Your Sunday Chapel with Mike Milton
The Second Coming as Comfort for the Bereaved
Welcome to Your Sunday Chapel. Some people avoid the ultimate subject of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
I have learned in over three decades of pastoral ministry that the reasons for such avoidance range from the rational (“I am afraid,” to which I have sometimes replied, “And you should be.”) to the irrational (There is so much bad theology surrounding the matter, I prefer just to stay away from the topic altogether,” to which I recall saying, “Don’t keep a distance from the One who loves you because of the presence of one who doesn’t.). Suppose you feel you reside in one of those places or somewhere in between. In that case, I invite you to read this Scripture and hear how the Second Coming of Jesus Christ relates to the longings you might feel, the sadness that sometimes comes in our lives, and even to some of the great existential questions of life. The Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is given to us for hope. True, the Second Coming is taught to work holiness in believers, bringing justifiable fear to those who oppose Him and His kingdom. If you are among the latter, then repent of your unbelief. Trust in Him as the resurrected, reigning, and returning Lord of all. If you are among the former, we pray that today’s reading and preaching of God’s Word will comfort you.
We proclaim the truth of Christ in the world: Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Therefore, encourage one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:18
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,[a] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.