All Saints by the Lake
November 12, 2023
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.
If you’re at all familiar with the “Left Behind” series or any of the associated cultural phenomena, you know that this verse is the basis for a doctrine called “the Rapture,” developed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. This set of ideas asserts that at some point, Jesus will return and take all the world’s believers up to heaven with him in an instant, leaving the “unsaved” to face the tribulations described in the Revelation to John. Cars will lose their drivers and crash; children will be left behind by their parents; there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
One trusts that the apostle Paul would be horrified by this scenario – if only because Paul lived and died long before Revelation was written!
I Thessalonians is in fact the oldest text in the New Testament – it predates not only all the other Epistles, but all four Gospels and Acts, as well as John’s much later, dramatic vision of the end times.
Paul’s goal in this passage was to reassure believers who had been waiting expectantly since their conversion for Jesus to return, an event that they believed was imminent – a matter of weeks or months, not decades or centuries. Jesus had risen, human life had been transformed, the Good News was spreading like wildfire across the known world, and any minute now Christ would return to usher the baptized into the kingdom of heaven. But as the weeks and months turned into years, some of those believers succumbed to bodily death and did not rise again, and life went on as before.
This was a huge challenge for the infant church to wrap its mind around, and some of them worried that their beloved dead had lost the chance for resurrection with Jesus, and instead had descended to the grey underworld of Greek mythology (Hades) or some forms of Judaism (Sheol) and would never be seen again. This is what Paul is addressing when he tells the Thessalonians not to “grieve as others do who have no hope.” He emphasizes that we will “meet the Lord in the air” in order to contrast with these myths of dying and going underground; Jesus ascended and so we will too. Jesus, Paul says, is powerful enough that when he returns, both the dead who have died in the hope of resurrection, and those who are still alive, will be included in his kingdom of new and transformed life.
Two thousand years (of Jesus still not coming back) later, we have not only this text but many others to help us think about how we spend our time earth, and the hope we have of new life with God after death. The Gospels offer many predictions and parables about Jesus’ return, the presence of God among us in this life, and our sharing in Jesus’ resurrection for all eternity.
The parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, while presumably a version of something Jesus actually said, also foregrounds the anxiety of believers who have been promised Christ’s return but haven’t seen it yet. The bridegroom is delayed and all the bridesmaids have fallen asleep! “Falling asleep”, of course, is frequently used in the New Testament as a euphemism for death – so here again we have the concern for those who die while awaiting a Messiah who has not yet come back. Matthew reassures us that it is eminently possible to get to the wedding feast even after the delay and the unplanned nap – but he does add the caveat that you need to be prepared.
As I’ve said before while preaching on this text, I firmly believe that if you want to be with God, go to heaven, reach the Kingdom, attend the wedding feast – however you choose to phrase it – you will. But/and, how we spend the time in the meantime does matter. And what we do with the resources God has given us, does matter.
Maybe the so-called foolish bridesmaids should have planned ahead better. Or maybe the wise ones could have shared what they had and all ten would have made it into the feast! Maybe there would have been a miracle like that of the Chanukah lamps!
In this stewardship season, we are thinking about how we use our time, talent, and treasure. Do we act with care and caution, husbanding our limited resources? Or do we adopt an attitude of abundance, trusting that God will give us enough and more than enough?
I don’t think that there’s one right answer, but I do think that we need to think about it, rather than just keep operating out of old familiar habits.
The early Christians had to revise their beliefs and approaches as the return of Jesus was delayed and delayed again. We are still living in that in-between time, with responsibilities to those we love and to our neighbours on earth, and also the hope of a totally new life with God after our mortal death.
Stewardship is about how we give to this congregation to support our life together. It’s also about how we reach out beyond the church walls in love, both as individuals and together. It’s also about making a will to ensure that our families are cared for and our resources are used for the purposes we believe in. And it’s about how we use the limited time available to us.
This Remembrance Sunday, we give thought to those whose lives were cut short in the service of causes which to them at the time were even more important than their own lives. This, too, is a form of stewardship, though one that we pray not many people will be called upon to offer in our time.
We do, indeed, know neither the day nor the hour. But we do know that in Jesus, the living and the dead are united. Last week we celebrated the Communion of Saints. This week, Remembrance. Two weeks from now, we will wrap up the liturgical year with the feast of Christ the King, highlighting Jesus’ reign over all the lesser powers of the cosmos. Thanks to Paul, almost two millennia after he wrote Thessalonians, we have no doubt that “through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”
Our life before death and our life after death are one life, and what we do in this life influences our hopes for the next, and our sure and certain hope of everlasting life with Christ influences the decisions we make while we are still here.
What choices can you make here and now about how to use the blessings God has entrusted to you, in a way that accords with your hopes for the life to come? And how does the vision of God’s eternal wedding feast, the promise of being with the Lord forever, colour the way you live now?
As I reviewed this week’s worship slides, I was inspired to add two verses to the song we sang as the sung Prelude and as our second Communion hymn:
When our song says Rich
and the world says Poor,
we will sing despite the world.
We will trust the song,
for we sing of God
who gives us what we need
and bids us share with all.
When our song says Life
and the world says Death,
we will sing despite the world.
We will trust the song,
for we sing of God
who hosts the endless feast
and brings us home with joy.
Amen.
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