Day 51 - Thursday, April 04
Title: THE PROMISE OF A FUTURE WITH CHRIST 
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NKJV)
But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words

Poetry & Poet:
“At a Solemn Musick”
by Delmore Schwartz

Let the musicians begin,
Let every instrument awaken and instruct us
In love’s willing river and love’s dear discipline:
We wait, silent, in consent and in the penance
Of patience, awaiting the serene exaltation
Which is the liberation and conclusion of expiation.

Now may the chief musician say:
“Lust and emulation have dwelt amoung us
Like barbarous kings: have conquered us:
Have inhabited our hearts: devoured and ravished
—With the savage greed and avarice of fire—
The substance of pity and compassion.”

Now may all the players play:
“The river of the morning, the morning of the river
Flow out of the splendor of the tenderness
     of surrender.”

Now may the chief musician say:
“Nothing is more important than summer.”

And now the entire choir shall chant:
“How often the astonished heart,
Beholding the laurel,
Remembers the dead,
And the enchanted absolute,
Snow’s kingdom, sleep’s dominion.”

Then shall the chief musician declare:
“The phoenix is the meaning of the fruit,
Until the dream is knowledge and knowledge is a dream.”

And then, once again, the entire choir shall cry,
     in passionate unity,
Singing and celebrating love and love’s victory,
Ascending and descending the heights of assent,
     climbing and chanting triumphantly:
Before the morning was, you were:
Before the snow shone,
And the light sang, and the stone,
Abiding, rode the fullness or endured the emptiness,
You were: you were alone.

THE PROMISE OF A FUTURE WITH CHRIST

Spring is approaching.  I can see it around me in the green grass spreading across the hills, small buds on seemingly dead branches, and the flowering of fruit trees.  Every year, I am reminded of the cycle of death and resurrection as the winter gives way to spring.  The reality of resurrection has been woven into the fabric of our world as we see new life springing from a gray landscape.  Sin brought death into our lives and into all of creation.  (Genesis 3:19; Romans 5:12).   Jesus’ death on the cross, which we celebrate on Good Friday, was the final and perfect sacrifice for our sins that enables us to reconcile with God if we repent and trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.  His resurrection on that Sunday showed that He was God and able to save us from our sins.  (Hebrews 9:22; Romans 10: 9-10). 

The Bible promises that those of us who know Christ will be resurrected.  (I Corinthians 15:51-57).  This passage is a comfort to the living that believers who have died will one day be raised when Christ returns triumphant.  It is also a call to all believers to live in light of the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  As Jesus told his disciples, no one knows the day or the hour when He will return.  (Matthew 24:36).  Paul told us that day will come “like a thief in the night.”  (I Thess. 5:2).  Yet there are signs.  Jesus said, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.  Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.”  (Matthew 24:32-33).  In the meantime, we are called to be watchful and never complacent.  Jesus said to “keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”  (Matthew 24:42). 

 Life on this earth can be sorrowful and challenging.  Our efforts to bring a sense of the kingdom of God on earth are always destined to fail because everything is marred with sin.  The poem “At a Solemn Musick” by Delmore Schwartz speaks of this time of waiting between Jesus first and second coming, when things are not as they should be.  We wait but with the hope of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, which the song “Lest Ye Sorrow” expresses so beautifully in music.  “The Trumpet Shall Sound,” by J. Kirk Richards is a visual depiction of this hope.  Swirling, billowing clouds surround believers rising from darkness to light into the Heavens.  The archangel Gabriel sounding his trumpet is above them.  His presence is inspiring but points to a greater one, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose presence is suggested by the increasing light toward the upper part of the painting.  The promise of Christ’s return and our resurrection should inspire us to not lose hope in a world that often seems filled with evil and decay and suffering.  One day it will all end, and we will enter “glory far beyond all comparison.”  (II Corinthians 4:17).

Prayer
Lord, help us to live in light of eternity.  Help us to avoid getting unduly weighed down by the trials and travails of this life but to remember that you can return at any time.  Let us not grow weary of waiting on the Lord and despair.  Likewise, let us not become complacent and lose sight of the fact that we are pilgrims on this earth, merely here for a short time to serve Christ.  This is not our home.  In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

Dr. Alicia M. Dewey
Professor of History
Biola University

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