Sermon on 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
What is our ultimate hope?
Fall is that time when everything seems to die. The air gets bitter, the leaves fall, the grass stops growing. And yet we all know that spring will come after the winter, and we recognize all of this as an organic process of death and rebirth. We sustain ourselves through the bleak and barren time with the hope of the sweet warm breezes and fecundity of spring.
If we didn’t know that spring was coming, we would feel like this was the end of the world.
This is the gist of Paul earliest letter, which was occasioned by one of the earliest persecutions in Christian history.
War was coming between Jews and Romans, and everyone knew it. Everyone who had any common sense knew that it would end in disaster for the Jews. But an increasing majority of Jews, most of them poor, were listening to zealous wannabe messiahs telling them that Rome was weakening, that rebellions were popping up everywhere, that the mighty Roman military was stretched to breaking, and that this was the time to rise up.
Paul wrote his letter in AD 50, only about fifteen years after Jesus rose from the dead. The Jewish rebellion had almost happened when a Roman soldier burned the Torah of a synagogue in a village they raided. It was only stopped when the Roman governor beheaded the soldier.
And so Romans were very suspicious of Jews, and lots of arrests and interrogations were happening. Jews were turning in other Jews. Pro-Roman Jews wanted nothing to do with messianic movements.
In Thessalonica, the synagogue had thrown out all the Jewish believers in Jesus, and then had denounced them to the Romans, who rounded up a number of them, and when they refused to worship the emperor or the Roman state, they were put to death.
But early Christians first believed that Jesus would come again within their lifetimes. That members of the church were dying before Jesus returned disturbed the Thessalonians’ hope. What might that have looked like?
It would look like people reacting to the fall as if it were the end of the world, instead of an organic process leading to the rebirth of spring.
Well, for one thing, people may have started quitting the church, quite understandably. Why risk getting arrested? What will my family do if I’m executed?
People may have started talking about giving in to the Romans if arrested. What could it hurt to make one little sacrifice to the emperor if one didn’t really mean it?
People may have gotten mad at the martyrs for drawing the attention of the Romans. Others might have argued for joining the warriors preparing for war.
Most of all, was Paul lying?
So Paul spends a lot of his letter praising the congregation for its faithfulness in the midst of an expected persecution. He reminds them that he predicted it. He reminds them of his conduct among them, the deep love that he demonstrated, as if to assure them he was indeed trustworthy.
Here in chapter 3, Paul finally begins to turn toward the purpose of the letter with this prayer, 3:11-13:
Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Paul prays that God will find a way to release him from prison so that he might return to Thessalonica. He prays that the Lord would make the Thessalonians increase and abound in love for one another and for all, the very kind of love that Paul himself demonstrated, agape love, the decision to give one’s life to the well-being and growth of others. He prays that God will strengthen the Thessalonians’ hearts in holiness. As Jesus himself taught, good trees bear good fruit. Increasing and abounding in love for each other and for all can only happen if hearts are strengthened in holiness.
But what is central to this whole prayer is the “so that.” It is hope in the coming of the Lord Jesus with all his saints.
It is as if Paul were speaking to a bunch of children who had never experienced the fall, as if they were terrified by the dropping temperatures and the falling leaves and the dying off of everything, and Paul was reminding them that this is only temporary, that spring was coming. Live through the winter by looking forward to the spring.
Ultimate hope. All of us have hopes for ourselves, for our families, for our community, for our nation. But are these our ultimate hope? At the very center of the New Testament witness is the promise of a new creation, God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven.
I wonder how much we have thought about God’s new creation, the spring that follows the winter of our present age. I’d love to hear from you what you imagine it will be like, when religion is no longer necessary, when God dwells in the hearts of all. When humankind evolves into a new kind of species, one that instinctively practices intentional love for all, in all aspects of life.
Is this our ultimate hope, to live in a world filled with God’s love? If so, we are called to weather the winter of this age, the wars and rumors of war, the earthquakes and the storms, and even death and destruction, by keeping our eyes on the spring.
May the Lord make you increase in love for each other and for all. May the Lord strengthen your hearts in holiness.
The kingdom is coming. Get ready!
Amen.
