess 4:13-18
11/18/18
On many occasions I have heard
Christians say that they can’t understand how other people face life apart from
faith in Jesus Christ. This is
especially true when facing the death of a loved one or our own death. I too have wondered about this, and said it
to others. How could you possibly face
this without the hope of the risen Lord? Where do you find comfort and strength
when you have no hope?
However, the truth of the matter is
that most of the people around us do have a hope. And it is very interesting to observe the
forms that hope takes. You hear people
affirm that the person who has died “is looking down on them” or that at some
point the dead person “must have been helping them.” It is not uncommon to hear talk that the dead
person “has become an angel.” The
affirmation is made that the person is still “alive in our hearts.” There is the belief that somehow the person
“is still alive” if we are cherishing their memory. Related to this is the rather odd idea that a
funeral is “a celebration of life” – when in fact it is only held because a
person is most certainly dead.
In our text this morning, the
apostle Paul is addressing the subject of Christians who have died before the
return of Jesus Christ. He says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those
who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” No doubt Paul knows that he is overstating
his case some. Like our modern
contemporaries, people in the Greco-Roman world did have hopes for those who
died. And like those of today, they
tended to be rather wishy washy.
There was the idea from Greek
mythology that they went to the Elysian Fields or that they went to be with the
heroes. Some believed that death meant
the escape of the soul from the prison of the body as it returned to the realm
where it belonged. Some of the mystery
cults, and deities such as Isis Serapis promised help for the individual after
death.
There were hopes. But from the inscriptions found on burial
sites you don’t get the impression that these were particularly solid. And of course, pagans took part in the cult
of several different gods and goddesses as they tried to hedge their bets and
cover as many bases as possible.
In the face of this, Christianity
offers something very different. Paul
had shared this when he proclaimed the Gospel at Thessalonica on his second
missionary journey. The Thessalonians
had believed in Jesus Christ despite the hardships they faced. In this letter Paul talks about how, “you turned to God from idols to
serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he
raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”
Paul had proclaimed that through the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God had provided rescue from his wrath
against sin on the Last Day. The
Thessalonians had received this word and believed it. And so Paul says in this letter that, “we
also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God,
which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it
really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”
However, Paul had learned that they
were troubled by a question about Jesus’ return. Christians had now died before
Jesus’ return. What did this mean for
them? Would they share in the
resurrection? Would the outcome be
different for them than for those who were still alive? Would they too be with the Lord?
Paul’s
answer is very clear. He says, “For
since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God
will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” The apostle begins with the death and
resurrection of Jesus. Because Jesus
rose from the dead, we know that all who die will be raised.
In fact,
Paul wants us to know that those who have died are in no way at any
disadvantage. He says, “For this we
declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left
until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” Nobody gets a “head start” when it comes to
the Last Day!
Paul tells
us that the Last Day will be a dramatic event. There will be no doubt that this
is it. He says in our text, “For the
Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of
an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ
will rise first.” The awesome arrival of
the crucified and risen Son of God will bring about the resurrection of
Christians who have died. They will be raised just as their Lord was raised.
Next Paul
adds, “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with
the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” Now for 1800 years, nobody in Christianity
believed that these words described anything except the second coming of Christ
on the Last Day. It was only the
Englishman John Darby who, in the nineteenth century, made up the idea that
this was a description of “the rapture” – a sudden removal of Christians before the arrival of the Last Day. Spread by the Scofield Reference Bible at the
beginning of the twentieth century, this idea has become a key belief for some
Christians around us.
It is also
total nonsense, as is the dispensational millennial scheme of which it is a
part. Instead, the text uses a word for
“meet” that indicated how residents of a city went out to meet a visiting
dignitary, like the governor, in order to escort him back into the city. And
Paul’s emphasis here is the fact that on the Last Day both those raised from
the dead and those still alive will “always be with the Lord.” That is why Paul
can write, “Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
But do we? The encouragement Paul offers here cannot be
separated from the return of Jesus and the Last Day. This is something
Christians often overlook. Instead, they
short circuit Paul’s argument when they think and talk about those who have
died in Christ as if they have already arrived – as if they already have it
all. And while Paul affirms elsewhere
that death can in no way separate us from Christ, his logic never changes. As he says in the next chapter, “For God has
not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live
with him.” That wrath of God is poured
out on the Last Day, and salvation is deliverance from that wrath on the day of
judgment.
Perhaps we
make the move of jumping to full blown salvation at death because we don’t want
to think about God’s wrath. You see,
God’s wrath has a very specific cause. It is a cause that we would rather not
focus upon. It is caused by sin – your
sin. Make no mistake, your sin does
evoke God’s wrath. Each and every way
you think, speak and act in a selfish fashion brings God’s wrath. Every way you don’t defend and promote your
neighbor’s reputation; the ways you covet what you don’t have; the ways you
fail to help your family members – they are all sins that bring God’s wrath.
As the holy
God, God’s wrath must be poured out against sinners who commit sin. The question is whether you confess this sin
and believe in Jesus Christ. If you do,
then that wrath has already been
poured out against your sin. It happened
on Good Friday when Jesus died on the cross in your place. Because of baptism
and faith you know that you are justified now and you have been rescued from
it. God’s wrath against sin on the Last Day no longer threatens you.
Instead,
the Last Day with the return of Jesus Christ is not an event of wrath, but
instead one of resurrection and life.
Jesus delivered us from the wrath to come through his death and
resurrection. And now his resurrection means that we also will be raised. As Paul says in our text, “For
since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God
will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”
The Last Day is the day when the
Lord’s cry of command;
when the voice of an archangel; when the sound of the trumpet of God will ring
forth. It is the day when the dead in
Christ will rise first. And it is the a day when those who are alive will be caught
up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will
always be with the Lord. Forgiveness;
resurrection and life with the Lord – there are indeed great reasons to encourage
one another with these words as we look for our Lord’s return.
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