Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost November 18-19, 2023
“A Matter of Life or Death” I Thessalonians 5:1-11
Rev. John R. Larson Ascension Lutheran Church Littleton, Colorado
This past summer I attended one of the few Rockies games where the home team won. I took the light rail to downtown Denver and began the walk to Coors Field. As I approached the main entrance at 20th and Blake there was a man with a megaphone hollering, and I mean hollering, “Repent!! The End is at hand!!” “And he wasn’t talking about the miserable Rockies baseball season.
He shouted that folks needed to turn from their sinful ways and if they didn’t the flames of hell were right on their heels. I wondered if that was the best way to bring someone to the faith. I wondered if scaring people into the Christian faith was a lasting way for salvation. I think I have heard that guy, or his brother, outside of the Broncos stadium as well. Same megaphone. Same message.
Repent!! The End is at hand!! Only crazies would think that, right? Only religious fanatics. Only folks with a screw loose.
No. I believe that. (Maybe that proves my point!! I have more than one screw loose!!) But I think you believe it too. At least you have confessed that to me hundreds of times. And I don’t think that you’ve been lying to me. Every time you say the Nicene Creed you state this, “I look for the resurrection of the dead.” Look for = can’t wait = anticipate. The resurrection of the dead happens on the Day of the Lord, the final day when Christ will return, the day of the end of this world.
But I think we’re different from the guy at 20th and Blake. He speaks of that day as a day of darkness and gloom, one that will make you shake in your boots, but we speak about that day with hope and anticipation.
Listen to the complete word about the second coming of Christ:
Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that the day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” (I Thessalonians 5:1-5)
This great event of Christ returning to earth to put an end to all evil and injustice, to silence the lies of the devil, will be a glorious day. That is why we say that we look for that day. How you live right now reflects what you hope for then. This is not a matter that you put off – like in school when you waited to the last moment and started cramming for the test, only then realizing that you shouldn’t have done that. No – God claimed you in holy Baptism, made you His own and every day that you have had since reflects the anticipation that you have for your eternity and the hope of the resurrection of your body into eternal glory.
Listen to how Paul speaks about this hope being a matter of life, of living. “So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who get sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day…” (I Thessalonians 5:6-8) Remember the words he just spoke about who you are, “You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.”
In this contrast between one who lives in light and one who lives in darkness he gives the picture of someone who is drunk and one who is sober – self-controlled. Have you ever been drunk? To be drunk is to be a fool. Even if others mock you, you don’t get it. You stagger and you fall. You can’t get up and you can’t find your way. You are defenseless and you can’t defend yourself. The picture of being drunk is being weak.
Being sober, in this contrast, is to have your wits about you. You can see clearly. You are wise. You are in control. You can look about you and appreciate the world that God has made. You have real and lasting joy. You can fully live out who you are. It is to be strong.
Living in darkness, living in the shadow of night, will never bring the goodness that God wants to bring. Living in darkness, living in the shadows of secrecy and shame will never bring the assurance and peace that Christ came to bring.
Some people fear death. They fear what comes next. Do you? Or, do you anticipate what God has in store for you? Last week the epistle reading was the glorious word that Paul had to the Thessalonian church about death and the certainty that a believer in Jesus Christ has. One of the folks, as she exited the sanctuary, said she wanted to hear more about what she had heard in that reading, “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him…For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with then in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.” (I Thessalonians 4:13-14, 16-18)
The last day of this world, the Day of the Lord, the day when Jesus Christ returns and “every eye will see him” (Revelation 1:7), will be the greatest day. All those who clung to Christ in faith, whose souls are already in heaven, who are in the care of the one who has promised them that “He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” are just fine. (Revelation 21:4) Those who left the incomplete life of this world, stained by the misery of sin and too much evil, and who experience the newness of life with their souls in the very presence of God, will receive from God their perfect body. No cancer. No stroke. No heart disease. No infection or virus. To all this our God says, “Behold, I make everything new.” (Revelation 21:5)
In I Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, Paul tells us why he doesn’t want us to be uninformed about what is going to happen on that last day, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’” ( I Corinthians 15:51-54)
All that Paul writes about concerning the end of the world is a matter of life and death. Right now, in our living, we are awake and alive, living in the joy that we are God’s own children. And death will produce no shock or horror. Christ died and He came back to life. We will die and we will live all because of Christ’s saving death and resurrection.
After the Rockies ball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, I walked back to the light rail with my friend and passed the folks who were hollering about the end of the world coming soon. But, as I think about it, they were right. The end is coming. And everyone needs to be ready. All people need to repent and turn to God. It is a matter of life or death. Amen!!
