Today's Verse
For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
1 Thessalonians 4:16
Historical Context
Paul had spent only a few weeks in Thessalonica before a riot drove him out (Acts 17). He left behind a brand new church, mostly Gentile converts who had turned from idols to serve the living God and to wait for his Son from heaven. Then he worried about them from a distance. When Timothy finally brought back a report, the news was mostly good, but one question was tearing at the congregation: what about the believers who had already died?
Paul had evidently taught them that Jesus was returning soon. The Thessalonians seem to have assumed this meant every believer would be alive to greet him. When some of their number died, perhaps under the same pressure that had driven Paul out, the survivors were devastated. Had their dead missed the kingdom? Were they lost?
This is the pastoral situation behind the letter, written around AD 50 or 51 from Corinth, one of the earliest documents in the New Testament. Paul answers with the oldest Christian conviction of all: Jesus died and rose again. Everything else follows from that. The imagery he uses (a descending Lord, a trumpet, a shouted command, meeting in the air) would have been familiar to any citizen of a Greek city. When a king or emperor visited, the citizens went out of the gates to meet him and escort him back in triumph. Paul is telling grieving believers that Christ will come as King, that their dead will rise first, and that no one who belongs to him will be left behind.
Reflection
There is a grief that belongs to love. Paul does not forbid it. He does not tell the Thessalonians to stop mourning, only to stop grieving as those do who have no hope. Christians cry too. What sets them apart is what they know while the tears are falling.
What we know is this: Jesus died and rose again, on a particular morning outside a particular city. And because that happened, Paul can say with complete certainty that God will bring our dead with him. The resurrection of Jesus is the first rising. Ours is the second. The grave has already been opened from the inside, and it will be opened again.
This changes how you stand at a funeral. It changes how you think about your own death, which you will almost certainly not escape. When a Christian goes to the cemetery, he leaves a body in the ground that will not stay there.
Notice what Paul tells the church to do with this truth: encourage one another with these words. He doesn't ask them to debate the timing or chart the sequence. He tells them to encourage each other. Say it to each other at hospital beds and gravesides and in the long quiet weeks afterward. The Lord himself will descend. The dead in Christ will rise. We will be with him forever.
If you are grieving today, this is for you. If you are afraid of dying, this is for you. The trumpet has not sounded yet, but it will. And when it does, nothing that belongs to Christ will be lost.
For Reflection
Where in your life right now do you most need to hear that the dead in Christ will rise, and how would believing it change what you did tomorrow?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you died and rose again, and because you live we too shall live. Teach us to grieve honestly but not hopelessly. Comfort those among us who are weeping for someone they love. Strengthen those who are afraid of their own dying. Keep us watchful and ready for the day of your coming, when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ are raised. Until then, let us encourage one another with these words. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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