Not as Those Who Have No Hope

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“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

In the wake of last Sunday’s mass shooting in Texas, some B-list celebrities found proof of the powerlessness of prayer. One tweeted, “The murder victims were in a church. If prayers did anything, they’d still be alive.”

Pastor Hans Fiene responded, “People of goodwill can certainly disagree over the merits of gun control legislation, just as we can disagree over how long we should wait after a tragedy to discuss its political ramifications. However, we should all recognize that pointing to a couple dozen warm corpses and saying, ‘Fat lot of good your Jebus-begging did you’ is an act of profound ugliness.

“It’s also an act of profound ignorance. For those with little understanding of and less regard for the Christian faith, there may be no greater image of prayer’s futility than Christians being gunned down mid-supplication. But for those familiar with the Bible’s promises concerning prayer and violence, nothing could be further from the truth. When those saints of First Baptist Church were murdered yesterday, God wasn’t ignoring their prayers. He was answering them.”

Pastor Fiene went on to explain that when we ask God to “Deliver us from evil,” we are certainly praying that He would deliver us from evil temporally—that is, in this earthly life, but we are also praying that God would deliver us from evil eternally. Through these same words, we are asking God to deliver us out of this evil world and into His heavenly glory, where no violence, persecution, or hatred will ever afflict us again. We also pray that God’s will be done. Sometimes God’s will is done by allowing temporal evil to be the means through which He delivers us from eternal evil to eternal life, even as our enemies mock us and our prayers.

Because of Christ’s saving death and resurrection, death no longer has any power over those who belong to Him through faith. The enemies of the Gospel can pour out their murderous rage upon Christians, but all they truly accomplish is placing us in the arms of the Savior. Those who persecute the Church and those who mock Christians for trusting in God may believe the bloodshed in Texas proves the futility of prayer. But we believers see the shooting as something far different—proof that Christ has counted us worthy to suffer dishonor for His name and proof that no amount of dishonor, persecution, or violence can stop Him from answering our prayer to deliver us from evil. This is our hope, even as we mourn.

Hope. The very term seems problematic in the world we live in. As hard as it is just to keep going on, we seem to have lost touch with what keeps us going as Christians. Our world has learned to look at the future with dread, not knowing when disaster will strike next. Last week, it was a truck mowing down bicyclists on a path in New York; this week it’s a shooter coming into a church in Texas leaving 26 people dead and over 30 injured. Next week? Only God knows!

No wonder, then, that Christians, too, get caught up in the merry-go-round of activities we call living, but in the end, are nothing but the fretful, fitful empty search for meaning in a world that seems to have gone out of control. We have hope, but our hope is in all the wrong things. It’s centered on the here and now, what can be seen and experienced. But “hope that is seen is seen is not hope” (Romans 8:24). It’s just like St. Paul wrote: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19).

Though we may forget it, though we may get caught up in the hopelessness of the world, we Christians do, in fact, hope in the right thing. We hope in Christ, and yet we are not to be pitied, because we have hoped in Christ not for this life only. Our hope is fixed on Christ for this life and the next. Trust in Jesus and His work of salvation drives away doubt and fear.

Jesus died and rose again, showing His complete power over sin and death (v 14). Paul told the Thessalonians if they believe this—and He knew they did—then Jesus’ resurrection means we also will rise from death. Jesus promises: “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). Therefore, we are confident that when Jesus comes, He will wake us from the sleep of death and bring us to heaven.  And thus, we have hope in the face of death. Whatever the cause of that threat of death might be: old age, lingering sickness, sudden stroke, freak accident, natural disaster, terrorist attack, or mass shooter’s bullet.

It's natural to feel anxious about death. It’s death that is unnatural. It was not part of God’s good creation, but is the consequence of sin. “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). He told the fallen man, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Death, therefore, naturally brings sorrow and grief to all—including Christ Himself. Christians, too, grieve the death of those we love. But we have hope even as we grieve; our loss is only temporary (v 13). Note how Paul refers to these departed believers: dead in Christ and those who sleep. The use of the picture of sleep is no euphemism. Paul isn’t trying to make something bad seem a little bit better by referring to it in rosy terms. No, he is describing what death is like for one who is dead in Christ. It is like sleep in which a person’s body is completely unaware of anything around it, but from which his body awakes to use all its abilities and senses again. We aren’t afraid to put our heads down on our pillows at night and go to sleep. We know we’ll wake up again to a new day. That’s how death is for a believer. We need not fear putting our heads down on the pillows of death and falling asleep. Jesus will wake us up to a glorious eternal day.

Thus we have hope on the Day of Judgment—whether we have gone to be with the Lord or still await His return. Paul spells out just what will happen on that great day. Christ Himself will appear coming down, just the reverse of what the disciples saw at His ascension when they watched Him go up until a cloud hid Him from their sight. Jesus’ coming will not be in the humble way He came before. Then He was born in the village of Bethlehem, laid in a manger, and wrapped in swaddling clothes. This time His coming will be accompanied with a “loud command.” The voice of the archangel will fill the air, and the piercing sound of a trumpet will call the dead from their graves—the reveille of the ages.

We need not think of this happening in terms of hours or even minutes. The believers who are alive won’t have to stand cooling their heels until the believers who are raised join them. Just as the resurrection of all the dead will take place “in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye,” so in an instant all the believers, living and resurrected, will be reunited with one another. What a joyful scene that will be for all believers who have been parted by death!

Nor will the joy simply be in the reunion of all believers. More important, this whole group will be together with Christ our Lord. All will be “caught up together” by the power of God “in the clouds” to “meet the Lord.” No doubt all of us have wondered at some time or other what it was like to meet Jesus when He lived on earth. Here we will not meet with Jesus in His humble state as the God-man on earth, but as the glorified God-man who is Lord of heaven and earth. And we will not have to be afraid or ashamed to stand before Him. For His blood has atoned for our sin. The risen and ascended Lord is our brother. When He raises us up, He will give us new bodies. These bodies will be the same bodies, but they will be without a sinful nature, imperfections, and weaknesses. Ours will be “imperishable” and “spiritual” bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42-44), like that of our risen Savior Himself.

Not only will we meet with the Lord, but thereafter “we will always be with the Lord.” Never again will we be parted from one another by death. Eternal joy and peace will be our lot. Reunited with believers who have died, we shall be together with the Lord forever (v 17).       

People without this sure hope will grieve in a way that shows they have no comfort. At best they might cling to some fond memories of their departed loved one. Or comfort may be sought in a grand funeral with an expensive casket and dozens of beautiful flower arrangements. At their worst, they will lash out at others and disparage their hope. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

Paul is not saying that Christians don’t grieve. He simply says they do not “grieve as others do.” Of course, there is sorrow at death—one cannot part even for a brief time from a loved one without some sad feelings. But as followers of Christ our grief is not hopeless.

The coming of the Lord brings hope to the hopeless. Therefore, we find comfort in all of life’s trials. We know the last chapter of this world’s history (v 16). We know that the Lord will return to raise all the dead in Christ, and we believers who remain here on earth will join with them and Him. We know that our present suffering will be outweighed by future glory (Romans 8:18).

But don’t forget: You have the promises of the Lord’s own presence in His Church right now. United to Christ’s death and resurrection in Holy Baptism, you too, have life and resurrection. As His Gospel is preached, you hear the very words of our Savior through the voice of His called and ordained servant. In Holy Communion, Christ feeds you His very body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith. By these means of grace, the risen Lord Jesus is with you, bringing forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.

This is your hope: For Jesus’ sake, you are forgiven for all of your sins.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.