“Therefore Encourage One Another and Build Up Each Other” November 16, 2008 Pentecost 27 Lectionary 33

(First, read the passage for this sermon: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

Would you like to know when the end will come?

Some would like to know that, in the tiny congregation that St. Paul founded in city of Thessalonica. This morning, we read some of what Paul wrote to them.

These letters to the Thessalonians are the earliest written material in the New Testament. They date to the early 50s. That means the Jesus movement is only a couple of decades old. When will the end come? It’s an urgent question because Jesus has been crucified, and then he has risen from the dead – but, still, what many Jesus people expected to happen has not happened. God’s promised Kingdom has not come on earth!

How can this be understood?

An early explanation develops: that there will be a second coming – of Jesus as the apocalyptic “Son of Man.” So, watch for that! But now, among the Thessalonians only a couple of decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, there have been members of the congregation who have died. But, since the end hasn’t come, what is their fate? Are they lost?

That was the question Paul addressed in the verses from First Thessalonians that we read last Sunday (1 Thess. 4:13-18). From those verses the Christian teaching evolves that, on “the day of the Lord,” the righteous dead will rise from their graves to meet the coming Son of Man. (Because of that teaching, my 18th and 19th century ancestors in Newberry County, South Carolina, are buried with their feet facing east so that, when the Son of Man comes – which will happen at dawn! – they will be able to sit up in their graves to face their Savior!)

In the Sunday morning readings over the past few weeks – as the season of Pentecost comes to a close – we’ve been focused on the coming end. (Next week is Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday in the church year.) Last week we read a portion from Amos’ prophecy of God’s burning anger. This morning, we read verses from Zephaniah that are even scarier (Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18), with his descriptions of utter destruction.

The theme has even come through in the gospel stories we’ve been reading. Last week it was the parable in Matthew of the five foolish and the five wise bridesmaids, warning: “Be ready for the end to come! If you are not prepared, you will find yourself shut out of the heavenly banquet, just as these five unprepared and hapless bridesmaids are shut out.” (See Matthew 25:1-13) And what about this week’s gospel reading? It ends with these feel-good words: “As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (See Matthew 25:14-30)

But when will this happen? When will the end come? That is the question the Thessalonians are asking Paul. Here’s what Paul writes, in reply to their question:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. In other words, we cannot say when the end will come. It will come as suddenly and unexpectedly as “a thief in the night.” It is no use to try to read “the times and the seasons.”

Then Paul begins making a distinction between those who should have no fear of the end – those who are of the light – as compared with those who are “of the night,” “of darkness.” It is those in darkness who will suffer when the day of the Lord comes. And they don’t even know it’s coming! Paul writes this: “When they say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.”

Paul is telling the Thessalonian Jesus people not to waste their time trying to figure out when the end will come, and not to be afraid of it, for they are children of the light. Their task is to be confident and hopeful; alert; to be on the watch. Paul writes, So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.

One way we could take off from here would be to try to identify who are those people out there – not us, certainly! – who are the people of darkness. Don’t we need to condemn them? Don’t we need to tell them what they’ve got coming to them?

Of course, that has been an emphasis in some strains of the Christian tradition – which, I would suggest, has led folks far away from the gospel of Jesus the Christ, and has even led to vicious acts of hatred in the name of Jesus.

I don’t think the gospel leads us in that direction.

But the question remains: When will the end come? And Paul’s answer pertains: that the end will be as sudden and as unexpected as “a thief in the night.” That will be true for each one of us. For some the end will with sudden shock, a sudden death. For others, it will be the diagnosis that will be entirely unexpected. There were medical people in the ICU who were afraid the end was coming for me, two years ago, during the worst day of my illness. Bill Wallis told me earlier this morning that he attended the funeral for a friend yesterday – who was told that he had cancer only three weeks ago!

And, in a very real sense, we deal with sudden endings all through life. The respiratory illness that damages a person’s lungs and leaves her unable to do what she once could do. The boss who comes in and says, “I’m sorry, but we’re eliminating the department. It has nothing to do with your job performance. We can offer two months of severance pay …”

You and I do not know our need for God, unless we are aware of the coming end; that we are not strong forever, that we do not live forever. Despite the messages we receive in our death-denying culture, Memento Mori. Remember that you will die.

I’m only naming reality! But in all of this, there is gospel. The good news is that we do not have to live in fear of the end. That is because of the good news, the gospel, of Jesus the Christ, of his cross and resurrection. The good news is our confidence and hope in the grace and forgiveness of God through Christ.

There is gospel in the verses we read, from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Some of these words are a basis for the Lutheran theology of baptismal grace: “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.” You and I are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, so that we may live in Christ.

We pray it in our Holy Communion Prayer of Thanksgiving: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” We in the Church are living ”in-between!” We know what God has done in Christ, to win our salvation. We know that the end will come. We now live in-between.

And, so, knowing that the end will come, Paul tells us how we are to live, in the meantime. This is the last verse of the reading from First Thessalonians: “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”

That is what we are about, as a congregation. Knowing that God has included us in grace and salvation through our baptisms, and knowing that the end will come, we assemble here each Sunday morning, as Church, to be nourished in the grace and forgiveness of Word and bread and wine, and to encourage one another and build up each other.

We gather throughout the week, as Church, for meals, and for study groups, and for committee meetings, with Christ present among us, to encourage one another and build up each other.

We scatter to serve in the community, as Church, working for justice and righteousness, in partnership with other Christians, from other congregations, encouraging one another and building up each other.

It’s a good way to live and to serve, confident in the hope of the grace and forgiveness and salvation of baptism, encouraging one another and building up each other – and all the while praying: “Your kingdom come.”

In the name of God who creates us and saves us and makes us holy. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia