Everything will be okay.

I wonder just who Paul was writing to in this morning’s letter.

I understand he is writing to this group of people in Thessalonia, a congregation formed by Paul and his fellow travelers, but I also wonder if he understood the timelessness of the words he put to parchment.

Selfishly, I wonder if he was writing to me.

And to you.

Because he is obviously writing to someone and for that matter, someone or somebodies who is or are concerned about.

Something.

And that something, this morning, is death.

The folks in Thessaly, a region of northern Greece, south of Macedonia, were worried about death and whether their relatives would be okay.

This is a hard question.

It is a hard question to ask and a hard question to wonder about.

Because, frankly, it is a question I think about a lot.

And further, it is a question that brought me back to the church, in some sense at least.

He was seventy-seven years old when he died on New Year’s Eve, 2004.

My grandfather died on New Year’s Eve.

Around that time, I had already begun thinking about faith again.

My own faith especially, but began wondering about those big questions once more.

The big questions that never seem answerable; the unanswered prayers, the role of God in the cosmos.

And death.

What happens when we face the eternal, when our loved ones die, when love and trifles and laughter; the familiar touch, the strong grip in mine, when all of that passes into death.

Those questions.

For certainly, we know what happens to us; we know our grief, our tiredness, our sadness that can bubble into anger.

But what happens to them, to those we love who have died?

What happens when we face the end of love and realize that love still continues regardless, still beats, still causes us to wonder?

From that wondering, from those big questions, came one desire.

I wanted him to be okay.

I wanted my Grandfather who laughed with us, his grandchildren, and who groused at us as we did silly out-of-line things that children sometimes do, and who most of all loved us always, to be okay.

And for two thousand years I do think a lot of us, Christians hopeful for Christ’s return have been looking for similar things.

Are those relatives who have gone before me, okay?

Are those friends who we remember fondly, okay?

Will we ever know?

Will we ever stop wondering?

And Paul, in his certain pastoral way, writes “God will bring with him those who have died.”

Because the Thessalonians are very worried about this.

And the message that Paul and his cohort are bringing to them is rather new and reassurance is needed, because these folks in Thessalonia and the region around there grew up with other ideas, other ways of thinking about what happened after death.

They were of Greek origin and so they thought as many Greeks did at the time, that death was a different state of being that existed in Hades.

That consciousness changed following death and they would live out their eternities in a half world, unknowing of the glory promised through Christ.

Yet, now things were different.

The promises that Paul preached about foretold no longer an unshifting gray afterlife in the unending underworld but the glory of God’s kingdom arriving here on earth.

And in that preaching was a promise.

That they would be okay.

The Thessalonians wanted to be assured, we want to be assured, our forebears will hunger no more and thirst no more and they will not be burned by the sun nor made cold in whichever place they now exist; that every tear shall be washed from their face for they have lived their ordeals; they have lived their lives.

They wanted what is promised in the reading from Revelation we all heard last week as do we now, this morning, in the present day.

We too want to know that they will be guided to the springs of the water of life.

That is the importance of Paul saying that God will bring with God all those who have died.

That those who died before Christ’s own death and resurrection and those who died in that interim period between when Christ rose up into the heavens and when Paul was writing to the Thessalonians, would be brought with God upon the return of God’s kingdom here on earth.

Worry not, Thessalonians, your ancestors will be okay.

Worry not, says Paul, for those who are alive will not be the first to experience the kingdom but those who have already died will precede all of us to that glory.

And so, without worry, we are to wait.

Wait for the kingdom.

Wait for the kingdom, yes, but also prepare for the kingdom.

And we cannot do that alone.

We cannot prepare for that arrival without community, without each other.

Notice in this morning’s parable, the bridesmaids all had lamps, only some were wise yet still they all had lamps.

They all had the means to enter into the banquet after the groom was to arrive.

Notice too that they all slept; only some slept with the clear-headedness of those who were prepared for the arrival of the groom and onset of the banquet.

Yet they all slept.

This was not an example of a night watch, where everyone is supposed to maintain a vigil without ceasing, without rest, without sleep.

They all slept.

Even when it came time for them to wake and depart for the banquet, even when those who had not prepared for the groom’s arrival asked for more oil, those who had prepared still offered up advice even though they could not offer oil.

They offered up community to the others.

Go to the dealers, the ones with full lamps said, they can help.

We cannot but perhaps there is still time for you to gain entrance into the banquet.

There was no mockery, no one suggested the ones who did not prepare were lazy or careless.

Do these things, the prepared said, and perhaps you too will have time to enter the banquet.

Keep awake, yes, says the parable, AND be prepared for the arrival just as much.

The sleeping is not so much an issue as the preparation is.

Be ready, for we do not know the hour.

Be ready, for the arrival of those we love who God has joined together will happen in due course.

The ones we miss.

The ones we mourn.

Be ready for the reunion with them and the banquet that is to come.

How important this parable must have been to those Thessalonians to whom Paul was writing.

How important it can be to us who are listening this morning.

Wait.

Be prepared.

Everything will be okay.

There are questions we cannot necessarily answer on our own and that is when we rely on community.

On each other.

It is in these times of opacity, when we are covered by a gauze of sadness or even doubt, when it is most important that we rely on that community.

For it is in that community and from that community we are reminded to prepare, prepare for the banquet, prepare for the arrival of all that we most love in this world, prepare for a kingdom born of peace and concord and holiness.

That is how we prepare for the groom’s eventual arrival.

That is how we shall prepare for the kingdom of God.

We cannot judge those who might be unprepared, but we can love them.

We cannot browbeat and condemn those who might burn their oil or neglect to fill their lamps, but we can love them.

For though in this parable, some seemed to be excluded, I cannot imagine those denied the banquet at first would be denied the kingdom forever.

Because now, now we are with Christ.

We are forever in the presence of Christ amongst us and especially at that table.

That is our hope.

That is our faith.

That is the promise of the things our faith makes real, the tangible, inescapable truth that somehow and always, Christ is with us urging us to prepare.

To trim our lamps.

To carry with us those into the kingdom who will come just as God will carry those who have died before us into that same kingdom.

That is our preparation, a community of all for all and by all, a community unseparated and bound by love.

And it is through that community that we will see that everyone will be okay.

Amen.