Children of Light

1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11

 

 

            Have you ever needed reassurance about something? Your marriage?  Your job?  Some other important relationship? Do you wonder about what happens after your life here? You believe in God, but you wonder. It’s scary even thinking about the unknown, especially if that unknown contemplates pain and suffering and separation from those whom we love or leaving a life to which we have come to know.

          This community has seen its share of loss this last year. Two of our own number have gone on to the Lord and one clings to life right now. Others we know, both young and old are no longer here. Life can be taken from us in the blink of an eye, the clogging of an artery.  For many families in this community, death or the threat of it has become the uninvited companion at the supper table.

          We are hardly alone. In West Africa, an outbreak of Ebola virus has claimed over five thousand lives in five countries since April, the deadliest outbreak of this virus in forty years. War and pestilence plague our world and the Ebola epidemic is just one more example. But these extreme situations give us pause to celebrate our own good health or circumstances. We know only too well that those conditions may change and sometimes quickly. How do we walk in a world where death is our ultimate destination and not have fear?

          The early church had the same question. Paul had planted a church in Thessalonica and it had experienced success.  As he labored in Corinth, he sent Timothy to check on the state of the church in Thessalonica. Timothy brought back a good, but mixed report. Some church members had died and this was giving some other church members cause for worry, for those who had died had missed the Day of the Lord. Jesus had not yet returned. They wanted to know what would happen to those who had already died. Would they be left out? Others were not pulling their load, thinking that they would just wait it out until Jesus did return. Paul wrote to address these questions and assumptions.

          In the previous passage in chapter 4, Paul reassures his friends in Christ that those who have already died will rise first to meet the Lord in the air. They are not left behind. Then in today’s passage, Paul warns about the Day of the Lord. It will be unannounced, without warning. There will be sudden destruction for all who are not ready. Paul uses the metaphors of light and darkness to help his followers understand the difference between them and the rest of the world. For those who do not believe, Paul calls them children of the night. They find their false security in drinking and darkness. They have much to fear from death.  

          It is a different world for the Christian. Christians are children of light, children of the day. We find our way illuminated by faith and hope and love. We face not God’s wrath, but his salvation.  Here for the first time in Paul’s writings, he tells us the source of our salvation. It is Jesus, our Lord, who died for us. Jesus is our hope, our guarantee. This is how we walk without fear, for we understand and believe that death is no longer a destination, but rather a crossing.  And since we are children of the light, we will not be surprised when we meet Jesus, whether it is with the rest of the world in the Day of the Lord or in our own time. For the Christian, the rising of the body is a reunion with the flesh of a soul already living in the presence of our Lord.

          So Paul exhorted the Christians at Thessalonica to “encourage each other and to build one another up.” What timely advice for us today as we celebrate a double blessing. After this service, we will gather to break bread together in that great American tradition we call Thanksgiving, a harvest festival with roots all the way back to the book of Leviticus. It is a time for reminding ourselves of the bounty with which we as Americans have been so richly blessed and of the source for all that blessing.

          And during this service, we have taken up and dedicated an offering on behalf of Operation Christmas Child. Shoeboxes full of small gifts and the Word of God have been lovingly assembled for delivery to children all over the world. There are prayers printed in today’s church bulletin. They ask for joy to boys and girls in places we have never seen, where poverty and disease and famine and war are part of their lives. More prayers ask for these children to have the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We ask here and now that these children, wherever they are, may experience what we have, that they may know that death is not an ending to be feared, but rather a bridge to be crossed. We know this because we, like the Thessalonican Church, are children of light. May it be so as well for the children who receive these shoeboxes.

          Help us now to hear the words of Paul in a new and vibrant way. We are asked to put on the breastplate of faith and love, the helmet of salvation. I know that sounds outdated. Who wears breastplates and helmets today? Well, actually, law enforcement does, as well as soldiers. But Paul wasn’t talking about actual armor even in his day. He used such symbols to make his point. Christians do have weapons. We Christians are soldiers in a very real way. We serve in God’s army and we fight real enemies. We fight the presence of evil, the erosion of values, the degradation of basic human rights. There is still darkness all around us. We need Paul’s exhortation just as much today as his followers did in their lives.

          So, Father, we ask again today, that in the words of your servant Paul, you will help us to “encourage one another, to build one another up.” For those who have been given much, much is expected. Help us to walk in the light as your children.