I Thessalonians 4:13-18

I Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NRSV)

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. ¹⁵ For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ 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. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

            I Thessalonians 4:13-18 begin a section in which Paul deals with the hope believers can have for the faithful who have died. Paul has earlier discussed the abundance of their faith and love (3:6). He now directs his attention to the struggle they have with hope. He has heard from them. ¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed (ἀγνοεῖν, ignorant), brothers and sisters, suggesting this portion of this letter arises from a question asked by the congregation.[1] Their concern is about those who have died (κοιμωμένων, fallen asleep) in Christian faith. The NRSV avoids the metaphor Paul uses here. He refers to those who have “fallen asleep,” a nuanced poetic feature of this passage. I am going to keep the metaphor in my reflections. We do not have specific knowledge as to what has caused this concern. We do not know if an event spurred their question. For example, Paul is gone for only a few months. Some of their number may already have died. The circumstances may have caused them to fear their salvation was in jeopardy. They may have thought that their baptism assured them of life on earth until the return of the risen Christ, which would be soon. If so, death of the baptized would cause some question as to whether they would gain the blessing of the resurrection life.[2]In any case, resurrection in Paul means participation already in the salvation of eternal life.[3] Sleep is the proper term for those free from the second death. In that sense, death is an entirely natural thing for the believer. As in John 11:11, the friend of Jesus only sleeps. Paul will say that some of the witnesses to the risen Lord have fallen asleep (I Corinthians 15:6). The local church can look back on several of its members who have fallen asleep (I Corinthians 11:30). Such a metaphor points to the process of dying. It relates to the experience of the surviving friends. From the standpoint of hope, however, the metaphor has a deeper meaning. The believer has done nothing more than fall asleep. Survivors cannot see what lies beyond. The metaphor is deliberately mild. It suggests peace. It suggests the freedom of faith, hope, and love. The real conflict with death occurred in the cross. In the presence of death, believers simply fall asleep. Even Stephen, dying amid stones hurled at him, falls asleep.[4] The desire of Paul is that he properly informs them, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. The point may well be that we are to think of death as departure. We appropriately long for the person who has died, but such a perspective as Paul offers here suggests tempering our grief with patience. Our moderation in grief reminds us that the one gone is the one whom we will soon follow.[5] Death is a teacher. Death stands at the podium in the classroom called life, ready to teach us. We need to be willing to learn its lessons. For too many people, however, we do not listen and learn until life forces us to sit in the front row.[6] The life of each person touches the lives of so many others. When that person is not around, it leaves an awful hole.[7] Thus, it seems as if St. Benedict offered good advice: keep death daily before your eyes. Of course, people who do not share the hope of believers still have hope. Hope can refer to our pessimistic or optimistic expectations about the future. They vacillate because of our uncertainty about the future. Approaching the future with confidence or fear depends upon the bright or dark pictures of human life we have. Such human projects are ambiguous and uncertain. We are rightly cautious about what we expect from the future. Yet, Paul is quite right to speak the way he does concerning grief and hope. Christian hope has a different structure as it focuses upon what God has done in Christ.[8]

            Death is a “limit experience” (Ricouer) in that it lays beyond the limits of normal life. It is the experience most of us spend much of our lives avoiding, dreading, and defending ourselves against. Beyond the limit, we often think is nothing but emptiness and loss. Death is closer to us than we realize. Death is the last enemy of all things. Fear of death pierces deep into life. It motivates us to unrestricted affirmation of ourselves. We grab for everything and everyone we can, clinging to the things around us as if doing so will keep death away from us. Death also robs us of the power to accept life, and thus we can see a close link between sin and death. The fact that we do not accept our finitude makes the inescapable end of our lives a manifestation of the power of death that threatens us with nothingness. The fear of death pushes us more deeply into sin. 

“We do not grieve as those who have no hope.” Yet we still grieve. I am going to offer some reflections upon grief. I will focus upon death, since that is the context of our passage. However, many of these reflections can easily apply to other grief experiences. I am thinking particularly of the loss of a friendship, a romance, a marriage, and other such losses of intimate relationships. Our grief is testimonial to what a gift God gave us in the life of the one we love. We grieve because the loss is real. Those whom we love slip away from our loving embrace and journey into that unknown land. Elsewhere Paul calls death “the final enemy.” And when that enemy touches your life – snatches from your loving grasp those whom you love – you grieve. Grief is normal, natural. Psychologists speak of “grief work.” And that is just how it feels, does it not? It is hard, tough work. “The hour of lead,” when grief drags us down like lead, despite our determined efforts to rise out of it, is how Emily Dickinson named grief. And it is not just in the days afterward. Grief goes on. Grief is so powerful that words have a way of failing, just when we would like them to work some magic.  Yet, we try to put into words the ways in which we can identify with each other in our grief and the ways in which the person who has died has influenced us.  The words fall so far short.  Sometimes our silence reveals the depth of the pain we feel.  That loss creates a hole inside.  It hurts.  We need words that remind us of the sacred, precious quality of human life. There is mystery to life, and there is a mystery to death.  We need to face the painful reality of death, even if our attempts to do so are incredibly feeble. We celebrate life and we remind ourselves of the faith, love, and hope we desperately need, especially confronted by death. 

Paul says we grieve. Yet, we do not grieve “as those who have no hope.” If death is a limit experience, then in the context of hope, beyond our fear that we will face only emptiness and loss, we discover that there is more, for God is also there, whose creative love knows no limits. Our grief is set in the context of our conviction that the same God who so graciously gave life shall give life even in death. To use the imagery of the parable of the prodigal son, the Father waits, confident that the far country of death shall not be the last word. The Father waits, ready to give life and that abundantly, to give more than we deserve, life eternal, not because of who we are but because of who God is; namely, extravagant love.

Hope of what? Christian hope fulfills our unclear grasp of our deepest longing. God promises the fulfillment of individual and communal life. Our present lack opens us to the completion of our meaning and wholeness in the future. Here is what Christians hope. We hope that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead, shall raise us as well. We hope that just as Christ ventured forth from the realm of death into life, so shall he take us along with him. Our hope is not unfounded, and it is not wishful thinking. Our hope for the future is based upon what we know of Christ in the present. In Romans 8, Paul says that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. If our experience with Christ has taught us one thing, it is that our God longs to be with us, will do anything to be near us, will go to any lengths to have us. When God raised Jesus from the dead, what was the first thing Jesus did? He came back to us, to his disciples who had betrayed him. That is the basis of our hope. We are confident that the God who has gone to such extraordinary lengths to be close to us in life, shall not cease those efforts in death. Therefore, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We believe that the same God who so pursued us, and reached out to us, and sought us in all the days of our lives shall not cease to pursue us, reach out to us, seek us even in death. Our hope is not in some vague and wishful immortality of the soul, or expectation of some eternal spark that just goes on and on, reincarnation, or other assumption that we have within ourselves immortality. Our hope is that the love of God is stronger than the devastation of death, that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. God, having gone to such great lengths to save us and have us in life, will continue to demand us even in death. That is why we do not grieve as those who have no hope. Our hope is not that we are immortal, not that some eternal spark lives on in us, surviving death. Our hope is that we will, by the work and will of God, be with Jesus forever. In the resurrection God has defeated our final enemy, Death. Those whom we have loved and lost have left us, but they have come home. The God who gave them to us, now embraces them for eternity, and they await us. Grief is not all there is. There is also home. What we called "home" was only a way station, and what we thought was the end, death, is in Christ, the beginning. What we thought was unredeemable loss, death, is in Christ, homecoming. 

Any hope of future life because of fellowship with Jesus Christ presupposes the power of God to overcome death. That hope relates to our understanding of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, as well as the future resurrection of humanity. If such hopes are not plausible, then fellowship with Jesus now cannot be the basis of a life after death. We thereby restore to theological thinking the importance of the future through the biblical concept of promise. The fellowship of believers with Jesus Christ is decisive in establishing the specifically Christian hope of a new life after death. This experience of fellowship with Jesus allows both a pietistic and sacramental focus upon here and now. Death is no longer the conclusion of life but the point of transition to eternal life. Death is no more the dark door that shuts forever behind us, but the opened door through which we enter true life.

The significance of life that we seek does not come just because we recognize that death will come to us all. Death discloses the harsh reality that our lives have their broken and fragmented character.  The fact of our own death cannot provide our lives a context within which we can grasp the meaning and significance of our lives. We can deal with meaning in this life only as we consider our place in eternity. The Christian concept of humanity as created in the image of God points to the possibility of transcending this life and thereby grasping some sense of meaning and purpose.  We discover meaning in life in our openness to the world around us. The world toward which we transcend ourselves is a world replete with meanings that constitute reasons to act and other persons who constitute persons to love. We can construe the possible wholeness of human existence only as participation in eternity.

As we live out our lives in time, we realize that our wholeness, fulfillment and meaning is still ahead of us. We must link the ability to achieve wholeness to God, who is the only one who can bring to its wholeness the existence of our individual lives. Salvation means overcoming death. The wholeness that we seek cannot be our own act, for death is not our own act. We must suffer it. Death comes upon us. The wholeness and sense of completion of our lives also comes upon us as a gift from God.

Paul now appeals to a common teaching of the church of his time, for he does not use distinctively Pauline terms. His point is going to be that death is not just a force against us, and for that reason we grieve. Death is also a force against God, who has taken proleptic action against death in Jesus of Nazareth. The structure of Christian hope begins with the affirmation ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again (ἀνέστη). Believers would have known this statement well. It presupposes the awakening of Jesus by the Father and the Spirit.[9] Paul immediately connects the death and resurrection of Jesus with the concern the church has for those who have fallen asleep. He says even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died (κοιμηθέντας fallen asleep). The resurrection of Jesus guarantees Christians a share in the general resurrection to life.[10] The expectation of Jewish apocalyptic for a general resurrection to life Paul now relates to the situation of the Christian.[11] The basis for the robust confidence Paul has in the future of those who have fallen asleep rests on what God has done in Jesus. He will fully develop this thought in I Corinthians 15. He stresses ¹⁵ For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, this phrase strengthening what he is about to say. It stresses that what he is about to say is not distinctive to him. He shares the common teaching of the church. The question is whether he refers to a specific saying of Jesus that we have in the New Testament, or whether he refers to a prophecy. He may also refer to the general tenor of the teaching of Jesus. Since he refers to death as sleep, he could refer to the little girl who was not dead but sleeping (Mark 5:21-43, Matthew 9:18-26, Luke 8:40-56). In any case, the word of the Lord is that we [significantly, Paul includes himself] who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, (τὴν παρουσίαν τοῦ Κυρίου) will by no means precede those who have died (κοιμηθέντας, fallen asleep). He assures them that those who have fallen asleep do not have second tier status due to their death. They will participate in the return of the Lord. Paul will then use symbolism drawn from Jewish apocalyptic to describe the central content of the saving act.[12] ¹⁶ For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven. Such images suggest a call to battle. In Mark 13:26-27, we find that the Son of Man will come in the clouds, sending the angels to gather the elect. Matthew 24:31 refers to the angels giving a loud trumpet call. In this passage, of course, Paul has identified the Son of Man with the coming Lord. It at least appears that such language was common among the first generation of Christians. Such language is part of the word from the Lord Paul declares. Paul now uses the literal term and the dead, stressing rotting flesh, offering the strong caveat that they are also in Christ, (οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ), a distinctively Pauline phrase thatreminds them of what he has taught them, will rise (ἀναστήσονται) first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up (ἁρπαγησόμεθα), noting that Paul is including himself in that number. Paul refers to himself as “caught up” in a vision to Paradise (II Corinthians 12:2-4). The first generation of Christians expected the final salvation of the rule of God to occur imminently.[13] The coming Lord gathers up those who are alive. The term here suggests a violent gathering. It says nothing about their transformation. However, Augustine suggests that even those alive at the coming of the Lord will die, referring to I Corinthians 15, where we must sow the physical body first and then transform into an immortal body. We must die before God can resurrect us.[14] We might think of those alive as “the first” and those who have fallen asleep as “the last.” Yet, the last shall be first. A question we might raise is whether this answer, that the dead will raise first, answers the question of this congregation. The Lord will gather them in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. We learn here that resurrection to life means continuation and renewal of fellowship with the risen Lord.[15] The result is and so we will be with the Lord forever. Here is the future reality of those who believe. The future is not fear, emptiness, and nothingness. The main point of the word Paul has received from the Lord is beyond the details of eternal life with Christ. They represent the common teaching of the church. 

We have no idea how soon Paul expected this event. I offer a popular preacher story. I think it true. In Hartford, Connecticut, the state legislature was in session and someone moved adjournment, thinking that the Day of Judgment had come.  You see, a thick darkness had filled the area at noon.  A legislator rose against the motion to adjourn: "The Day of Judgment either is approaching or it is not.  If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment.  If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.  I wish, therefore, candles to be brought."  The legislature approved his request.

"The Rapture" is prominent in several twentieth- and twenty-first-century approaches to interpreting the Bible's apocalyptic passages. Most people who use this term are unaware that it was all but unknown in Christian theology prior to the late nineteenth Century.

The only place in the Bible where anything resembling a "Rapture" is mentioned is in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, describing how the risen Christ will one day descend from heaven. At that time, Paul teaches, the "dead in Christ" will be raised, and "We who are alive... will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air" (v. 17). "Rapture" is another way of rendering into English the phrase, "caught up." The underlying Greek word is the uncommon ἁρπαγησόμεθα, which one can translate "snatched up" or "kidnapped." The word bears a strong sense of violent coercion. It is, in fact, related to the English word, "rape" – not in the sense of a sexual act, but the snatching up and carrying off the wives and daughters of a defeated enemy. 

While most Rapture theologians assume Jesus' arrival on the clouds of heaven is for the purpose of rescuing the faithful just in time, just before he abandons the world to evil, there is no reason to conclude this is what Paul means. It is far more likely, based on the larger context of this letter, that the Apostle is depicting a movement in the opposite direction. In I Thessalonians 4, Jesus is not escaping the earth, but is, rather, on his way to redeem it and reign over it. The faithful are meeting him halfway: not so they may make their escape (as Rapture enthusiasts assume, based on scant biblical evidence), but so they may form ranks as the vanguard of his triumphant return.

To Paul's way of thinking, it is Jesus' downward, reconciling movement that brings hope, not his arranging for an upward, separating escape for a select group of his followers.

The question Rapture Theology must address -- but almost never does -- is how it reconciles the biblical proclamation of Jesus as loving redeemer with their own depiction of him as a spiritual commando who swoops in to rescue the members of his squad before allowing all hell to break loose.

Regardless of your approach to the rapture, Fred Craddock, a preacher and writer, has a challenging way of putting all of this into perspective. Christians might experience some temptation to set aside all talk of the end. He thinks they do so to their peril.

For all that Christian faith means to each individual who embraces it, the church cannot continue to permit, much less endorse, a subjective captivity of the gospel. Not even the community of faith is adequate as the arena of Christ's saving work. The whole creation stands at the window eagerly awaiting the arrival of the day of redemption for the children of God. We like to think that we, modern as we are, have risen above primitive apocalyptic thought. What we have learned in recent years is that our negative assessment of apocalyptic texts has more to do with our social location that with our alleged modern minds. People in power, people on the top, are always more comfortable with the social, economic, and political status quo than with apocalyptic images of dismantling and revolution. God is coming. Is that good news or bad?

 

            “The end” is not so much a matter of chronology but a debate over who, in the end, is in charge. Alternatively, as H. Richard Niebuhr put it, eschatology “does not lie in the time-factor so much as on the God-factor.” We Christians know that God is at work in the long march of history and is moving us toward the day when the Son of Man will come with power and great glory. This may be a fearful time, but it will be a celebration, for God will replace all of the brokenness and injustice of this world by healing and righteousness.

Paul concludes by inviting them ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words. He may well reveal his heart here. He has found in the resurrection of Christ a source of hope that should encourage believers. He is the pastor, providing encouragement to those he loves.

Rapture Theology is particularly out of step with the note of encouragement at this point. The reason Paul has raised this subject is so the Thessalonians' minds may be put at ease on the baffling question of "those who have died" prior to the Messiah's return (v. 13). First-century Christians would derive little comfort from the belief that, more than two millennia in the future, the Messiah would suddenly drop from the sky and snatch up the faithful, abandoning those who are "left behind" to their own devices. Rather, the "comfort" of which Paul speaks is the conviction that Christ will soon return to establish a reign of justice and of peace. If we follow Jesus, then what we have as we consider death is a confidence that the world as we know it is not the whole story, a confidence that the love of God does not leave us even at the graveside or even in the grave itself. In addition, there is plenty after that. We are confident that the God, who has gone to such extraordinary lengths to be close to us in life, shall not cease those efforts in death. Therefore, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. Our hope is that the love of God is stronger than the devastation of death, that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. God, having gone to such great lengths to save us and have us in life, will continue to demand us even in death.

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[1] F. F. Bruce (Word Biblical Commentary)

[2] W. D. Davies (Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 1948,1955, p. 290-291)

[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 568.

[4] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III.2 [47.5])

[5] Augustine (On Patience, Chapter 9)

[6] (James Fowler quoted in Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy, New York: Basic Books, 1980, p. 178.)

[7] (It’s A Wonderful Life [RKO Liberty Films, 1946], Script by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, and Joe Swerling.)

[8] Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.3.2, p. 908 [73.1]

[9] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 346.

[10] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 348, 350.

[11] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 348.

[12] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 626.

[13] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 366.

[14] Augustine (City of God, XX.20)

[15] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 348, 350.