Proper 27 Year A 11/12/2023
Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
This is Veteran’s Day weekend…
a time when we honor all those who have served in the military.
And I am reminded of a famous saying that comes from the military…
during time of war…
It is believed to have originated back in World War I.
That’s this phrase:
“There are no atheists in foxholes.”
It is also credited to U. S. Military Chaplain William Thomas Cummings who may have said it in a field sermon during the Battle of Bataan in 1942.
It was made more famous in a speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a broadcast from the White House in 1954.
But, is the statement true?
On the one hand, those that have Christian leanings certainly have become more prayerful in those moments.
Studies have shown that people who have had religious experiences during the horrors of war are 50% more likely to continue to be in church even 50 years later.
Their anxiety and fear were less because of prayer in the time of trauma.
However, those that claimed to be atheists also showed signs of less anxiety and fear.
So, what do we make of this?
Devout Christians who are sincere and devout atheists who are sincere… are people who know what they believe…
They believe what they believe…
People who are confident in their beliefs handle crisis and fear better than those that are unsure or wishy-washy.
Confidence in what one believes in the midst of trauma (such as war) makes a difference.
What does that mean for us?
We should be confident in what we believe.
We should be sure of it.
It reminds me of what the apostle told the Philippian Church:
For I am confident of this very thing,
that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 1.6)
This is one of the many reasons we gather together for church each Sunday morning…
To gain confidence in what we believe.
To be reminded of the truth of Jesus Christ.
We are encouraged as we gather together to worship the Lord.
Through our liturgy…
Through the reading of scripture…
Through the singing of songs…
Through our prayers…
Through the sacraments…
We are built up in the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We affirm each week… our faith…
Our belief…
With the words of the Nicene Creed…
We take those words to heart and mind.
Last week we talked about what a collect is.
A short prayer…
Of which we have a different one each week.
Our collect today is also spot on with what we believe:
O God, whose blessed Son came into the world
that he might destroy the works of the devil
and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life:
Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure;
that, when he comes again with power and great glory,
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom…
That is what we believe…
We believe that God sent His Son to destroy the works of the devil…
We believe that through Jesus we become children of God…
Which makes us heirs of eternal life…
We also believe that Christ is coming again with power and glory.
That is our hope.
Christ is coming again, and we will be raised with him.
This is pointing toward our future resurrection.
After we die, believers in Jesus Christ will be raised to life at the coming of our Lord.
And there’s that key phrase in our collect:
…when he comes again with power and great glory,
we may be made like him…
St. Paul is saying the same thing in our second reading today.
He encourages the Thessalonian believers to be ready for the coming of Christ.
He writes:
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so,
through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
…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.
Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air;
and so we will be with the Lord forever.
This is our hope and our belief.
We take great comfort, strength, and encouragement in this living hope.
This theme of the second coming of Jesus and our resurrection from the dead with him is one of the great themes of 1 & 2 Thessalonians.
St. Paul spends a great deal of space in these letters on the second coming of Jesus.
Primarily because the church was confused.
Perhaps it was their own ignorance…
Or more likely, because of the message of the false teachers that St. Paul mentions earlier in the letter…
The church thought that perhaps Jesus Christ had already returned.
And, very unfortunately, they were all left…
That they missed the boat.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me as though we are talking about a rapture where a bunch of people go missing and then the world goes into chaos.
That’s Christian science fiction…
Made popular by the Left Behind series of books and movies.
That’s not Biblical teaching.
What we see here in the church at Thessalonica is a lack of confidence in what they believed about Christ’s return.
Which is why St. Paul writes to them concerning this.
He wants them to be confident.
He wants them to be sure of what they believe.
When Christ Jesus comes back… everyone will know.
It is not some secret hidden knowledge that some people will know.
The dead in Christ will rise from the dead…
Those believers who are alive will rise in the air to meet with Christ…
And we will be with the Lord forever.
The image here is not so much that Jesus comes back,
and we meet in the air and then he takes us off to somewhere called heaven.
The image is of a great king and warrior returning from battle…
That’s why there is a trumpet…
And a cry of a command…
And when a great king returns in victory from a war…
The people run out to meet him…
Celebrating…
And ushering him back to his homeland.
When Jesus returns…
It is a time of celebration.
It is the consummation of our victory in Christ.
Just like our collect said:
that he might destroy the works of the devil
and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life:
He did destroy the works of the devil on the cross…
And because of his grace…
Through faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ…
We are made his children and receive eternal life.
The second coming celebrates this victory…
Again, our collect today:
that, when he comes again with power and great glory,
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom…
or as St. Paul said it in our reading:
and so we will be with the Lord forever.
Christ Jesus will return to consummate his kingdom…
A new heaven and a new earth.
A redeemed creation.
I don’t know about you, but this is full of hope.
This is why we are pilgrims passing through…
We are sojourners…
Exiles…
We await the coming of Jesus…
Proclaiming the good news of the Gospel…
Living in the Kingdom of God…
With kingdom principles…
As the children of God.
This is why we care for justice in our society…
This is why we work toward the care of creation…
This is why we speak up for the poor and oppressed.
This is why we pray…
And share the good news…
Because our King is coming back.
And this hope is how we encourage each other.
The last words in our text today were:
Therefore encourage one another with these words.
So, be encouraged!
Whatever is going on in your life right now is not the final word.
Whatever is going on in our nation…
In our world…
In our culture…
In our politics…
Is NOT the final word!
The final word is Jesus is coming back…
And it is Jesus who said:
“Behold, I make all things new.”
Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
(Revelation 21.5)
…Trustworthy and true…
May we be confident of this!
This is our belief…
As the words of our creed says:
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.