Video of the Divine Service is here. The sermon begins around the 26:25 mark.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you were going to describe this age, the way people are now, what would you say? If people who live, say, 50 or 100 years from now were reading, God forbid, the tweets (or the posts on X), the Facebook posts, the articles, the books that are being written now, what would they call this age? People have given names to other ages: The Age of Faith, The Age of Reason, The Age of Anxiety—that one might work. What name would they give this age?

I am confident that, no matter what name they give this age, it won’t be called The Age of Hope. Hope seems extravagant. The people who look around at what’s happening in the world are generally not “hopeful,” though they sometimes act as if they should be, so they put an optimistic spin on whatever Doomsday scenario they’ve described. And Paul says that he does not want the Thessalonians to be ignorant, so that they grieve as those who have no hope grieve. Paul is not giving us an abstract theology, some general idea or theory. This is about as concrete as it gets: life and death. He says that Christians are not like those who have no hope; Christians are, or should be, the people of hope.

And hope is tied to a future. This is why there are those who grieve who do not have hope, because there is no future for them. You die, and that’s it. You’re dead, and everything else goes on as it always did. There is no future, and therefore there can be no hope. So for those who have died, and for those who have no hope past death, there can only be the past, only memories, only what is gone. But not you, Paul says to the Thessalonians. Not you, Christians. You are people of hope, which means people with a future.

But what does hope mean, tied to the future? We use that word in different ways. We might say, “I hope this or that will happen,” or “I hope that will not happen,” but that is just a description of a preference. And think of how much uncertainty there is in a phrase like that. “I hope the Seahawks will win the Super Bowl.” A lot of uncertainty in that sentence. That kind of hope is tied to nothing. There is nothing in the future that can anchor those kinds of hopes, which are really just our preferences. But that’s not Christian hope. Christian hope is anchored, and it is anchored to something sure and certain. Christian hope is anchored to something in the past and to something in the future, to a promise that comes from the only trustworthy promiser. We believe, Paul says, because we are the people of hope, we believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. If that has not happened, there can be no hope, because there’s no future past death. But Jesus who died has been raised from the dead, so our hope is anchored there, in the only One who has, in His own flesh and blood, moved beyond death into an eternal life.

And our hope is anchored also in the future, to when God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep, and will raise their bodies, and make them whole and undying people. Their souls are with Jesus, but their bodies are in the ground, or in dust, or in ashes. But that’s not right or good. We are not just bodies, and we are not just souls; nor are we bodies have a temporary spiritual experience or souls having a temporary bodily experience. We are people, body and soul. And when Jesus appears, those who have, from our perspective, died, will be made alive with their bodies. And then those who are alive and believing in Jesus will have their bodies transformed to be like Jesus’ glorious body, and together then we will be with the Lord forever in the new heavens and the new earth, made new also because of Jesus’ resurrection.

So our hope is anchored in the resurrection of Jesus that has already happened, and it is anchored in the resurrection which Jesus is going to bring about for all His people. This firmly anchored and certain hope means that we have a future, because Jesus has a future. If Jesus simply died, then we would simply die as well. We are people of hope, and that is why Paul calls the Christians who have died “those who have fallen asleep.” Three times he calls them that, and then he calls them those who have died in Christ. He calls them that because Jesus calls them that. Like when Jesus went into the house with the body of a dead 12-year-old girl. He heard the mourners and their grief, and He said to them, “She is not dead; she is only sleeping.” And, of course, they laughed at Him, as unbelief always laughs at the resurrection. In the world without hope, unbelief can only laugh at hope as a ridiculous and falsely optimistic lie. But then Jesus says, “Little girl, I say to you, rise!” And she does. Waking people up from the dead is as easy for Jesus as it is for you to wake up your children—except for maybe teenagers.

This Jesus, and only this Jesus, creates hope in the midst of that most hopeless situation: death. We, like Martha and Mary, and everyone else, think that there’s still “hope” as long as someone is alive, even if they’re very sick. Once someone has died, that’s the end of hope. But God puts an end to our false and hopeless human hopes, that depend on preference or desire or what may or may not happen. He puts an end to that kind of hope to give us a hope that cannot be shaken, that does not depend on us, and that does not depend on what is happening in us or in the world or around us. He does this in His own death, when God does not answer Jesus from the cross. Instead, Jesus dies, and brings an end to all human hope. But then He rises from the dead and creates a purely divine hope that depends only on His resurrection.

That is the hope into which you have been baptized. A hope that depends only and entirely on Jesus, which is the only safe place for hope anyway. It is a hope that doesn’t have a certain timeline, but the end of this timeline is certain. The Bridegroom is coming, but you don’t know when. But when He appears, then you will hear the voice: Look! The Bridegroom is here! The voice of the archangel will be unmistakable. Come out to meet Him! That’s the same word that’s used in 1 Thessalonians for meeting the Lord in the air. But does the wedding party go out of the house and stay there? Do the people who meet the King outside the city stay out there? No, to meet the Lord, the Bridegroom, the King, is to meet Him in joy and then go back into the house, back into the city, back into the new creation, where we will always be with the Lord.

And this hope is bound not only to the past resurrection of Jesus and to the future resurrection of those who belong to Him, but to His presence with us here and now. How can you be ready for His appearing, if you don’t know when it is? What if we get sleepy, like those young women in the parable? What if we are not prepared and we run out of oil while we’re waiting? Do not be afraid. Here, today, Jesus gives you—you—the assurance that you will know Him and be ready for His appearance on that day. You will receive Him with joy on that day because you receive Him with joy today when He brings you His body and blood. This is the foretaste of that feast, which is still to come.

You are the people of hope. In a world where there is anything and everything but hope, in a world where everything is the opposite of hope, when it seems like there is no future, and therefore no hope; you are the people of hope, because you are the resurrection people of Jesus. That’s why He’s put His church in the world: in the midst of the grief of this world, the grief of our lives, the grief of sin and death, He puts His church here, as a people of hope. The world may think it’s ridiculous, the world may laugh; unbelief and hopelessness are the order of this day and every day. But not you. You are the people of hope, bearing witness to a future that can be found only in Christ. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 11/10/23