Aloha, Church Ohana:
Our theme this week is “Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize,” and one of the scripture passages we will read for our Sunday service this week, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, presents the prize that we are waiting for -- Jesus's return.
It is a passage often cited as a “proof-text” for the rapture. The term rapture comes from the Latin word rapturo, which means “caught up.” The rapture, as some believers speak of it today, comes from 1 Thess 4, verse 17, which states that those alive when Jesus returns will be “caught up” to join those who have already died in the clouds, and they will meet Jesus in the air. When some Christians today quote this verse, they usually use it to back their belief that living believers will be “raptured” before the end-times tribulations, although not all believers agree with this timeline. But Paul also wrote this passage to assure believers that their dead loved ones would also rise again when Jesus returns.
Paul is writing this to encourage the new believers in the church he established in Thessaloniki. They were enduring considerable persecution, and their hope was flagging.
Acts 17:2-3 recounts, when Paul arrived in Thessaloniki, “As was his custom...(he) went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days (2 weeks) he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,”
Paul was not one of those speakers who charmed people with his winsome, inspiring manner. Paul liked to argue, and his reasoning and debating skills made many converts, but he also made many rivals and even enemies when he bested them in debates.
In Thessaloniki, he made many converts among Jews and Gentiles, but he also stirred up a mob and had to flee town under the cover of nightfall. When Paul left, the church he started was left to face that animosity Paul stirred up, but they continued to endure and hold on to their faith.
However, they struggled against discouragement, and Paul was eager to encourage them, His letters provided hopeful answers to their many questions. One of the matters that seemed to be discouraging the Thessalonians was that they were expecting Jesus to return soon, but some of their fellow believers had already passed away. They were concerned that believers who have passed away might miss their opportunity to meet Jesus when he returns. Paul answered this dilemma with this teaching about resurrection.
Paul sought to relieve their anxiety and assure them that those who had been saved and died before the Lord returned would rise to share in the glory of Jesus's return and the Resurrection.
The King James Version in verse 14 says that those who have died “sleep in Jesus.” This is closer to the original Koine Greek than the NRSV translation we are reading this week. Paul claims that those who have fallen asleep will rise with new bodies when Jesus returns, and they will precede those who are living.
We are filled with sorrow when our loved ones die, but as Christians, we place our hope in Jesus’s promise that there will be reunions in resurrection.
Shortly before he died, the famous preacher Sam Shoemaker wrote a manifesto that he left in his office, and his wife found it shortly after he passed away. In the letter, he wrote:
As I sit in the study...I look back with many thanks. It has been a great run. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Much could and should have been better, and I have, by no means, done what I should have done with all that I have been given. But the overall experience of being alive has been a thrilling experience. I believe that death is a doorway to more of it: clearer, cleaner, better, with more of the secret opened than locked. I do not feel much confidence in myself as regards all this, for very few have ever “deserved” eternal life. But with Christ’s atonement and him gone on before, I have neither doubt nor fear....I believe that I shall see him and know him, and that eternity will be an endless opportunity to consort with the great souls and the lesser ones who will have entered into the freedom of the heavenly city. (Faith at Work, January-February, 1964, copied from the reprint in Ministry Matters )
While we do not know the details of what will happen to us after this life, we put our faith in Jesus’s promise of resurrection. Therefore, we keep our “eye on the prize” and practice hope, even when so much around us seems discouraging.
Aloha Ke Akua,
Pastor John