The world has come to a standstill, as we tackle Covid together. More than 1.2 million lives have been lost and 50 million more are battling the virus. We have pulled together during the first lockdown and I have no doubt that kindness and compassion will continue. That won’t stop death being a constant theme on the news or keep it from our minds. So where can we find hope at a time like this?
The good news is that there is hope, a hope that is made all the more significant because of death. In the Bible a man named Paul who had his life transformed by meeting Jesus wrote to a group of new Christians in a place called Thessalonica. As a community they were reeling from the loss of family and friends, experiencing persecution and lockdown precisely because of their new found faith. As people were dying their thoughts turned to what happens when we die, which remains just as relevant today.
They could have given up their faith, after all it was their faith that led the Roman authorities to persecute them. Yet despite the persecution, it turned out that they were flourishing because of the hope they had found in Jesus.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven. These people had turned from the gods of their day, gods like our own promising a better life. Today we are more comfortable worshipping materialism, individualism and comfort, but they choose to give their allegiance to Jesus! As a result they were isolated from neighbours, shunned by the community and even faced hostility from their own family. So why they would choose to live in a way that invited isolation and hostility? Why, because they had discovered the overwhelming love of Jesus. They had discovered that Jesus had died for them and given them hope that he would return. A truth which made the isolation, hostility and rejection a small price to pay compared to the hope they had found.
I wonder where you find yourself on the question of death, a hopeless end or a hope filled beginning. Later on Paul says Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
When we think about those who have lost their lives in wars and conflicts, we may feel hopeless. It’s horrific to think that as a species we are capable of taking others lives, even innocent ones! What we believe about death makes a huge difference. So Paul says therefore encourage one another with these words because we will be with the Lord for ever. On Remembrance day we were kept apart, but kept going by the hope that we will see each other again, be able to hug our family, hold them by the hand. Hope is a powerful thing!
Yet there is an even better hope, something much greater! The hope that Jesus who will raise us to a life that never ends, with no goodbyes, no death, no illness, no disability, no injustice. A life with no war and no isolation. That is the Christian hope, that is the hope that we have when we trust Jesus, that we will know for sure when we die.
Those who gave their lives in conflicts and wars brought us a temporary peace, they held back the ravages of war. Yet Jesus puts an end to it all, he will bring a peace that lasts forever. Not a baseless hope, but one based on a historical fact that Jesus came, he died, he rose from the dead and he offers us the same hope of life after death.
So I pray that we will take hold of a hope that cannot be taken away, a hope that no war can threaten and a hope that will outlast and outshine any other. As Paul said: For the Lord himself will come down from heaven…Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.