The Promise of Resurrection

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, November 5, 2023
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

    Why are we here?  What happens when we die?  What happens to our loved ones when they die?  These are some of the deep questions of faith.  These are questions that the early Christians in Thessalonica had and questions we still have today.  Paul is addressing some of these questions in our second reading for today, a very appropriate reading for All Saints Sunday.  As I have mentioned before, Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest book of the New Testament we have, written probably around ten years after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  People strongly believed that Jesus was returning very soon -- any day -- so Paul is also addressing questions about Christ’s second coming. Why hasn’t Jesus returned yet?  What do we do in the waiting time between this world and the next, between Christ’s first and second coming?  When will Christ come again and what will that be like? – the answer is an uncomfortable we know neither the day nor the hour, by the way.  When we experience the death of loved ones, we have these moments to grapple with our own mortality and these kinds of questions.  We may not know exactly what happens when we die or when Christ will come again, but we do know that God promises us resurrection.  Life, not death, has the last word.  We are people of hope even when we grieve because we place our faith in Christ – that his resurrection is also ours.
Paul assures us with these words:  “We do not want you to be uniformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” And then he goes on to say that we don’t need to worry because those faithful still living will rise along with those who have died and “so we will be with the Lord forever.  Therefore encourage one another with these words”!  We are people of Christ’s resurrection, and just as Jesus was raised from the dead so we too will be raised with him to be with the Lord forever.  We need to be reminded of this especially when we grieve the loss of loved ones or contemplate our own mortality.  When we die, when Christ comes again, we will be with God in Christ, thanks be to God.  We are people of resurrection hope.  Encourage one another with these words!
    As you may know, my last living grandparent died this past July, and I along with a cousin and my cousin’s daughter gave the eulogies at my grandma’s funeral.  For me it is a holy thing as a pastor to prepare a sermon for a funeral, especially if I have known the person, but even if I didn’t.  It’s a big responsibility as well – how do I sum up the life of a person in 5-10 minutes? How do I honor who they were, and also, very importantly, proclaim who they ARE in Christ.  I tried to do the same for my grandma.  It was difficult because I knew my grandma very well – how do you sum up 91 years of life and so many memories?  I was surprised that I struggled so much about what to say.  In our grief, it’s OK to struggle with what to say.  In my grief, I was grateful there was also a pastor there to proclaim the promise of resurrection back to me and remind me that we grieve but as people of faith we grieve with hope.  Death and despair do not have the last word in Jesus Christ but rather after death we have life and eternal hope! I was able to hear this promise for my grandma but also for me. We are people of resurrection hope.
    Journalist David Brooks did a short TED talk a few years ago comparing the difference of a resume to a eulogy.  He notes that we spend most of our time focusing on our “resume virtues” – what we do, the marketable skills we have, our achievements, the external, worldly, innovative things about us.  Of course, this isn’t bad, but sometimes as Christians we forget to be humble as Jesus instructs us to do in the gospel for today when we spend too much time on our outer resume selves.  Focusing too much on our resume leads us to care a bit too much about what others think of us or see our personal success as the ultimate goal or purpose in life.  
In the end, especially on days like this where we think about what happens when we die, David Brooks says we probably would do well to focus more often on our eulogy virtues – the deeper things about ourselves that honor God, creation, and possibilities beyond just ourselves.   The idea is that what we do matters, but it is also important to remember who we are.  As Christians, we are in Christ, Paul reminds us.  We are saints of God – all of us, because of our baptism into Christ.  Living with the big picture in mind; a “eulogy virtue” mindset is the notion that we might want to spend our time beyond focusing on success to committing to something larger than ourselves that will last beyond our time.  These are the things of God.  Reflecting on eulogy virtues – what someone might say about us at our funeral – humbles us to recognize that life is not just about what we do but about relying and trusting on who we are in Christ.  Regardless of anything we have done or left undone, we are God’s and we will be with the Lord forever.  We are saints as much as we are sinners.  Remembering from time to time the finitude of life on Earth helps us prioritize how we live our lives today, how we honor and remember those who have gone before us, and how we find hope even while we grieve.  We are people of resurrection.  We will confess this in our creed for today – we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, regardless of what happens here on Earth.  We place our hope and trust that because Jesus died and was raised so we too will be raised with him.  We may not understand logically how it all works, but it comes down to trust. Jesus died and was raised for you and me, so we might join him in the resurrection to be with him forever.  Encourage one another with these words.  Amen.