5. The sudden day of the Lord

Gospel and Community

16 November 2008

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

In the fifth and final address in this short series on 1 Thessalonians, we pick up the theme we explored last week, as Paul builds on what has gone before.

Let me remind you that:-

Paul had founded this church during a three-week mission in Thessalonica, after preaching at the local synagogue.
He and his companions had to face an organised gang which forced him to leave by night.
He was concerned about the situation in Thessalonica, but pleased when he received encouraging news of rapid growth in this community of faith.
He was concerned about some of the confused ideas that abounded in Thessalonica and this is clearly part of his reason for writing.
In response to his letters, we discover that it is possible to shine in the darkness as a community of God, even when faced with persecution or pressure.

After dealing with the difficult issue of what happens to Christians if they have already died at the Second Coming of Jesus, the writer goes on to remind the church that it must be alert and alive if it is going to be effective.

1 Thessalonians 5:6 –
“So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.”

The first half of chapter 5 deals with the subject of ‘The Day of the Lord’. This was a very strong Old Testament theme, for in the Jewish mind there was a division of life into two ages: there was the age of the present, which was invariably seen as bad; and there was the golden age of what was to come. What lay in between was the Day of the Lord.

The Old Testament has a great deal to say on the subject (eg Isaiah 22:5, Amos 5:18 and Joel 2:31).

There were essentially three characteristics of that Day:

It would break into the world suddenly.
It would have cosmic repercussions.
It will be a sign of God’s judgement.

It should not surprise us that the New Testament reflects upon that Day in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ. Paul uses the image of ‘a thief in the night’ which is used elsewhere in 2 Peter 3:10 and Revelation 3:3. The important point is that this is an ‘any-moment possibility’. It paints a picture of the future, breaking into the present … which will be as sudden as it is unexpected.

This point emphasises the anticipation of the Lord’s coming and the reason why none of us should be taken unawares. The Christian is called to live in the light and this provides the backcloth to everything we find in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. No person knows when God’s call will come and so seeking to live near to Christ helps us to:-

Always be ready - for the unexpected – v.v. 1-3

This chapter focuses upon ‘end times’ in a very commonsense way with regard to how we should live now.

Michael W Holmes draws our attention to the fact that Paul appears to be responding to a Thessalonian question: “It cannot be determined, however, what prompted it. It is often suggested that the question about the timing of the Day of the Lord arose out of an intense (perhaps even overheated) interest in or curiosity about when that Day would come, and that Paul was trying to moderate or control this ‘eschatological fervour’.”

The way Paul handles this matter suggests that the Thessalonians’ question was prompted not by curiosity, but rather from fear.

The Christian theological framework is not bizarre, but clearly linked to being ‘children of the day’ … or, perhaps more simply, living our life now in the light of what will be. Some believers have gone ‘over the top’ in this area.

The fact that we are warned against ‘date-fixing’ should lead the Christian community to avoid the obsession of wanting to know when. However, from time to time, as I have indicated, it has got the better of some.

We must not get caught up in dates and times

Those who are drawn to a wrong emphasis are captivated by trying to work out the dates of the end of the world. Perhaps there were Thessalonians making the same mistake that the disciples of Jesus had already been warned against (Mark 13:4 and Acts 1:6).

Jesus is recorded as having made two important statements in relation to this:

“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7)
“But about that day or hour no-one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)

The Thessalonians hope that their fear of being unprepared will be resolved by working out the date.

Life is never predictable

A much broader theme opens up here and it is a lesson that we constantly have to learn and re-learn – life is unpredictable!

Isn’t it when we settle down and feel all is calm that suddenly we are awakened by some interruption in life?
Isn’t it when a sports team feels they have an easy fixture with no need to be too concerned about the opposition that they lose the match?
Isn’t it how love, friendship and the deepest things of life cross our pathway without warning?

Jesus often exhorted the disciples to ‘watch’. They were to be mentally alert and spiritually prepared for him.

We live in the exciting possibility of every day

Because life is unpredictable, we must live each day with freshness.

Gregory of Nyssa, an early Christian leader in the fourth century, wrote in response to the Lord’s Prayer, “He who gives you the day will give you also the things necessary for the day.”

John Henry Newman, in a quite different context, wrote in his famous hymn, Lead Kindly Light:
“I do not ask to see
The distant scene, - one step enough for me.”

Be continually alert - for we belong to the light – v.v. 4-8

Martin Luther King, in all his struggles against racism in North America, invariably alluded to light and darkness. He used these words in a sermon, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

There is no need for alarmist theology

The prospect of the Lord’s coming should not take us by surprise. The fact that we do not know the time does not mean that we cannot live in expectation.

Paul uses two illustrations: one of a mother in labour pains; and the other of a burglar. In relation to the latter, he makes the point that this invariably happens unexpectedly during the night while the householder is asleep. The solution to our problem is not knowing when the burglar will come, but being awake and alert.

Paul’s further argument is that people are taken by surprise not only because they are asleep, but also drunk, etc. (v.7) John Stott writes, “So darkness, sleep and drunkenness are three reasons why people are unprepared for a night visit by a burglar. If only he would oblige us by coming in the daytime! Then we would be ready for him. It would be light, and we could see him. We would ourselves be wide awake, and we would be alert and sober.”

The final coming of Jesus is a reminder of how we should live at all times

What Paul is saying here is not just something that relates to ‘end times’ but how we should live all our days. The final coming of Jesus helps to set the scene regarding how we should live all of the time.

Whenever Carol and I go away, we try to remember to pack an alarm clock. Just occasionally, we have unpacked to discover we have forgotten the clock. When in a hotel we then rely on that early wake-up call, but never sleep soundly in case we miss the call.

Julia Ward Rowe wrote the famous hymn Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. In the midst of the American Civil War, she was asked to write the hymn to the tune John Brown’s Body, a popular but coarse marching song. In the Willard Hotel in Washington she wrote the words in a day. One verse is invariably omitted:
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

We need to be properly equipped to serve him

Paul uses two familiar images when he writes, “… putting on faith and love as a breastplate” (v.8). This takes us beyond simply being prepared and indicates the need to be properly armed. On several occasions Paul uses the imagery of soldiers’ armour and equipment as being necessary (Romans 13:12, 2 Cor 6:7, Ephesians 6:10-18).

There is a difference in how he uses the symbolism in Ephesians 6 – for here the breastplate and helmet together represent those three graces that opened up our series – namely ‘faith, love and hope’ (1:3).

There was a crisis among the Thessalonian Christians caused by the onset of persecution and the death of congregational members. The sharply-phrased 2 Thessalonians sets the record straight about Paul’s own leadership. People regarded his ministry as confirmation that the Day had come. The call is for the congregation to return to the theme of ‘faith, hope and love’ as the only solution to such misunderstanding.

Be constantly assured - for you have a hope! – v.v. 9-11

Our hope is linked to the death of Christ. It is important to remind ourselves of this throughout our study of the New Testament. Pereira de Queiros has carried out intensive study on Messianic movements in Brazil. She builds on what Max Weber has identified as the seedbed of such communities – pariah people – those who feel oppressed, and as such are unable to seek redress their grievances in a context of social polarisation. However, sometimes it is difficult to correlate the circumstances with certainty.

However, it is certain that the death of Christ stands at the core of our identity as a community and it is the end view which transforms the present, because of the new relationship that has come into being through the Cross.

God’s gift is Salvation

The great theme of the New Testament is that of Salvation and this is the ultimate gift that makes sense of the whole of our living.

Salvation is tied up with the thought of deliverance from all in this world that would hold a person back from fulness of life. As we have seen in v.2, we will need to give an account of our lives, but the Cross passes us from death to life.

God’s purpose in this world is for good

Some people who have a great interest in ‘end times’ tend to live at the unusual end of life. This is probably what led to W R Inge (later the famous Dean Inge of St Paul’s Cathedral) to struggle with this kind of theology. While Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, he paid a visit to a former pupil, now a country minister … and noticed two peculiar things: He kept lizards in his living room, and he was interested in the early Christians’ ideas about the last things. Both interests seemed to Inge to be equally eccentric.

Thankfully, we have a much more balanced take on these matters today and we don’t have to hate the world to believe that Jesus Christ will come again! You could make an equally strong case that he is coming because he loves this world in all its pain, suffering and hurt.

We know what it is to be encouraged and hopeful

The theme of encouragement (v.11) is an overarching introduction for what follows in the final section of the chapter.

Are you an encourager? Are you the kind of person who reaches out to others and offers good news and hope? Do you build people up? Do you seek to live in a way that contributes to other people’s lives through your encouragement? – This is the nature of all true discipleship.

Ella Wheeler Willcox once said, “A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but it’s miles ahead in results.”

One of the dangers of a passage like this is that we can relegate teaching on the Second Coming of Jesus, and end times in general, to a kind of unreal world of ethereal speculation – and, in doing so, make no reference to how we should live today.

I cannot begin to anticipate dealing with such theology without asking ‘What are the ethical consequences of how we live?’ As we have seen, this passage does not say Jesus will come in a certain way, therefore you must do this or that. But it does make it clear that they are the community of faith and as such are ‘children of the day’.

Beverley Roberts Gaventa summed it up: “The fact of God’s coming triumph enables believers to look frankly on the dirt and grime that surround them but to live expectantly, leaning toward the future.”

Living hopefully is one of our distinctive marks as the community of faith.

Don McLean’s lines in the song Beautiful Baby catch the open sense of despair which often marks out people today:
If I knew the future
you’d be the first to know
but I know nothing of what life’s about –
as long as you live you never find out.

J B Priestley writes with great honesty about what it feels like to be old in his autobiography Instead of the Trees: “I detest being old … In old age we are compelled to play a bad character part, not belonging to our essential and enduring self … We have no longer anything important to contribute.” He speaks of the effort of the daily routine and what he calls the “hideous loss” of friends. He continues, “Just over fifty years ago, a large group of us including some famous literary figures, used to meet in a Fleet Street pub to drink and air our wit. Only two of us are left.”

The loss of hope is not put right by trivial answers. Perhaps one of the most significant writers on the theme of hope is Jurgen Moltmann who in A Theology of Hope and later in The Church in the Power of the Spirit developed a theme. He described the Church as being “like an arrow sent out into the world to point to the future”.

There is an urgency for us to be a people of hope.

Christian Life