The Hope of Christ's Return

It took me about ten years as a Christian to begin to look forward to meeting Jesus face to face. I knew Jesus loves me and He died for my sins on the cross. But to go so far as to look forward to death was quite a stretch. I know many good Christians who don't want to die, at least not imminently or prematurely. As I began to stop being so afraid of death, and ever so gradually, started longing for the future departure from this earth, I was more free to live this life fully, as God intended for me. I became less obsessed on hording material goods and earthly success, and more inclined to live for God. This is not to say I have arrived. It has been a long journey and there is still more to be done - like stop worrying about the pain of death itself. Do I get to choose how I will die? Where is my faith in God on this? Am I not in His loving care?

I have been reading the Book of Thessalonians. The overview from Insight for Living is helpful. Let me quote the "big idea" here:
"Impressed by the faithfulness of the Thessalonians in the face of persecution, Paul wrote to encourage the Christians in that community with the goal that they would continue to grow in godliness. Paul knew that the people had been exposed to errant teaching from those in opposition to the way of Jesus Christ and the grace of God. And Paul also understood that unless the young church continued to mature in its faith, the danger would only increase over time. With that in mind, Paul taught the people that any spiritual growth would ultimately be motivated by their hope in the ultimate return of Jesus Christ. Paul was never interested in simply telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, for he knew that what ultimately inspired change was a life of consistently walking in the power of God’s Spirit. And so to a group of young Christians with questions and uncertainties, Paul offered the hope of Christ’s return, providing both comfort in the midst of questions and motivation to godly living."

Of some interest to me is to speculate how Jesus will return. Some bible teachers (including the author of the overview above) speak of Christ's return as His coming to take us back with Him to heaven, like He comes down from heaven to pick us up and then takes us back to heaven with Him (making a U-turn). I remember NT Wright making an interesting point in one of his books (I think it is "Surprised by Hope" - I had written a couple of blogs on this book before). He said that Jesus will come, not to pick us up to take us back to heaven, but to come to earth with the "welcome party" to stay with us on earth. That's why it is important to learn a way of godly living on earth because we will be doing it on earth for eternity! It certainly makes sense to me. It changes the way I think about the importance of our current life on earth - not to earn our way to heaven, but to learn God's way to live on earth for eternity!

This is the way Paul describes Christ's return in this famous chapter in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:
"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. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words."

The passage certainly can be interpreted both ways: He comes to pick us up and takes us to heaven; or those who are alive joining those who rise from the dead will welcome Jesus in the air to bring Him back to earth to spend the eternity with Him.

Either way will bring hope and perspective to death itself. Death is but a brief sleep!