Hope for the Grieving

When death comes

They say two things in life are certain: death and paying taxes.

Every single one of you will have had the experience of someone you know dying. Depending on your age and stage of life, it’s possible that this is happening at an increasingly high rate.

Sometimes that person is perhaps little more than an acquaintance. Other times it can be someone really close and the pain can feel unbearable.

When you attend a funeral, regardless of whether its someone close or someone more distant, its easy to be struck by the finality of death. It’s permanent. This side of the return of Christ, you will never see that person again.

As Christians, we have our beliefs, but in those moments it goes from something almost detached from us, to something that feels more real and present. Questions about the afterlife feel more real.

We think about what heaven is like?

Actually, what even is heaven?

Will we be conscious of what is happening here on earth after we’re gone? Will we have any kind of consciousness before Jesus returns whenever that might be?

These are all big questions, and unfortunately, I’m not going to explore each of them in beyond possibly some very brief comments.

You see, our concern today is something a bit closer to home for us who attend a funeral - how do we mourn?

Maybe that seems like a simple question - in Australian culture we know pretty much what we do. We pay our respects by attending a service in a quiet reflective mode while saying kind things about the person who has passed. We then like to say things like - they’re looking down on us with a smile on their face… or perhaps, they’re probably playing golf up in heaven now. Even for Aussie’s who wouldn’t normally go for such an idea of heaven like to allow it to make us feel better about our mate who’s now gone.

Christian funerals are different - or at least, they should be.

Now before I continue, it’s worth noting that we believe there is a very big difference between a Christian who has died and a non-Christian.

We believe that you are either with Christ or your are not. You’ve either accepted his invitation of forgiveness, or you haven’t. Death is the end of that choice - or as we’ll soon see, the return of Christ will also be the end of that choice.

If you are with Christ, you spend eternity with the Lord - what we call heaven.

If you are not with Christ, the reality is you spend your eternity away from the Lord - what we call hell.

When working through the death of someone who rejected Christ, it can be especially hard. In this case, it is a matter of working through that grief. It’s about allowing the comfort of the Holy Spirit to carry you through - and he does.

But today, that is not the focus. Today, I want to mostly think about what happens with those in Christ who die and how we who are live after their time on earth work through it.

Two tendencies

Now, there are two tendencies that we can have in these situations - that is, in dealing with a Christian brother or sister who has died.

One tendency is to grieve in the exact same way as any other funeral you would attend in Australia. That’s what I was describing before where we go in a reflective mood and say nice things about the deceased and more or less just try to deal with it as best we can.

The other tendency for Christians is based on the knowledge that they are going to heaven, and therefore make it a time of rejoicing.

Can I suggest, both of these tendencies by themselves miss the mark.

The tendency to act like everyone else misses the real and genuine hope that we have.

The tendency to focus on rejoicing misses the reality that you are going to have to deal with the fact that this person is not going to be in your life for the remaing time you have on this earth - which God-willing, I’m hoping for most of you, will still be quite a reasonable time. The problem is, if we don’t grieve and only focus on rejoicing, the grief just stays there but doesn’t get processed. When we don’t let things like grief be processed in an appropriate way, well, it can start to present itself in far less helpful ways in our lives.

And in case you take the first verse for today as thinking you shouldn’t be grieving - it doesn’t say not to grieve, only that we shouldn’t grieve in the same way as those who don’t have hope.

In other words, we should grieve, but in a way that is full of hope.

Thessalonian context

Well, with that in mind, let’s now shift our thinking and place ourselves in first century Thessalonica.

So imagine, you walked yourself to this gathering here this morning. You did so a little surreptitiously, because, well, those from the Jewish synagogue don’t really like us, and they’ve convinced the city officials that we’re being trouble makers.

Imagine the building you’ve walked into this morning, isn’t a church building, but rather we’ve gathered in the house of one of the more wealthy of our members because they’ve got quite a big space for us to meet.

It still all feels rather surreal. Only a matter of months ago, you hadn’t even heard of this particular person called Jesus who people were claiming to be the Christ.

Many of you had been going along to the Jewish synagogue, finding something attractive there that the pagan culture just couldn’t match. But when Paul came preaching Jesus as Lord, everything had changed for you.

It all made sense… but more than that, you experienced something life changing. You encountered the love of the Father. Your life began to transform, and for the better.

And so imagine, for a few Sunday’s, on the day called the Lord’s Day, we met and listened to the preaching of Paul.

He spoke of the hope that is to come. He told us that this Jesus who ascended into heaven, will also return, only we didn’t know when it would be.

But this return of Jesus sounded glorious. You can imagine the excitement among these new believers. They had experienced Jesus in their hearts, and one day, they would be able to experience him in the flesh.

Unfortunately, this preaching of Paul which they had all been enjoying had been cut short.

Things had turned nasty. All those Thessalonian believers would well remember the day that the Jewish rioters had barged into Jason’s house looking for Paul. They never found him, and that night he had managed to escape to the next town.

But you all had kept coming - still with this great faith in your heart.

You wondered when the return of Jesus might be. You knew you wanted to be ready for that day.

The months went by, but then something happened. Some of your brothers and sisters started dying.

On one level, this was nothing new. Remember, we’re in the first century and the life expectancy would have been significantly lower then here in the 21st century.

But with the expectation of Jesus returning, that death of your brother or sister is different.

Now remember I’m asking you to put yourself in the shoes of someone in this Thessalonian church, and I know that’s difficult because we know what we know now.

But back then this was all new, and besides that, Paul had had a premature exit from the city. Their theological knowledge was quite limited.

So for us some two thousand or so years later, we have no problem accepting that those who have died before us are not going to be disadvantaged in any way when Jesus returns, but things would have been different at this earlier time.

Now, some people suggest that Paul actually preached that Jesus was going to return in their own lifetime. I don’t think that was necessarily the case. I think Paul rightfully taught that nobody knows the date of the return of Jesus but that we should all live like Jesus could return any day.

And so, we have these people not quite sure how to process those who have just recently died.

Should they be sad becuase they’ve missed out on the big return of Jesus?

It would seem, this is what is going through their minds.

A better understanding

Well, Paul seems to have heard their concerns. He’s heard that the death of their brothers and sisters in Christ have really troubled them. And Paul tells them - you don’t need to worry that they have died before Jesus returns.

There’s a few things I want to highlight in Paul’s response about why they don’t need to worry

Death is temporary

Firstly, death is only temporary.

We actually get this idea first in the way he uses the phrases “sleep in death”.

Now, sometimes we use the phrasse “sleep” as a euphemism for death. We might talk about putting the dog to sleep for instance. But I don’t believe his use here of the word sleep is trying to soften the blow. I believe it is to help us recognise the concept that death is like sleep in that your body may be still for a period, but at some point you wake up.

When you die, your body will cease to operate. You will be laid to rest in some capacity. But that is not the end. At some point in the future, you will be raised to life again - that moment will be when Jesus returns - but more on that later.

All stems for Jesus’ resurrection

The second thing in Paul’s response that helps us get a better understanding is that our confidence in our resurrection comes from the resurrection of Jesus.

Verse 14 says: “for we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him”.

For the people hearing this letter for the first time, this death and resurrection was only a matter of a few decades before. There were still people around that had directly witnessed the resurrected Lord Jesus.

We might be living a few millenia later, but I believe we can still have the same confidence. Because Jesus rose again, we know that death is no barrier for us.

How it will happen

Okay, well now it starts to get interesting. You see, up to this point, you might be thinking, yeah yeah, I’m not particularly worried about death - after all, it’s a pretty fundamental belief in Christainity that the dead will raise in Christ at his return. But in what manner will it happen?

Well, I want to first let the text speak for itself, and then I’ll briefly address some common understandings that come from this passage.

A clear call

Well it starts with the Lord Jesus coming down from heaven.

Verse 16 tells of this coming down, and it lists three things that mark this coming down.

First, it comes with a loud command.

Second, with the voice of an archangel.

And third, with a trumpet call.

Now, how exactly are we to imagine these three components?

Does the loud command, the voice of the archangel and the trumpet all happen at once, or one after the other?

To be honest, I think some symbolic language is being used here. What’s being pictured is a strong irresistible summons being made - one that marks a definitive moment where everything is changed.

It’s like the word that brought creation into existence. Or like the command Jesus gave that resulted in Lazarus coming to life.

A mark will be made. It will be unmistakeable. And we will know that Jesus has returned.

I honestly do not believe that you’ll be left wondering if Jesus actually came or not - you will know very clearly.

Verse 16 ends by telling us that the dead will rise first. Those who have died before are not forgotten. If you die before the return of Christ, you will still feature in all that happens on this last day.

Caught up in the clouds

So, with the dead rising first, verse 17 tells us what will happen for those who are still alive.

It tells us that those who are still alive will be caught up together with those who have now just been raised to life, and that this meeting will happen in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Now, how are we to picture this one?

Do we take this on face value and assume we all literally get airborne by some means and have some sky meeting?

Well, there’s certainly a variety of ways in which this could be interpreted, however, I would encourage you to look at the symbolism of what is being pictured here.

Now, let me just back up a little because I want to explain a concept that would have been well known to the original hearers of this letter.

Actually, back in verse 15, we read the phrase “the coming of the Lord”. In the Greek, the word used was parousia. Although the word has a simple meaning of just “coming”, but it also was used in a more specific sense to describe the return of an important person like a king.

Now, here’s the thing at this time. When the king was about to return, there would be some loud pronoucement, probably including some trumpet playing, and then the leading citizens would go out and meet this important person and escort him for the final stage of the journey.

You certainly get the picture that Paul is picking up on this image that they would have been familiar with, and used it to describe the return of Jesus, only, it’s not just the leading citizens who escort him the final part of the journey, but all believers, whether currently alive or not.

So how literally do we take the meeting in the sky? Well, I’d suggest it’s a picture of seeing the king of kings return to his rightful place.

Rapture

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the concept of the rapture, because it is these verses that we actually find the word rapture.

Now, the phrase “caught up” that we find in the NIV, in the Greek is actually the word “harpazo”. When translated into Latin, it was the word “rapere”, which is where the English word “rapture” comes from.

The word itself conveys the idea of a sudden snatching away.

So, the concept of the rapture being that moment when Jesus returns and a final separation takes place, I believe this is the clear teaching of scripture.

The bigger question comes when we try to align this with other concepts such as the period often referred to as the great tribulation, and then the concept called the millenium.

If we stick with this passage, there is no indication that this rapture is the start of a new tribulation period. Rather, I’d suggest that this passage seems to instead refer to the rapture being the start of the eternal and final reign of Christ. I’m certainly happy to discuss this with you further if you wish.

Encouragement

But I want to bring this back to where we started. You see, this section started with a call not to grieve like those who have no hope.

The final words then say: “Therefore encourage one another with these words”.

The reason our grief is different, is because we have the knowledge of the return of the King.

We have the knowledge that this return will feature the resurrection of all our brothers and sisters who have died before us.

These few verses might only be a small glimpse of what is to come, but it’s a glimpse that is designed to fill us with encouragement.

It’s the encouragement that says, no matter what this world throws at you… no matter how hard things get… no matter how much you are ridiculed or even persecuted… you have a secure future. Because even in death, we will triumph.

Conclusion

There are a lot of things we don’t know. There are a lot of questions that we can ponder and discuss. But what we as believers know with certainity, is that because Jesus rose from the dead, and that he has promised he will return, we know that on that last day when that call is made, Jesus will come again, and all who have died will be raised to life.

If you put your trust in Jesus, you have this future.

When someone you loves dies, it is good and proper to grieve, but if they had faith in Jesus, allow your grief to be shaped by the hope of Jesus’ return.

So be encouraged because Jesus is coming back.

Let me pray...