1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
“Dearest Little Nancy Ruth,” the letter began. “Honey, I wish I had time to write you a really long letter and tell you how sorry I am about Scraps. Better still, I wish I could have been there and held you up close to me and shared your grief with you. I know exactly how you felt, honey, because don’t forget that your Daddy had a dog when he was a little boy, too, and I know, even now, how I felt when he died. I don’t know whether dogs go to heaven or not – or whether there is a special heaven for them. I don’t know whether they have a soul or not – there are lots of things we don’t know and can’t understand about this old world. Just like everything else in this world, God made dogs. So, since God made them, I really believe they do go to heaven. The Bible says that not even a sparrow falleth to the ground without God’s knowledge, so we know that He knows Scraps is dead. So for that reason, honey, don’t grieve over your doggie too much. When I come home, we’ll make a flower garden right over her grave. We’ll put the prettiest flowers in it we can find, just in memory of good old Scrappy dog. Scraps was a good dog and she loved my baby. I would have loved her for that even if I hadn’t loved her just for herself. Of course, I cried last night. You know I love you, and I’m just so terribly sorry about your doggie. But surely she can send her love to you from heaven. I’m sending you all my love from here, too. Goodnight, Honey-Bunch. Daddy.”
It was a nine-year-old’s first brush with the harsh reality of death, and her father struggled to comfort her long-distance. The little girl was my mother. Her father wrote to her from Washington, D.C., where he was stationed during the last two years of the Second World War. My mother told me almost exactly the same things, word for word, when our first dog, Frosty, died.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? And not just over the death of a pet. Consumed by grief, grappling with the issues of life and death and life beyond death, wondering about heaven. Whether we’re 9 or 99, it isn’t easy. Grief is hard work. And we all need something to hold onto, something to give us hope.
In my 33 years of pastoral ministry, I have been asked more often about what happens when we die and what heaven will be like than about anything else. Most of us probably don’t think about death very often; we may even try to avoid thinking about it, because it is uncomfortable and even frightening. And yet, when someone we love dies, we begin to think more seriously about what happened to them and about our own mortality. And in this year of COVID-19, with the hundreds of thousands of American deaths, we are confronted with death in a different way and on a different scale.
Children, in their innocent honesty, are not so hesitant as we are about asking questions about death and heaven. I have a book in which David Heller has collected children’s letters to God. Some of the ones concerning heaven show that children have their own ideas about what it will be like in heaven:
From Anita, age 8: Dear God, I want to visit you in Paradise. Is there a big jet that goes there? Is it safe to travel? We just had a big crash around Detroit and I am afraid to fly.
From Georgio, age 9: God, are there really angels? Do you have to be a girl? Can they really fly high? But can angels still do normal things like eat pasta and play soccer?
From Pamela, age 9: Dear God, The thing I wish I knew is where you go when you die. I can figure out what the older people do, but what on earth do kids do there?
From Elizabeth, age 11: Dear God and Grandma, Hi. I want to write you in Heaven … God, I miss grandma but I am glad she is keeping you company.
From Ian, age 6: Dear God, My grandfather died this year, as you know … My grandfather likes ice cream a lot. Please make sure he is taken care of.
When Paul wrote this letter to the young church in Thessalonica, he did so, in part, to respond to questions that they had about what happened to Christians who died. Like most early believers, they expected Christ to return very soon, while they were still living. But someone among them had died, and now they were concerned. How could that deceased brother or sister participate fully in the glorious experience of the Second Coming?
It is important to consider this question in light of the world they lived in and that shaped their understanding of death. Thessalonica was a great city on the road that linked East and West. But it was also a city mostly inhabited by pagans, who faced death with despair, resignation, and hopelessness, because they believed that death was the end. There were grim epitaphs carved on their gravestones, such as this one: I was not; I became; I am not; I care not. A man named Theocritus wrote, There is hope for those who are alive, but those who have died are without hope. And Catullus wrote, When once our brief light sets, there is one perpetual night through which we must sleep.
Our culture seems to be not so different. We, too, live in fear of death, and we do all kinds of things to deny the reality of it. We spend countless hours – and dollars – applying wrinkle creams, tinting our hair, popping Geritol, using Rogaine on bald spots, dressing younger than our age, and lying about how old we are. We never say that someone has died, but we use other phrases, like “went away,” or “passed on.”
But the message of Paul, for those early Christians and for us, is that we can face death with hope. The phrase Paul uses to refer to the dead in Christ is “those who have fallen asleep.” That is actually a good way for Christians to refer to death, because death is not the end for us. Death, like sleep, is only temporary. Falling asleep does not refer here to the state of the soul, but to the state of the body. Only the body is asleep. At death, the body returns to dust, but the soul departs to be at home with the Lord. The soul is that spiritual part of a person, their personality. Those who sleep continue their relationship with Christ in heaven, while their bodies remain in the grave.
Paul admonishes them not to grieve like other people who have no hope. The important part of this statement is not the first part, “don’t grieve.” Paul is not saying that we should not grieve. Of course, we will be sad when a loved one dies. It is perfectly natural and normal to feel sorrow and a sense of loss when someone you care about has died. Even Jesus felt grief. What Paul is saying is that Christian grief is not like the grief of those who have no hope. Those without hope, the non-believers, had nothing to look forward to. It was as if the grave were the last word. But, as Christians, we know the truth about those who die. Death is not the end of the story. Because Jesus is alive, all believers will live, and will be with Christ in heaven forever. We will be reunited with our loved ones, never again to suffer or die. We will be in the very presence of God, safe and secure forever.
Hope is at the heart of the issue. The facts of the death and resurrection of Jesus are the guarantee concerning the future for Christians who die. Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then we can also accept as true the reality of ourselves and our loved ones being raised. We have hope because we expect resurrection and we expect to be with Jesus forever. J. Sidlow Baxter, in a poem entitled, “Awake, My Heart,” expresses this hope:
No longer must the mourners weep and call departed Christians dead;
For death is hallowed into sleep, and every grave becomes a bed.
Now once more, Eden’s door open stands to mortal eyes!
Now at last, old things past, Christ is risen! We too shall rise.
Eugenia Price, the beloved author who has inspired millions of people, wrote a book called Getting Through the Night, which has to do with how we can get through the loss of someone we love. She openly shared stories of her own losses, including the death of her father. She said, I can’t talk to him anymore … But I know he is. I can’t picture where he is, I have no more sense than you have of its being or not being a place as we understand places … I know where he is in the sense that I know where God is. And I can’t explain that either. No one can. But my father is not dead. He was not snuffed out. He was freed to begin to live fully the joy he had only glimpsed in Jesus Christ while he was on earth with us.
Many people are concerned to know whether we will know our loved ones in heaven. The text certainly seems to support that, by saying that all believers will be united and will all be with the Lord forever. Believers who die will recognize and be reunited with their loved ones. W. A. Criswell is not someone I usually quote. But he was once asked whether we will know each other when we get to heaven, and his reply was, We don’t really know each other until we get to heaven.
I have always pictured sort of a huge family reunion in the presence of Christ. Leslie Brandt, in the book, Epistles/Now, describes it like this: We need to be reminded that our earthly conflicts will one day resolve in an eternal life and experience that is more glorious than anything we can imagine. Our dear ones who are no longer with us have already entered into that experience. It awaits every one of us who remains faithful to our Lord and to His commission for us in our remaining days in this world. Remember, Jesus died – and rose again. So we shall rise again and, with those who have preceded us, be joined totally and eternally to our God and Christ.
Paul told the members of that congregation to encourage one another, to comfort and reassure one another, about those who had died in the Lord. They should speak words of hope to one another. And so should we. We should comfort those who have lost loved ones and claim a confident hope for those still living. We have that confident hope because we have faith in a God who is trustworthy and who has promised us eternal life with him. Eugenia Price wrote, Our faith for ourselves and for our loved ones must be faith in God Himself as we can know Him in His Son. Our faith dare not be placed elsewhere.
It is especially important to speak words of hope to each other as we come into the holiday season. The truth is that this time of year can be very depressing and lonely for those who have lost loved ones in recent months, or even longer ago. We can be sources of comfort and reminders of hope for one another when we acknowledge the grief that is real, but also the real assurance of resurrection and eternal life.
The apostle Paul left us with a great gift when he wrote these words. I would like to read them again, this time from The Message:
And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don’t want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last words. Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who have died in Jesus … And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So reassure one another with these words.
