Living in the Spirit

November 5, 2020

Scripture Reading:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Strangely this scripture is significant to me at this time, in this place. My electric company is good at keeping me posted on where they are regarding getting my electricity back on following an ice storm that downed thousands of lines. I got many emails saying they could not give me a specific time but were assessing outages in my area. I then got projections with dates and times, but they are all moving targets. I watched the website for reductions in outages. They would decrease and then pop back up higher than before as more trees fell and pulled down more lines.

I sense that Paul is addressing a similar concern regarding when Christ was going to return. “I do not know” response is not very comforting when loved ones have died before Christ’s expected return. Christ did promise to return. It is hard to understand. Life after death is a great mystery, as is Christ’s return. Two thousand years later, as a child, I heard preachers on the radio saying Christ is coming soon, often listing signs present in our society. I was a skeptic at an early age. Most of those shows ended with a request for money, so the ministry could continue warning people to get ready for Christ’s imminent arrival. In my young mind, that was a distraction from the work Christ’s expected us to do. Probably because of my skepticism, I do not put much emphasis on what is called the second coming. I do take Jesus’s gift of the Spirit seriously. In the Spirit’s presence, Christ never left. The Spirit guides us as we live out our life as part of the Body of Christ, loving our neighbors and doing justice.

Prayer: Lord, our understanding of you is driven in part by the world around us and its influences. Guide us in separating with is your way, your truth, and your life. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.