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. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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 them 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. – (1 Thessalonians 4.13-18)
Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. – (Psalm 30.5, NLT)
It's been 19 months since my Dad went home to be with the Lord. He had fought his fight, spiritually and physically, and lost the battle with cancer, but won the spiritual war with Christ as his Savior and Victor. There’s not a day that passes that I don’t miss Dad – somedays his absence is an ache. I miss the frequent phone calls, talking about our faith journeys, politics, sports, hunting, fishing, birds and animals we’d seen. I miss the drives in the mountains, chatting while fishing, sitting in the woods or “road hunting” in his mobile tree stand, as he liked to call it. I miss our rituals at our camp in northwestern PA and the Father’s Day traditions. Dad was a great storyteller and he had many great ones to share – it was amazing how I kept hearing more stories I hadn’t heard before – I really miss that! I especially feel his absence as a confidant – he was always “there” to confide in about things I needed to talk out and hearing his honest and humble wise replies, drawing on his strength, experience, and unassuming counsel.
Now my family knew the day after New Year’s that it wasn’t going to be long. You see we had a family meeting with Dad’s medical team that morning and near the end of the meeting I asked a question none of us wanted to ask but everyone needed an answer for – how long or soon… how much time does he have? We already knew there wasn’t much, if anything, that could be done to turn back the advancing deadly cancer – but it got really real when the lead doctor, after asking Dad’s permission to answer, told us it was only a matter of weeks. It was the worst gut punch I’ve ever experienced.
In a few days Dad was moved to hospice care and was given medication to help make him comfortable as his last days ebbed away. It was winter outside and now it was winter inside – made more vivid with snow on the ground and frigid north central Pennsylvania air. There was one ray of light, however, that pierced the darkness and helped me endure the gloomy, gray skies and grim forecasts regarding my Dad – as he told us in his own words from his hospital bed, “I’m not afraid, I’m ready!” He said those words to my wife Kate and me in such a sure and steady manner. There was a, deep, settled quiet confidence. While his body was weakening his words were strengthening. His living faith was showing through his dying body and it instilled faith and hope in me.
There was a good amount of snow on the ground and a brisk chill in the air when we left the hospital that wintry January day. In just a few weeks I would get early morning calls that I had been dreading from two of my younger brothers that Dad had died in his sleep. Yes, it was a bleak winter season, but for those of us who have lived through some pretty long and tough winters, there is this one word that sustains us through it all. You know the word – SPRING.
You can make it through the winter because you know winter never lasts forever – there's going to be a spring! In fact, spring has never failed to come, no matter how brutal the winter may have been. With springtime – more light, more warmth, and new life bursting out of the long winter with buds, blossoms and blooms.
Now God comes to us with an interesting self-description through Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 15 and verse13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” He calls Himself "the God of hope." Because of Him, there will always be a spring. Because of Him we can make it through the darkest days of emotional and spiritual winter in our lives. I guess you could describe hopelessness this way: it will always be winter. But hope goes like this: every winter will be followed by a spring.
But let's say it's a winter season in your life right now – it's cold, it's dark, you're battling discouragement, despair, maybe even depression. Here's what the God of hope says He wants to do for you: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Let's break this down. God wants to fill you with joy and peace when joy and peace are nowhere to be found in your circumstances. If you dwell on your burdens, on your fears, on your wounds, or how people are, you'll be filled with discouragement instead of joy and you'll be filled with stress instead of peace. But if you dwell on your all-powerful, always-loving “God of hope,” you can have a positive-ness and a peace that's humanly unexplainable. The problems are still there, but God's joy and God's peace are the wind beneath your wings that enables you to soar when otherwise you would be grounded. You get that joy and peace "as your trust in Him" – not in your feelings, not in what humans can do, not in what you can see, but in Him. It may be winter all around you, but it will be spring inside you! Here’s what God’s Word promises us when we trust Him, wait on Him and hope in Him… “But those who trust in the Eternal One will regain their strength. They will soar on wings as eagles. They will run—never winded, never weary. They will walk—never tired, never faint.” – (Isaiah 40.31, VOICE)
And it gets better. That joy and peace you download from your God of hope will enable "you to overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." That's awesome! You will not only have enough hope to sustain you, you'll have enough to give away to others who are also going through a long winter. God wants you to be a hope receiver so you can become a hope dispenser! And as you encourage others, even as you're in your own winter season, your hope will grow as you give it to others. In the words of the Bible, "He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed" – (Proverbs 11.25).
This brings us to our key Scripture text found in 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13, “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.” Followers of Jesus Christ do not grieve as the world grieves. The world experiences sorrow without hope – sorrow and grief with no Spring, only a long, dark, endless winter. You see the Jesus-follower also has sorrow, but his sorrow is accompanied by hope. As Paul writes in the next verse, “We believe that Jesus died and rose again.” There is Spring after spring, Life after Death – hope!
Now in Jesus' day, a funeral was a time for an impassioned demonstration of grief. It was a sign of respect for the deceased to wail long and loud at a funeral. A person grieving the loss of a loved one had no power to change what had happened. There was probably no time in human experience where people felt more helpless, hopeless or vulnerable than at a funeral.
Jesus, too, wept at the funeral of a close friend, but His sorrow did not come from a lack of hope (John 11.35). Jesus knew that soon Lazarus would soon be alive again. He also knew that at His second coming, Lazarus and all of Jesus' followers would be resurrected from death to spend eternity with Him in heaven – never to face death ever again! Jesus wept because He saw the hopelessness felt by the people He loved. His friends had the Resurrection and the Life right in their midst, yet they were grieving! (John 11.25).
When Jesus conquered death, He forever changed the way His followers view death. As a follower of Christ, we still experience the sorrow of being separated (temporarily) from someone we love, but we have hope because we know that God can bring good out of any situation (Romans 8.28). We have hope because Jesus conquered the grave, taking away the fear of death and replacing it with the hope that accompanies victory and assurance of eternal life (Hebrews 2.14-15; John 17.3; 1 Corinthians 15.56-57). We have hope in the knowledge that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God's love (Romans 8.38-39). We have hope because Jesus will bring us to join Him in heaven, along with all His children (John 1.12-13) so that we might enjoy eternity in unhindered fellowship with Him (John 14.3). Winter is just a passing season – then comes spring!
Even though you may be a faithful follower of Jesus, you are not immune or exempt from life's sorrows. But you can temper your grief with the hope that Christ is risen – for He is your hope and your comfort. And, as Peter says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have… For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit… Who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to Him."- (1 Peter 3.15, 18, 22) If you can be an island of hope in a sea of despair, people are going to want to know the reason. And the reason is Jesus. Which means you can use the winter you're going through now to help someone who's watching you go to heaven with you someday!
Spring inside you, even with the winter all around you - that's the hope God wants to give you and me – the hope He wants to give to us to share with others. You can be their breath of spring in the dark of their winter.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. – (2 Corinthians 1.3-7)
Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then He said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ – (Revelation 21.1-5)
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all 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.”
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. – (1 Corinthians 15.51-57)
And Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the source of all life; those who believe in Me will live even in death. Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never truly die. Do you believe this?” – (John 11.25-26, VOICE)
Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. – (Psalm 30.5, NLT)
See you in the coming Spring, Dad!
In a nutshell – in Him,
Web Shepherd
