1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

WATCH ►

Printed Sermon

Sermon

The current pandemic has brought months of enforced isolation. One of the tragedies of this isolation is that loved ones have been dying in hospitals and nursing homes, unattended by family and friends. Care-givers and health-care workers do what they can, but it’s not the same as the comfort of family. This happened to our next-door neighbor, who entered an assisted living facility last Fall. During lockdown Sue would drop off things for her, and chat through the window, each on their cell phone. In June she was diagnosed with COVID and died in hospital two weeks later.

Family and friends who have lost loved ones are themselves isolated in their grief, unable to receive visitors to wrap them in a comforting hug. We have been unable to gather around to weep with those who weep, to mourn with those who mourn. We have been unable to hold services for those who have passed. A few funeral and memorial services are held on Zoom and YouTube. But it’s just not the same. And now the fires are isolating us further because we don’t want to be outside, given the air quality.

Our Scripture reading was drawn from John 11, the death and resurrection of Lazarus. When Lazarus died, many Jews came to the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany “to comfort them in the loss of their brother” (11:19). Finally, four days late, Jesus came. Martha went to meet him, and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (21). Then Mary hurried out to meet him and said the same thing, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (32).

“If only you had been here!” If only we could have been there! How often have these words been said during this pandemic? These were words that Paul was saying 2000 years ago. “If only I could be there with you!” How he longed to visit Thessalonica to see the young Christians face-to-face. Unable to visit, Paul had sent Timothy to see how they were doing. The report he brought back only intensified Paul’s longing: “If only I could be there with you!” “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith” (1 Thess 3:10). “Supply what is lacking in your faith.” Paul wanted to give them remedial instruction in areas in which they were falling short in their faithfulness to Jesus, their Lord and King. And he wanted to do it in person. But his way was still blocked. He couldn’t be there.

Furthermore, Timothy had reported that some of the Christians in Thessalonica had died. How Paul longed to be there with the saints to comfort them in their grief. Instead, he had to do so by letter. In the two sections of the letter that we will look at today and next Sunday, Paul provides two words of comfort. He ends each section with the same words, “Therefore encourage (or comfort) one another” (4:18; 5:11). Yet these two sections have generated much speculation about end times, about the so-called Rapture and about the timing of Jesus’ return like a thief in the night. They have generated fear and fascination rather than comfort. Can we read them in such a way that they are the words of comfort that Paul intended for his beloved Thessalonian brothers and sisters?

Our passage today is the last paragraph of 1 Thessalonians 4:

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 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. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we