“If we don’t deal with our grief, grief will eventually deal with us,” said a pastor friend of mine. I only know that grief comes in waves. Have you noticed we grieve differently with different deaths? Sudden deaths take our breath away. Death after a long period of dementia sometimes comes as a relief because we have been saying the “long goodbye.”
When Paul first preached to the Thessalonians, he must have explained something about the Lord’s return at the Second Coming. Perhaps that first generation assumed the Lord would return while they were all alive. But even in the interim between starting the church in Thessalonica and this letter, someone in the church likely died. “Now what?” these new believers wondered.
Paul answers with information and inspiration. Death is sleep for a believer, nothing more. Yes, we grieve. Christians are not in denial about the desperate pain of death. We are mortal like all others. But our grief is not hopeless because our God is not helpless. Paul shows us that the body sleeps but Christ will bring those who have died with him to come and get his people. Taken with Paul’s other writings, we gather that a person immediately goes to be with the Lord at the moment of death: “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” But Christian resurrection involves raising the body. We are not ethereal wisps fluttering around in the skies somewhere. In the New Jerusalem we will have bodies. At Christ’s return those who are dead will return with Jesus for their bodies. Believers who are alive will be transformed.
Here is our hope: our Savior knows his way out of the grave. He has overcome death, hell and the grave. In the end we will always be with the Lord. These words encourage us as we wait. In a cemetery in Louisiana lies a 150 year old headstone with a simple heading: “Waiting.” We are all waiting for Christ’s return. His perfect record of keeping his promises encourages us so that may we encourage others.
