Comfort in Jesus Return
Notes
Transcript
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still 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.
End of the world movies and TV shows are incredibly popular aren't they?
Independence Day
The Walking Dead
I am Legend
Armageddon
Contagion
We, as a culture, like to ponder the end of the world.
This year has made those sorts of stories rocked up the iTunes movie charts.
Why is that?
I wonder, why are we obsessed with the end of world?
As Christrians, we have good reason to ponder. We look forward with confidence and hope in Jesus return and restoration of heaven and earth.
This week we are continuing on in our short series on 1 Thessalonians, this week looking at the second half of chapter 4.
So far in our series we looked at how Paul, Silas & Timothy's 1st letter to the Thessalonians was an encouraging letter, and how they wanted to encourage them to continue on in the Holy lives that they have been brought into.
This week, we move to look at another major theme of bothi letters to the Thessalonians, and that is Jesus return.
This morning, I want to work through the passage, and then ponder
From the opening lines, the Parousia (Greek word for arrival, which came to mean the second coming of Jesus) permeates this letter. Believers are those who “hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3) and who “wait for [God’s] Son from heaven” (1:10). God calls believers into God’s “own kingdom and glory” (2:12). It's pepper all throughout the letter.
This section of chapter 4 moves to a closer examination of Jesus return and it's implication for those in the church who had already dies and also for those still alive.
The simplest explanation for why Paul address this issue is, given the early date of this letter and the evidence in the text, is that the community did not expect anyone to die prior to Jesus’ return. Paul’s earliest instruction in Thessalonica included Jesus’ resurrection (as 1:9–10 surely indicates) and possibly even the resurrection of the dead. For the Thessalonians, the Parousia seemed so imminent that they believed none within the community would die before Jesus’ return. The deaths of believers have now occurred, however, prompting a trauma. What can it mean that believers have died, and what will happen to those believers at the Parousia? The answer Paul provides is both theological and pastoral.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
Paul explains that Jesus’ resurrection is not an isolated event, a single rabbit God pulls out of the hat to demonstrate that Jesus is in fact the Christ. The resurrection is directly connected with God’s final triumph and with the lives of all human beings. This is how Paul’s talks about the resurrection Jesus.
Ernst Käsemann put it:
Paul only spoke of the resurrection of Christ in connection with, and as the beginning of, the resurrection of the dead in general.… As the overcoming of death it is for [Paul] the beginning of the rule of the one with whom the kingdom of divine freedom begins.
Jesus resurection is the first fruits of the general resurection to come.
Paul looks at Jesus ressurection as not just as evidence of God approval of Jesus, but as the first defeat of the instution of death. Death had been defeated, and salvation from death was now available to anyone that would put their faith in Jesus.
For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
The descent of the triumphant Lord recalls Daniel 7:13 as well as the use of the Daniel text in Mark 14:62. A loud shout, a mighty trumpet, or other great sounds from heaven characterize apocalyptic passages (for example Dan. 10:6; Rev. 1:10; 14:2; 19:6). Similarly, angels and archangels figure prominently in apocalyptic texts, as do references to the clouds of heaven (Dan. 7:13).
Although this language may have been colloquial for Paul’s contemporaries, it is a wholly foreign tongue to most of us. We may find ourselves trying to parse out the relationship between the cry and the call and the trumpet. Does the sound wake the dead or only precede them? Exactly what happens to those who are caught up into the air? Where do they go next?
Too much of eschatology is caught up in these sorts of questions.
The commentator Beverly Roberts Gaventa put it excellently, "Questions such as these threaten to reduce Paul’s language to production directions for the halftime show at the Grand Final. They also miss the point. This passage has more in common with poetry than with blueprints. That does not mean we do not take it seriously—or that Paul does not mean it seriously. But the importance of this account lies in its underlying logic rather than in the specifics. The seriousness of apocalyptic language lies less in the details than in the dazzlement of the vision as a whole."
It's the whole scene that Paul wants us to take in, not get bogged down in the specifics.
There are some interesting things at play though in these verses.
The trumpet, for example, would have held special significance. It does not merely begin the overture to a pretty drama being acted out on stage; it announces the arrival of a royal figure, and may also sound a call to battle.
Similarly, the notion of “meeting the Lord in the air” speaks the language of power. The word “meeting” (Gr. apantēsis) is used of a ruler paying an official visit or the return of a conquering hero of war.. This particular dignitary receives tribute, not outside the city gate, but “in the air.” That Jesus is “in the air” signals that his dominion is not that of an earthly ruler. Unlike the Roman emperor, he is not in charge of particular territories. He is in charge of all territories.
Then we who are still 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.
The scene culminates in the astonishing claim: “and so we will be with the Lord forever.” In this context of the crisis at Thessalonica, Paul offers profound consolation. To be “with the Lord” is to be safe, as is clear in the parallel statement in 5:9–10 (compare Rom. 8:31–39).
To be with the Lord is to be beyond the reach of evil, remote from the touch of pain. This is also a further claim about the Lord’s power, since only power could make such a promise.
Implications for us.
Implications for us.
Comfort in death.
Comfort in death.
One concern common to every congregation is the need for consoling those who grieve. A characteristic of Greco-Roman literature at the time of Paul and letters of consolation is their obsession with moderation in grief. "Hold it together!". Don't be seen to make a scene.
Someone who grieves overmuch is unseemly, out of control, so the writer will attempt to mitigate the grief by persuasion that death is inevitable and should be accepted. Strategies have not changed dramatically despite the passage of two millennia. People observe that the deceased has gone to a better place, or take solace from the fact that she no longer suffers, or speak about him looking down on us from heaven. In other words, people in desperate pain will seek and grasp for comfort wherever they can find it, in an effort to manage the pain of loss.
Paul takes a strikingly different strategy. He places the story of those who have died within the context of what God is doing in the world. Their story has meaning as part of God’s story.
It refraims death for us. Those that have died in Christ, have not merely been allviated from suffering, or taken to a better place, they are and will be apart of the proclaimation of the fact the God has defeated death, and will be appart of this glorious procession at Jesus coming.
Perhaps because we too know that death is the implacable enemy, it is comforting to remember that death is not only our enemy but God’s. The promise that God has already begun to triumph, that finally God will prevail, makes the otherwise unbearable somehow bearable.
Comfort with Grief.
Comfort with Grief.
Some will object that the comfort Paul offers here is merely “pie in the sky by and by.” In one sense, that’s the only kind of comfort there can be, the assurance that someday things will not hurt the way they do now. However, Paul does not instruct the Thessalonians to be moderate in their grief or to cease manifestations of grief. Instead, he urges them to reframe it, to see its relationship to the future God intends.
It's really important to note this. Paul does not say “Quit your crying! Stop being upset with you grief! Jesus is coming back so harden up”, rather he refrains their grief. He recognises the pain that is very real for the Thessalonians.
It's a counter cultural way of dealing with grief.
I'm reminded of Jesus encounter with Mary and Martha.
As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”
When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked.
“Lord,” they told him, “come and see.”
Jesus wept.
Jesus knew he was going to ressurect Lazarus in a few moments time, yet was moved by compassion and empathy at Mary's grief. He didn't rebuke her. He wept with her.
The Thessalonians knew greif.
We know grief.
We can be comforted in the hope that we have, but we should never rebuke our humaninty and feeling at loss and pain. God comforts those who mourns.
It leads us to the final verse, to encourage one another.
To “encourage one another” is not to assign to one leader the task of caring for the pastoral needs of all church members. And it is certainly not to leave individuals and families isolated in their grief. To “encourage one another” (see also 5:11) places the responsibility for a ministry of consolation squarely within the community.
Those who are bound together in this community remain so, even after death. The boundary Paul has drawn around the church is a boundary that extends into the future. Although a boundary separates believers from nonbelievers, it does not separate the living from the dead.
We can find comfort in Jesus return, both as we die and those around us die. The deaths of those who have died in Christ have been placed with God's larger story of victory.
We can find comfort in our grief, both from God and from each other.
Look out for one another. Check in.