Third Sunday Before Advent
Sermon preached by Steve Jullien, ordinand at Ridley Hall
How do we seek to encourage one another in our daily lives? By praising someone when they’ve done something well? By listening to them? Or simply by smiling?
These are all nice gestures when things are going well, but what about when the picture is bleaker? In our culture of posting happy pictures, do we shy away from talking about difficult topics? Do we feel uncomfortable talking about painful things such as death?
The reality of death has become much more acute over the past few months and we can’t avoid it. Not only have our news bulletins been awash with depressing statistics, many of us will have lost friends and family to COVID-19. People are understandably afraid.
Over the past year, there has also been a much more tangible link between death and our liturgical life. The first lockdown happened during Lent and Easter, as we recalled the death and Resurrection of Christ. Once again, we find ourselves in lockdown having commemorated the Faithful Departed at All Souls last week, and now on Remembrance Sunday, honouring those who fell in war.
Yet being separated, these liturgies feel all the more painful. As we were leaving church after the final pre-lockdown Eucharist on Wednesday, a member of the congregation turned to me and said “I could weep”.
It’s very natural for us to be feeling sad at this time, and our immediate situation seems anything but encouraging. However, we are fast approaching Advent in the liturgical calendar, and as far as I’m aware, there is no intention to ban chocolate Advent Calendars this year. So society does give us some encouraging news!
In this period between All Saints and Advent, we are called to a sense of hopeful expectation towards the Second Coming of Christ.
Indeed, this preparation for the Second Coming is one of the key themes in Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, which is one of the most positive Pauline letters. Yet this is not a positivity which shies away from the topic of death, but rather embraces it and is based on the encouragement that we receive new life in Christ’s resurrection.
After founding a church in Thessalonica, Paul is only able to stay briefly but is told by Timothy that the church is growing, its members are loving one another, and they are standing firm in their beliefs in the face of persecution. In his letter, he wants to instruct them “excel still more” in living a life pleasing to God and to prepared for the Coming of the Lord. Most importantly, however, he wants to encourage them.
Paul’s kind of encouragement is not just some kind words, but based on conviction. The Thessalonians are waiting excitedly for Jesus’s return, but are concerned that the faithful who have died before his return will not be raised. Paul seeks to reassure them:
“We do not want you to be uninformed about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope (1 Thess 4:13)
Adding that “since we believe that Jesus died and rose again.. God will bring with him those who have died”(4:14)
Some translations of the passage talk about the dead having “fallen asleep”, and perhaps we need to think of death as moving not dying, as if we’re saying good bye to someone on a long trip who we know we’ll see again.
So, grief is perfectly natural, but as Christians, we need to hold to a sense of hope. This hope stood in contrast to Roman culture Paul was familiar with, where Pagan belief very much held that death was the end. On tomb stones there were grim inscriptions such as "I was not; I became; I am not; I care not." Theocritus wrote, "There is hope for those who are alive, but those who have died are without hope."
Therefore, The Christian idea of hope after death is very much counter cultural, and so we can be counter cultural today. We’re in a society which thrives on constant good news, and in an environment where daily good news is hard to get today, there is a real need for hope.
Paul is writing to a church context and we can take heed of his encouragement in our own context of St Bene’t’s. It is not an encouragement based on wishful thinking, but rather one based on confidence in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul is so confident in the Death and Resurrection of Christ that he fills the latter part of chapter four with rich poetic language, featuring trumpets and clouds. Indeed, he is using poetry to describe the indescribable in the second coming. This can all sound rather peculiar in an environment which focuses on the here and now. Indeed, these words take us out of our comfort zone. However, His description is not necessarily meant to be taken literally. The importance lies not in the descriptive details, but in the truth that life and in death we, as Christians, are in Christ and that is a union which nothing can break.
It is this strength of union which should motivate us, as a church community, to encourage one another, and to be a distinctive voice of hope within a society filled with fear. The encouragement we need to offer is not just some kind words, but the powerful truth that death can’t part us from Christ or other Christians.
Whilst its vitally important that we live safely as a church to restore the goodness of God’s creation, we mustn’t allow ourselves to be caught up in the prevailing language of fear. Rather than being passengers in the Covid narrative, we have the chance, as Christians, to present a positive alternative to society, just as the Thessalonians sought to do.
As a church, we need to be more than a well-meaning movement which offers small gestures of encouragement, and become a movement which is excited and encouraged by Paul’s assertion that “we will be with the Lord forever” (4:17).
So, whilst we grieve and remember those who have died in the pandemic and wars, let us not be afraid to talk about death, but rather be encouraged, and therefore encourage each other, that in Christ, there is new life and hope.
AMEN