Reign of Christ w/ Dr. Michael Morrison W2

Anthony: Let’s move on to the second pericope that we have for this month from the lectionary. It’s 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 27 and Ordinary Time, which is on November the 12. Mike, would you read it for us, please?

Mike: Sure.

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. ¹⁵ For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Anthony: Verse 13 says, “so that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope.” For me, it’s just such a paradox to grieve and yet to do so in hope. And I’ve heard it said that lament gives voice to what hurts while hope gives voice to what heals.

How is this even possible that we can grieve, but do so in hope? What is the apostle leading us to?

Mike: The passage is about death, and it’s about resurrection and eternal life with the Lord. The Bible tells us that death is an enemy. But it is an enemy that Jesus Christ defeated on our behalf, and we will share in that victory when we rise to meet him in the air. But even though death has been defeated, it still happens, and it is still an enemy. It takes loved ones away and that hurts. It breaks relationships and that hurts.

It is reasonable for people to mourn the loss of something good. It is reasonable to mourn the breaking of something that God created to be good, to break the relationships that are actually supposed to be reflections of the relationships that the Father, Son, and Spirit have always had, the relationships that they want us to share in.

It’s appropriate to grieve these things. Even when we know that the loss is not permanent. We have hope, or the better word is faith, that these good things will be restored through the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We live in a time between the first and second coming of Christ. The last days have begun, but they have not yet been brought to completion. There are lots of things in this world that aren’t going the way they’re supposed to. And there are lots of things to grieve, not just death, and for all of them, we have hope in Jesus Christ. Everything will be set right.

We do not need to despair, no matter whether we are concerned about the death of a loved one, or the destruction of the environment, or politics, or the economy, or the threat of war. We can grieve that such things may happen, lament, but we also know that this is not the end of the story. The story does have a happy ending, and it comes at the hand of someone who was crucified and killed for our salvation. He lives again, and he will cause us to live again, too, in a much better world. We have sorrow, yes, but we also have confidence in Christ.

We see that many of the world’s problems have selfishness at their root, and we see that the only path toward world peace is that people will consider others as more important than themselves. And we see that the one person who actually lived that way consistently was killed for it and yet raised back to life. And it’s the person who’s been there and done that, who also promises to do it again.

He will return and make it right, and we can have confidence in that.

Anthony: Amen and amen. The scripture exhorts us to encourage one another with the words found in the pericope, but maybe a better way of saying that, to encourage one another with the reality that’s being revealed in this passage. And you’ve already done so, Mike. But is there anything else? Any meat left on the bone, so to speak, of ways you can encourage our audience based on what you find here?

Mike: Yeah, good wins in the end. Yeah. What could be better than that?

Yes, there is something better than that. It is mentioned in the text. We will be with the Lord forever. The more we realize how good God is, how much Jesus loves us, the more we will rejoice that we will be with him.

We can rest in complete safety, security, comfort—everything we need. That’s the good life, not just in physical circumstances, but in the relationships that we’ll have. There’ll be no more death, no more disruptions, no more doubts, no more disappointments.

Karl Barth said that God does not want to be God without us. He chooses to be with us. He wants to live with us, and that is incredibly astonishing, if we know what we’re really like. Why would God want to live with feeble, infallible creatures, such as ourselves? Just to know that he is the Creator, and he has created beings like ourselves to be his eternal companions—that’s just astounding. We are eagerly desired. We are the love of his life, the apple of his eye, the pearl of great price for which he sold everything he had so he can have us too.

When we know that we are loved that much, we will eagerly look forward to his coming. We will know that all our sacrifices are not in vain. We will know that the sufferings are not worth being compared with the good things that God will give us in Christ. The one who did not spare his own son, will he not give us all good things that we will ever need? Will he not share his Spirit with us without limits? Will we not be loved without end?

Nothing can separate us from his love. That’s what I see especially encouraging in this text: “we will be with the Lord forever.”

Anthony: I can remember several years ago, Mike, reading a book from Skye Jethani called With. And it really did flip the script in my own mind about my perspective of what I do in partnership with God.

Because often we think about doing things for God, which we do. But I had this mindset that I was a servant for the lord, which I am, but it’s not just that. I’m his friend, and the Lord wants to be with me. And it’s like you said, how is that so Lord? I know me. Who wants to be with me for eternity? And yet that tells us more about a God who chooses rather than our chosen-ness.

He’s a choosing God who loves to be with us and that was really good encouragement. Thank you for that.