The Resurrection of Our Lord at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church
The saints at Mount Calvary gathered to hear His word and celebrate His resurrection
“The basis of our meditation today is the Epistle lesson just read. (1 Thessalonians. 4:13-18) It may seem odd to us, but the Thessalonians lived with such a hope of Christ’s imminent return that they were confused about what was going to take place to their loved ones in the congregation who had died. So readily had they received the message of Christ’s coming, that they were literally expecting it any moment, and that He hadn’t come, brought them concern. For us nearly 2,000 years later, we are used to the wait, and for all we know it might be another 1,000 years. They wondered, have they missed out on all the things Christ promised?
In their concern we read something of the importance they saw in the body of Christ. Christ’s death didn’t only bring us into a new relationship with God the Father, Jesus brought us to a new family, a family of brothers and sisters. We have seen the close association that the Christians in this town had with one another, a bond that was likely strengthened by the persecution they experienced against them as a group, that they had to love each other as they were alone in the world and lived now so different than the culture around them. And so, this was their question. Have their brothers and sisters in Christ in the congregation been excluded from the coming hope? Paul writes to them to ease their burdened consciences by speaking to them about what Jesus had taught and done.
And so, Paul begins. Brothers. We do not want you to be ignorant about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. We hear the word grieve, and we turn it into something clinical. We call it “the process a person goes through when a loved one dies.” This doesn’t get to the sense of what Paul is saying. That word grieve might seem small, but it packs a punch as in the original language it means to experience deep emotional sadness, severe sorrow, grief, and pain. The same word is used in Genesis 3:16 about the intense pain of Eve in childbirth and that in pain she would bring forth her children. This is gut wrenching grief, heave on the floor, never-get-off-the-floor kind of pain, the wretched experience of separation that we know from those that we love. And yet Paul says, your grief is not as the rest. Paul acknowledges the loss and pain but he contrasts it with the world around them and simply says that your grief is not like that. Why it is not the same, he will explain, but first he calls the world around them, “the ones not having hope.” That is a good title for the world. The ones living without hope. Paul in this epistle has talked in three other places 2 about the hope of the Christian, even that each day the Christian should put hope on his head, daily remembering the helmet of the hope of our final deliverance of Christ’s return.”
This sermon does continue…
On Easter Sunday we reflect on the theme “Comfort One Another with These Words” from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
The Easter Sunday bulletin can be found here.
The sermon text can be found here.
Our audio recording of this sermon can be listened to:
