Sleeping, Then Waking Up Together

There was a little church in a town called Thessalonica, full of new believers who were brave about loving Jesus. And they were crying.

Because some of the people they loved had died.

Maybe a grandmother. Maybe a friend who sat beside them when they sang. One day that person was there, warm and laughing. And then they were gone. And the seat was empty. And it hurt in that deep-down place where no one can reach in and fix it.

That is a hurt many children know, the hurt of saying goodbye to someone who died.

The believers in Thessalonica knew it. And they were afraid of something too. They wondered: are those people lost now? Gone for always? Will we never, ever see them again?

So a man named Paul, who loved them, sat down and wrote them a letter. Imagine it arriving. Imagine them gathering close, leaning in, to hear the words.

"Dear friends," he wrote. "I don't want you to be sad the way people are sad when they have no hope at all."

Because they had a hope. A real one. The biggest one there is.

Jesus died. And then Jesus did not stay dead. He woke up. He walked out of the grave, alive, with the morning on his face. And so Paul told them something to hold onto in the dark:

The ones who love Jesus and have died are not gone forever. They are only sleeping.

Sleeping. Like a child tucked in at night, warm under the blanket, with morning coming.

And one day, Paul said, Jesus himself will come back. Down from heaven, with a shout, with a trumpet, with a gladness too big for the sky. And he will bring the sleeping ones with him. He will call their names. And they will wake.

Every one of them. He will not come home missing a single one.

And then those who are still living will rise up too, and all of us together, all of us at once, will go to meet him. And we will be with him. Always. Nobody saying goodbye anymore.

"So," Paul finished, "comfort each other with these words."

Comfort each other. The goodbye still hurts. The empty seat is still empty for now.

But for the ones who love Jesus, goodbye means see you in the morning.

Because the One who walked out of his own grave is coming back, and he is gathering his whole family, and he will wake every sleeping one with the sound of his voice. The waking began the morning Jesus rose, and it has not stopped since.

One morning he will say your name, and the names of everyone you have ever missed, and all of you will open your eyes at the sound of it.

And it will be worth every tear.