CHRISTMAS CONNECTION: A COMING REUNION
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
Main Idea: Christmas connects us with the hope of a reunion that will never end.
Introduction: The Christmases of the Second World War gave us some of our most sentimental songs. One of those is a personal favorite, "I’ll Be Home for Christmas." The song says, "I’ll be home for Christmas. You can count on me. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree. Christmas Eve will find me where the love light beams. I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams."
That song expresses very quickly a longing most of us have at Christmas. We want to be home with the people we love at Christmas. That song may bring back memories for you of Christmases long past of when you were a child. I know it does for me. I remember gathering with my Dad’s side of the family at one of our homes sometime before Christmas. At Thanksgiving we drew names and exchanged some inexpensive gift near December 25. Those times were loud, loving and long events. Aunt Geraldine's dressing, my old bachelor Uncle Ezra, pies and cakes, football in the yard and the central figures of it all my grandmother and grandfather—Mama and Papa Tippit.
In 1963 Papa died. Oh, we still tried to keep it going but when Mama died a few years later it was never the same. Of eight children there are only three remaining. We don’t get together anymore. I suppose it is mainly because of time and the distance that has grown between us. I guess another reason is that when you gather you become more aware of who is not there and it’s sad. It’s not easy having a family reunion when there are empty chairs at the table.
Christmas has the ability to confront us with how disconnected we may feel with those we love that will not be here for Christmas. They won’t be home because they are no longer alive. They are dead and our homes and hearts ache for their presence maybe at this time more than any other. We long for reunion but we know it will not be. The truth is, though, that Christmas connects us with the hope of a family reunion that will never end!
Apparently the church at Thessalonica was troubled not about Christmas family reunions but with being reunited with those they loved who had died. Paul told them, "And now, brothers and sisters, I want you to know what will happen to the Christians who have died so you will not be full of sorrow like people who have no hope" I Thess.4:13).
The Thessalonian church had buried their share of loved ones. Paul wants the members who remain to be at peace regarding the ones who have gone ahead. Many of you have empty places at your house because of the loved ones you have buried. And just as God spoke to them, he speaks to you.
If the kids come home but your marriage partner does not this year, he speaks to you.
If your child made it to heaven before their first Christmas play, he speaks to you.
If you learned more about a disease this year than Christmas desserts, God speaks to you.
He speaks to all of us who have stood, or will stand, in the soft dirt near an open grave. And he gives us this confident word, "For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus comes, God will bring back with Jesus all the Christians who have died" (v. 14). God transforms our hopeless grief into hope-filled grief. How? By telling us that there will be a family reunion that will never end. That’s the Christmas connection! Because of a baby’s birth in Bethlehem we can have hope that cemeteries are not the last place we will see those we love.
Paul is concerned that these Christians understand what lies ahead for those who have died, if they are Christians. It seems these Christians were afraid that Jesus was going to come back soon and those who had died would miss this event and its blessings. He wants them to know that they are the first priority of His power when He returns. He can say this because of what he taught in II Corinthians 5:8 that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. What he means is that the very moment anyone who is a Christian dies that very moment they are with Jesus.
Yet here he goes further to say in these verses that when Jesus comes again that those who are with Him now will be with Him then. When they come the bodies that they and we have lived in will be changed. We will then begin the reunion that we all long for. This is a reunion you need to know is coming!
Not everyone does know this or have this hope. They do not have hope of this kind. Oh, they may hope that maybe things will work out, that maybe there’s a heaven, that maybe there isn’t a hell, that maybe it will all be o.k. But, they don’t know for certain. Two-thirds of the world’s 6 billion people have never been informed of the hope that Jesus offers at death. There may be someone in your office or school that has no hope of a reunion with someone they love. This is a family reunion they need to know is coming!
I am not saying that you don’t grieve or hurt. I am saying that the grief is different. Why? Because we know we will see them again and we know where they are until we see them again. There may be an empty chair at your table but there’s a reunion that’s coming where the table and the house will be filled again.
The Bing Crosby song from the movie "Holiday Inn" called "White Christmas" somehow becomes our dream at Christmas. TV weather people will talk about the chances of a "white Christmas". A "white Christmas" in Arkansas is not some cozy day like you see on a commercial. No, it’s usually going to mean power outages, cars in ditches and frustrated family who say, "We can’t get out of our driveway! How will we ever get to Dumas?" Things can happen that interrupt our reunions.
Yet when we look forward to the reunion that Paul talks about we can know with certainty that it’s coming! How? Because of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ! That event of His death and His resurrection is an anchor for all else that we do and believe as Christians. It is this certainty of something past that assures us of something future! I love the way Paul says it, "We also believe that when Jesus comes, God will bring back with Jesus all the Christians who have died" (v. 14 NLT).
Children can express their certainty about spiritual things in ways we adults cannot. John Shea reflects that in Sharon’s Christmas Prayer.
She was five, sure of the facts, and recited them with slow solemnity convinced every word was revelation. She said they were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat
and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady rode a donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady. They had to stay in a stable with an ox and ass (hee-hee), but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lited the roof. Shepherds came and you could pet the sheep but not feed them. Then the baby was borned. And do you know who he was? Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars. The baby was God. And she jumped in the air whirled round, dove into the sofa and buried her head under the cushion which is the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation.
That is why, my friends, when we sit down at Christmas dinner and see empty places or remember special people and we feel the tear, we can be certain. We are certain we are not believing in vain. We are certain of a time when we will be together. And we smile, yes, smile, because we know, we know because we have believed, there is a reunion coming!
Paul said at the end of verse 17 that we will "remain with Him forever." How do we get to the forever? Well, in some very brief but essential detail Paul describes how this occurs—by the word of the Lord.
First, Jesus will return in a way that no one can miss. Notice what verse 16 says, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the call of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God." Our Lord will himself walk into our world with a jolting announcement of his presence.
Then, we read that when He returns "all the Christians who have died will rise from their graves" (v. 16b). Right now the very essence of who a person is, their spirit, the ultimate dimension of who they are is with Jesus. At his return that spirit will be reunited with their body. It’s goinging to be like Jesus’ body after He was resurrected. That body will be transformed, it will be recognizable, it will not be vulnerable to anything and it will be like the body that Jesus himself has!
If we are alive when He comes then we will be taken away to be with Him. Paul said, "Then together with them, we who are still alive and remain on earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air…" (v. 17). The little phrase "caught up" is translated into Latin and means "rapture." The word is literally "snatched away." Whole theologies about the Second Coming surround this word. The important thing to understand is that this is God’s way of just getting us all together. When He comes it is time for the reunion so He just brings us all to be together with Him.
That’s when the reunion starts that never ends for we will "remain with Him forever." Now I realize that some of us are not too excited about thinking of a family reunion that goes on forever as being something heavenly. I mean there are some reunions that being there forever is a description of well—you know—and it’s not heaven! Yet while we may be glad to finally get in the car and you say goodbye, you know you will see them again. But what if you don’t? What if the next time you gather the Tupperware holds funeral food and not Christmas cookies? Then you know this promise—there will be a reunion where we will never say goodbye again! We will be with Him and them forever!
The most amazing word that Paul says is what we as Christians are to do with what he has just told us. He says, "So comfort and encourage each other with these words" (v. 18). The original language uses the word "parakaleo." It means "to call alongside of." It’s the beautiful picture of someone coming beside you and without any fanfare just lifting you up. These words about a reunion are to lift our hearts all year round but especially at Christmas. For it’s at Christmas where the loneliness and longing are just a little more deep and we need a word or an arm to say, "There’s a reunion coming—it’s certain, it’s forever! I just thought you needed to remember."
Where are those people who will be missing from your Christmas? Oh, their body may be placed in ground, cold and hard, but their spirit is wrapped in the warm arms of Jesus. Max Lucado writes in his book When Christ Comes, "We don’t like to say good-bye to those whom we love. Whether it be at a school or a cemetery, separation is tough. It is right for us to weep, but there is no need for us to despair. They had pain here. They have no pain there. They struggled here. They have no struggles there. You and I might wonder why God took them home. But they don’t. They understand. They are, at this very moment, at peace in the presence of God.
"I had been ministering in San Antonio for less than a year when one of our members asked me to speak at the funeral of his mother. Her name was Ida Glossbrenner, but her friends called her Polly.
"As the son and I planned the service, he told me a fascinating story about the final words his mother spoke. Mrs. Glossbrenner was unresponsive for the last few hours of her life. She never spoke a word. But moments before her death, she opened her eyes and stated in a clear voice, "My name is Ida Glossbrenner, but my friends call me Polly."
"Meaningless words of hallucination? Perhaps. Or, perhaps more. Perhaps Ida was, well, maybe she was at the schoolhouse doors of heaven. Her body behind her. Her soul in the presence of God. And maybe she was getting acquainted.
"I don’t know. But I do know this. When it is cold on earth, we can take comfort in knowing that our loved ones are in the warm arms of God. And when Christ comes, we will hold them, too.
Oh what a reunion! What a Christmas that will be! And the most wonderful truth is we will never have to say goodbye again!
Sunday, December 5, 1999
Dr. Bruce Tippit
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas
btippit@fbcjoneboro.org