Dear friends,
In recent days, Bec and I have walked with a number of friends in the sorrow that dying and death brings to our hearts. This prompted me to preach today at The Gathering from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 on "Our Great Hope in the Midst of Grief." As I sit here in my study, I am feeling that I should send a few of those thoughts to you.
If you peruse Paul’s entire letter to the Thessalonians, you will see that he had instructed them about the second coming, and they were indeed eagerly waiting for Jesus. But they seemed to lack understanding about what would happen to their departed loved ones who had died in Christ. So Paul gives them words of instruction and encouragement. From Paul’s teaching we learn some very reassuring things.
Our grieving is legitimate and can even be godly. Notice that Paul does not tell the Thessalonians that they should not be experiencing deep bereavement. He is only saying that their grieving should not be like those who don’t have hope. Sometimes some of you may feel guilty about your sadness: you almost want to fuss at yourself, and say, “Cheer up! Where is your faith?” But, brothers and sisters, bereavement can be a very godly emotion. In Acts 8:2 we read about the funeral of Stephen, who had been stoned to death for his faith. It says, “Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.” How loudly must those men have wailed in their grief! And in Philippians 2:27, Paul reveals his own personal experience. He says that his close friend Epaphroditus became ill and almost died. Paul says, “But God had mercy on him, and . . . me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.”
The agony of death: it is the pain of parting. It is the same pain that brought tears to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 when they told Paul goodbye for the last time. It says, “What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again.”
Dear friends, it hurts to say “goodbye,” and our Lord understands that. John 11:35 tells us that Jesus wept with Mary, Martha, and other family members and friends as they were weeping over the death of their dear Lazarus.
God knows that we grieve deeply because we have loved deeply. We long for our loved ones. C. S. Lewis says, “The pain now is part of the happiness then.”
Mourn deeply, my friends. But mourn with hope – the hope of our Savior’s return!
Jesus our King “will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.” At the sound of Jesus’ voice (John 5:29), our loved ones will rise from their graves! Then we who “are still alive and are left” will suddenly be “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air!”
When Paul says we will “meet the Lord”, he is using a Greek term that described “a grand reception in which the leading citizens of a city would go out to meet a visiting dignitary and escort him back on his final stage of his journey.” (F. F. Bruce) What a glorious meeting that will be, as we and all of our freshly awakened loved ones gather in the sky with our King. Paul says, “And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
Billy Graham once said that every morning his first words are “Lord, could it be today that you are coming?” How I wish it would be today!
Weeping and waiting with you,
Rodney
