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Sunday Morning – January 3, 2010
Pastor Joel Renkema
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
A Raptured Audience
How many of you ever think of the end of times? Any of you ever wonder what it will be like? Do you wonder what the Bible says about it? Hollywood is obsessed with it. Recently there have been a rash of movies about it. Knowing, 2012, The Book of Eli, Terminator: Salvation, Tim Burton’s 9, Legion, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Tim LeHey’s Left Behind series of books is an attempt to paint a picture of the future, of the end of times from a Christian point of view. Over 62 million copies have been sold. Movies based on the books have been filmed. Christians and non-Christians alike are scooping up Tim LeHey’s Left Behind books like there is no tomorrow. And the state of tomorrow is exactly what those books are about.
Many Christians believe that the End times will happen just as LeHey says in his books. They believe a day will come when Jesus will return and snatch away, rapture, all the Christians on earth and take them away to heaven. Maybe you have seen some bumper-stickers that talk about it. They say something like, “Warning: In case of Rapture this Car will be driverless.” Then, after the rapture, for seven years chaos will rule on earth as God removes his grace and his people from it. And finally after those horrible 7 years Jesus will return at the head of all the Christians who were raptured and he will establish his rule on earth for a period of 1000 years. It is in this grand and apocalyptic scenario that LeHey sets the plot of his books as he follows the lives of those who are “Left Behind” by the rapture.
So what should we believe? Is Tim LeHey right? Is there really going to be a rapture? The answer is yes. There will be a rapture of Christians on the day of the Lord. But, it will be very different then what Tim LeHey thinks. But first, where does the idea of the rapture come from?
Verse 17 says that we “will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Christians everywhere, throughout the whole world, at the signal of the trumpet blast at the return of Jesus Christ will be caught, or snatched into the air - raptured.
But that is not the key verb in the Greek. The key word to the whole verse is to meet. And that word is very rare. It is only used two other times in the entire New Testament. It is used by Jesus in the parable of the 10 virgins who go out to meet the bridegroom and escort him to the wedding feast. It is also used in Acts when the Christians in Rome went out to greet Paul as he came near to Rome, and they escorted him into the city. And now it is used here in 1st Thessalonians. And it means so much more than just meeting Jesus in the air. It means that Christians will go and greet him, welcome him and escort him back down to Earth.
You can think of it this way. Whenever President Obama travels in Air Force 1 and lands at an airport there are always people there to greet him. Mayors, governors, prime ministers etc. They come to welcome him and to escort him from the airport into the city. That is the meaning of the word “to meet” in the Greek.
So LeHey has it wrong. Christians won’t be snatched away from the world. Jesus won’t just come to take us away. When he comes again. He will come to stay. He will come to right the wrong. He will come to rule his kingdom. It is a mystery that so many Christians think Jesus will come only to leave the world to fend for itself. This completely contradicts the character of God we get in the entire Bible. A God who is full of grace and concern for his world. A God who refuses to abandon his creation but insists on continuously working in it. The Bible does not reveal a God who would abandon his creation.
Now Tim LeHey and others like him also use another passage to defend their idea of the rapture. If you will, turn to Matthew 24:39 with me. Look at half way through verse 39-41.
This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
Now, at first glance this really looks like Jesus is talking about the rapture, doesn’t it? One will be left while another is taken. But let’s look at the context of these verses. Let’s read from verse 36 through 41.
Read Mat 24:36 - 41
Jesus is comparing his second coming to Noah and the flood. For one, it will come when no one expects it. And second, the flood took the wicked away. It washed them away. In that same way when Jesus comes again he too will take the wicked away. Not the Christian who has been made righteous by Jesus, but those who reject God‘s law. In fact we don’t want to be the ones taken away. We want to be the ones left behind, like Noah and his family were left behind. That puts a whole new spin on being “Left Behind.” Something totally opposite of what Tim LeHey preaches in his books. It something good. You want to be left behind.
This is why we have to be really careful when we read the Bible. Careful to not take things out of context.
I’d like to take us back to our original text. 1st Thessalonians 4:13-18. If we think that this text is only about the rapture we are missing the whole point of these verses. We have to consider the context.
The Christians in Thessolonica were upset. They were upset because they worried about their loved ones who were dead. They worried that somehow their loved ones who had already died before Jesus’ second coming would be left out. They would be left out of that wonderful, victorious moment. They wouldn’t be able to go to heaven. This is because they assumed that when you die that is the end. Done. Finished. Over.
So Paul’s main purpose in these verses is to give them comfort. It wasn’t to talk about the last days. His main intent wasn’t even to provide us with a description of Jesus second coming. Paul’s description of the Second Coming of Christ was only a means to an end. And that end was comfort. To comfort those who have lost loved ones.
You see, for Paul death wasn’t the end. The end was life. For the Christian, - the end is always life.
For those of us who have had love ones die, this time of year, the holiday time of year, is often the most difficult. This is when that person’s absence is most deeply felt. All around us there is joy and partying. You can almost physically feel the holiday spirit waft through the air, infecting everyone with happiness. That is everyone but you. All the holiday celebration does is help you remember a time when you were happy too. A time when your loved one was alive and celebrating with you. That missing chair at Thanksgiving is like a dagger to your heart. The missing stocking over the fireplace is a glaring reminder of happier times.
Several years ago my grandfather died of lung cancer. Every New Years that side of my family has a family reunion in Canada. It has been a few years since I have gone to it, but I know that if I go again the one thing that will seem off will be that my grandpa will not be there. And I already know that I will miss him. I will miss our one-on-one conversations, his gruff smile and just the way he used to say my name in his thick, Dutch accent - “Yowell.”
But as Paul says in verses 13, there is no reason for us to grieve like the rest of the world, who have no hope. Now this is not saying that we can’t grieve when we lose a loved one. When someone who you love dies you lose a part of yourself. This is something we should grieve. It is just that there is no need for us to grieve like the rest of the world. Like people who have no hope in the future. There is no reason for that because we believe that Jesus died and rose again. And as verse 14 says, so Jesus will bring along with him those who have died and believed in him.
To Paul this is common sense. If Jesus’ death on the cross marks the death of sin in our lives then it only makes sense that Jesus’ resurrection and conquering of death also marks our conquering of death through him. Jesus died and rose from the dead. He conquered death. Therefore it only follows that all who have died and were believers will also rise from the dead. Not only does Paul say that, but also that people like my grandpa, like any of your loved ones who have passed away - who have died before Christ‘s return, will be the first to greet our Lord Jesus when he comes again.
But what about us who are here today? What does the passage from 1st Thessalonians tell us? Well, for those of us who are young and don’t think much of death, this passage forces us to confront our own mortality. It reminds us that sooner or later we all will die. It is the one universal experience of all humanity. And for those of you who are older and have no such delusions of death it raises the question, “What happens to me when I die?” What is beyond that light at the end of the tunnel?
I think most of us expect to walk down that tunnel and find ourselves in heaven. We expect to find ourselves in front of the pearly gates and ready to walk on streets of gold. But I think Paul is telling us that our future, the future of believers, is not so much a place. It is a relationship. Verse 17 says, “We will be with the Lord forever.” We will have a closer, cleaner and fuller relationship with Jesus Christ than we do right now. And this relationship will never end. It will never fail or get old. This was something Paul looked forward to so much that in his letter to the Philippians he admitted that he wished he were dead. Not because he hated life. But because he knew what would come after death. A better life. A new life with his personal savior, Jesus Christ.
I’ll admit I have a hard time wishing I were dead. But Paul’s vision of a better state of existence is one that I can understand. A state of existence where nothing comes between us and our God. A state of existence where there is no sadness, no dying, no sickness, no holidays without loved ones. And that, I don’t think any of us can wait for.
I said earlier that for Christians death is not the end. Life is the end. Death does not put an end to life. It is only a transition from this life into the next. It is a transition from this life into a better life. C. S. Lewis thought a lot about heaven, especially after his wife passed away. He called life in this world life in the “Shadowlands.” That is because this life is only a shadow of our life to come. And death is the doorway. It is a doorway through which Christians pass from this life of shadows into a new life full in the light of the glory of God.
In the words of the Apostle Paul, death is our last enemy. But death is not the victor. 1st Corinthians 15 he says, “we have victory in Jesus Christ…. Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?” And that is where our hope lies. It lies in the victory of Jesus over death.
Tonight we will celebrate communion together. And as we take, eat and drink, let’s remember the hope we have because Jesus died on the cross. The hope we have knowing that our future is secure. The hope we have because we know what Paul said is true. “To die is gain, but to live - that is Christ.” And that is why we can profess the words of that song,
Because He lives I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives all fear is gone,
Because I know He holds the future.
And life is worth the living just because he lives.
Amen.
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