Sermon Notes Josh. 3, I thes. 4 for Oct. 30

At the end of Israel’s lightning conquest of the Promised land, as much a religious procession as armed conquest, standing stones are placed as a memorial. we have a spate of them recently:MLK ,FDR, Korea, WWII. Lovejoy monument here. Cemeteries are parks of standing stones as our the old church yards.

Paul writes in response to the early church in a greek port: what happened to their friends who had died before the second coming? Would they be lost, forgotten, even by God.
With the enormous popularity of the Left Behind series of books, many Americans were introduced to a fairly recent model for coming to grips with apocalyptic material. All the word means is lifting the lid from a pot, to reveal what is beneath.It is a genre of writing for people who want god to intervene as they have no hope of winning on their own. Here in Paul’s first letter, we see him sing its symbols as a way to tell people that the age has turned in the fullness of time, a new and better age has begun in Jesus Christ.

Rapture theology is part of a fairly recent 19th century view that the apocalyptic material is a recipe book. It tries to tie material together from different places in the bible into a predictive framework for out time.Yes, this is clearly apocalyptic end time material. the word rapture comes from Latin, the word means to snatch or be caught up in Greek. The word was carefully chosen in my view as this same word is usually applied to death snatching us from life itself.
instead of seeing as present with Christ at death, we will be united with Christ, the living and the dead.the dead will not be forgotten. Rapture theology takes it all upside down and has the living separated away in their two stage second coming approach. the living are separated from what they fear would be a period of tribulation, so escape, not compassion is its ruling idea. (Joyce ending) In the end, rapture theology is for people who have lost hope in being agents of the kingdom of heaven and passively await a divine lightning bolt to change things that they have given up on.That is why it is so vital for them to see the world as going downhill, as getting worse and worse, as they want to hasten the end. for them, only a small group will be spared from the lion’s den of contemporary life.

Right after All Saints Day, it is a good time to consider these great words, do not grieve as those who have no hope. Note that it decidedly does not say do not grieve, period. The virtue of hope affects our present. it can give us energy and direction, in spite of, the facts on the ground. A basic truth about us is that we grow attached to people. We often do not have great resources to deal with the loss of someone to whom we are attached. We fear that our attachment now mocks us, as we could be absent forever.Paul offers the encouragement that in the new age we can rely on god’s faithfulness. We will be kept together through the new life in Christ, not our memory, not even the strength of our loves. In other words, Christ’s presence, including divine presence in the passage into heaven gives us ground for hope. Still, here on earth we do grieve, must grieve, should grieve; such is the depth of our attachment; such is the depth of our love.