“Hope’s Promise”

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

September 12, 2004

Our text from last week brought us to the purpose of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonian Christians. A crisis had erupted in the community of faith that threatened the ministry and mission of this new church and ultimately the effectiveness of the good news of the gospel. For the Thessalonian Christians, hope was the Christian virtue they could not be without. Their faith had become an example to all believers. Their love for one another demonstrated the validity of the power of the gospel in their lives. But their faith and love lacked the hope that was necessary to sustain and preserve them through conflict and crises that they faced.

Their hope had to be restored. Their hope had to be reaffirmed. Their very lives depended on it. The gospel depended upon it. And so Paul set out to restore and affirm the hope of all those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He reminded the Thessalonians that even death itself is not beyond the reach of God’s resurrection power. Yes, some of the believers had died and Jesus had not yet returned as promised, but the hope of the Christian gospel is a hope in the promise and power of the one who makes the dead living again.

For Paul, Christian hope points believers to the future to God’s final and full restoration and redemption of not only the world, but of the whole universe. Christian hope is the lens through which believers are able to see the Day of the Lord, not as the day of wrath and destruction, but as the day of glory and salvation. For Paul, the Christian faith cannot survive without hope. Without hope, faith is ambiguous at best. Without hope, love is void of meaning. True Christian hope is grounded upon the promises of God. It is made certain in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it is kept alive by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We cannot dismiss the importance of maintaining the integrity of hope in our lives of faith. Hope is what keeps Christians walking on the journey of faith. Hope is what preserves us, encourages us, strengthens us and lifts us up. I have heard people talk about how if it was not for their faith; they would not be able to make it. But what they are really talking about is the hope of their faith; the hope in a better tomorrow, the hope in a future that is real and certain, the hope in the fulfillment of the promise of the One who is more gracious, more powerful, and more loving than ourselves.

Over and over again in his letters, Paul writes about the three Christian virtues of faith, love, and hope. All three are vital components to the health and well-being and integrity of one’s devotion and discipleship to Jesus Christ. Faith is the way in which we trust the promises of God’s kingdom. Love is the way in which we embody the ethics of God’s kingdom. But it is hope that allows us to see the vision of God’s kingdom.

It is hope that makes our hearts rejoice when a person is saved, because it points us to the day when every knee shall bend and every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ is Lord. It is hope that restores in us the goodness of people when we see someone help another, because it points us to the day when all people will love and care for one another. It is hope that makes our hearts mourn for those who suffer, because we know that a day is coming when there will be no more suffering, pain, or tears. It is hope that makes our hearts break at the news of death and destruction, because we know that in the coming of the kingdom of God death and destruction will be no more.

Friday morning, as I drove to Charlottesville for lunch with someone, I was listening to one of the morning talk shows. The host was talking about the coming anniversary of the horrific and tragic and terrible events of September 11. As I drove, he played a montage of audio clips from that day three years ago. I heard the voices of the air traffic controllers calling the doomed aircraft and getting no response. I heard the first radio reports of one of the towers being on fire, and then another report of the second tower being struck by the airplane. I heard the voices of those who had loved ones stuck in the towers. I heard the cries and shouts of people running on the street as the towers fell one after the other. I heard the emotion, the hopelessness, the fear, the disbelief, and the grief in the voices that filled the airwaves that day. As hard as I tried, my eyes could not hold back the tears that rolled down my face. The audio clips only lasted for six minutes, but it was enough to remind me yet once again how much I long for Jesus to return. Were my tears of sorrow or hope? Maybe they were a little bit of both. I’m not really sure.

But what I do know is that I’m tired of waiting. But that’s what hope does. It makes us long for the day when Jesus will return, because it is hope that tells us that it will be a great and glorious day; a day when all that is wrong will be made right, a day when all things that are broken will be restored, a day when all will be made new and alive again.

After 2000 years of waiting for Jesus to return, to read our scripture text today from Paul’s letter to this first century church, we forget about just how much the coming day of the Lord was on the minds and hearts of these early Christians. For these Christians, they fully believed that Christ’s return was imminent, any day, at any time. And now to hear about the coming of the Lord, you can imagine how much they wanted to know when it was going to happen, just as we all do.

Paul reminds them and us that the certainty of Christ’s return is not in question. Jesus is coming back. But Paul is quick to remind the Thessalonians that he cannot predict when it is going to happen – no one can, and he describes the coming of the day of the Lord using the words of Jesus himself and the prophets. He says it will come like a thief in the night, just as Jesus described it, the same way labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, as the prophets had said.

Plan as we might for such occasions, there is no determining the moment when they will happen. We cannot predict it or even anticipate it. It will simply come when we least expect it. We cannot read headlines or watch the news to see clues or hidden signs. We cannot piece together occurrences of world events to fit some end times prophecy about the end of the world like the supermarket tabloids. For Paul, such speculation is simply a waste of time. The time of fulfillment is in God’s hands and there it remains.

Our Christian hope reminds us that history is indeed moving to the point of fulfillment and is not simply a cycle going round and round with no end in sight, because it is hope that points us to the one who stands at the end of history as the judge of the living and dead. For Paul, Christian hope is not about trying to figure out times and seasons; it’s about taking seriously the God who is even now moving that day of fulfillment closer and closer to us.

We must never forget that it is not us who move toward Christ, but rather it is Christ who is moving toward us. The coming kingdom of God is not a static, far off distant event in the future, but rather it is a progressing, moving, and transforming reality that is even now breaking into and absorbing the here and now. The Thessalonians had lost sight of who they were and of the future that was coming. They had let the trials and tribulations and crisis of life chip away at their hope until they had none left.

Paul makes a declaration about who they are that they are children of light. In spite of all that they have gone through, God has not forgotten them. They have been prepared for the day of Christ’s coming; they have already been given what they needed for the in-between times: the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of hope of salvation. Faith, love and now hope. These three point to the future, to the promises of God’s very self through Jesus Christ, and to the destiny of God’s faithful, loving, and hope-filled people as they wait for the Lord’s return. Amen.