Hope in Christ

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Introduction

I experienced an existential crisis in my teen years that lasted into my early twenties. The issue I faced was that despite being raised in the church, I became convinced that there was no life after death. When you are dead, you are dead. We would just cease to exist. Now there are plenty of people who believe this and have come to terms with this but that was not my experience. It felt like life was a cruel joke. I remember thinking to myself that I had wished that I never had been born or that I had at least had died before I was born. All of this led to my eventual atheism. For some people, atheism is a freeing experience because they are no longer bound by religious rules and they don’t have to worry about a divine judge who will hold them accountable to their actions. This should have been a good thing for me, especially at that time in my life, but it was not. Believing that life was a cruel joke took all of the potential fun out of being an atheist for me. Now I know this is not the experience of every atheist, but that was my experience.

Now, as you probably know, I stopped being an atheist eventually and came to believe in God. Interestingly, it was not by coming to terms with an afterlife but by encountering the overwhelming evidence for God. Becoming convinced that God was real, and getting to know Jesus much better than I had, I felt like I could trust God with this life and whatever happens after we die.

That is not to say that we experience no anxiety about death. When a loved one dies or if our own health changes, we may once again have questions about death. That is normal and there is nothing wrong with that. We don’t have much information about what happens immediately after death and we all know that we will experience death. There is a tension there that we must acknowledge. It may help that we are no the only ones and even those who lived during the time of the apostles had concerns. While the exact issue present in our passage may not be what we wrestle with, Paul’s response may help us to be hopeful.

The Question

I don’t know about you but I have attended a church that put a heavy emphasis on the return of Jesus. It was drilled into our head that we could expect Jesus to return any moment. There are even people who mistakenly attempt to predict the date of the return. That may or may not have been your experience in church.

The early church knew that Jesus had promised to return. They would never have expected that two thousand years later that we would still be waiting. It was the assumption that Jesus would return within their lifetime. They also knew that there was some connection between the return of Jesus and our afterlife. The great Day of the Lord that was promised by the Old Testament prophets would happen when Jesus returned. This would be the time of the resurrection, in which those who followed Jesus would be rewarded with a body that could last for all eternity. This was all wonderful and it filled the early Christians with hope. 

But then someone died. And then another Christian died. And then another. With the assumption that Jesus would return not long after his ascension to heaven, there had been no thought about what would happen to those who died before the return. They understood that bodies would decompose. In fact, after a body did decompose, the Jews would place the bones in an ossuary that was big enough for the longest bones in our bodies. But how does that work for the resurrection? Jesus was raised on the third day and so his body was still in good shape. What would happen to those Christians who died years before Jesus returned? When they be included in the resurrection? Did they miss out on the eternal life that we all hoped for?

This may seem like a strange reason to be anxious but for the Thessalonians this was a real worry. They brought this concern to Paul hoping that he would be able to bring some clarity.

The Answer

Paul does indeed have an answer for them. Jesus will return as they believe, although no one knows when that will be. And the return will be accompanied by the resurrection in which believers will receive new bodies. But in terms of those who have already died, there is nothing to fear. In fact, when Jesus returns, those who are dead in Christ will be raised first and will receive their new bodies. Then those who are alive still at that time will have their bodies transformed so that they can live for eternity. God has a plan for both the living and the dead.

It is from this passage that some people get the idea of the rapture. However, there are some problems with rapture theology. The focus of the rapture is the idea that the world has become evil and Jesus is going to make a dramatic rescue of the church so that they will be saved from the worse things to come. But what is being described here is not really a rescue mission. The imagery is more of the lord of a city returning after a lengthy time away. Those who are loyal to the lord come out of the city to meet the lord to welcome them to their domain. Paul sees the rising of both the living and the dead as a great company welcoming the Lord Jesus as he takes his place as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The Benefit

So what does this mean for us? Some people see this passage as just some interesting verses for those who enjoy end times theology. But none of this is about predicting events surrounding the return of Jesus. The entire passage is about hope.

One part of this is hope for our loved ones who have died. That was the immediate concern of the Thessalonians. For them and for us, we can trust that the dead in Christ are safe. We are not given much details about what happens between death and the resurrection other than that they are present with the Lord. We can trust our loved ones with Jesus.

Another part is that we can have hope for ourselves. God has a plan for us that goes beyond our death. Again, we don’t have all of the details but we can trust that God will keep us safe. We need not give up hope.

Finally, we are to live this life in general as those who have hope. Hope does not mean the denial of difficulty or suffering. Hope means that what we are experiencing right now is not the final word. There is something better coming. We may see those better times in this life or it may wait until the resurrection, but it is coming. We are to be a people of hope.

Conclusion

There have been times that contemplating death has seemed like it required giving up all hope. In some ways, that is a logical conclusion. But Jesus comes into this picture and turns everything upside down. Jesus came into this world to destroy death and ironically, Jesus did this by dying. In the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have hope. We have hope for our loved ones and we have hope for ourselves. Death need not lead to despair as it is something that Jesus has already passed through safely. I would like to conclude with these words of Paul:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

‘Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)