DEVOTION//Hope lives in death

 Today is Reformation Day. We turn to Martin Luther for our devotion. 

1 Thessalonians 4

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 (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

Do not grieve like everyone else

St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians not to sorrow over the dead as others who have no hope, but to comfort each other with God’s Word as having a certain hope of life and of the resurrection of the dead. 

It is little wonder if those are sad who have no hope. Nor can they be blamed for it. Since they are beyond the pale of faith in Christ, they must either cherish this temporal life as the only thing worthwhile and hate to lose it, or they must expect that after this life they will receive eternal death and the wrath of God in hell and must fear to go there. 

Encourage one another

But we Christians, who have been redeemed from all this by the dear blood of the Son of God, should by faith train and accustom ourselves to despise death and to regard it as a deep, strong, and sweet sleep, to regard the coffin as nothing but paradise and the bosom of our Lord Christ, and the grave as nothing but a soft couch or sofa, which it really is in the sight of God; for he says, John 11[:11], “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” and Matthew 9[:24], “The girl is not dead but sleeping.” 

Thus, too, St. Paul in I Corinthians 15[:42– 44] bans from his sight every ugly aspect of death in our mortal body and brings to the fore a wholly delightful and joyous picture of life when he says: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable… It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”