1 Thessalonians 5:8-11 - But you, brothers and
sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a
thief. You are all children of the light
and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are
asleep, but let us be awake and sober.
For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk
at night. But since we belong to the
day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope
of salvation as a helmet. For God did
not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ. He died for us so that, whether
we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build
each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Some of you might be familiar with
Paul’s description of the “Armor of God” in Ephesians. If you were, you would notice that the
version found here is not the same. This
is the value of reflecting on these letters in chronological order. Here in the first letter to Thessalonica, we
see the origin of a metaphor that Paul will develop further and, ten years
after this letter was written, we will see that the armor is more than just
faith, hope, and love. When we reflect
on Ephesians we’ll talk about the full armor of God. But as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13 (a
letter that falls chronologically between Thessalonians and Ephesians) faith, hope, and love are all that remain, so
let’s stay with those for now.
Paul asks to “build each other up”
in these three core virtues. We are to
that instead of belonging to the darkness.
The trouble is, it’s really easy to be drawn into the darkness – the
darkness “The hope and love when it
seems the whole world, as the saying goes, is going to hell in a
handbasket. That kind of resolve is not
unlike a reluctant soldier strapping on armor for a battle she’d rather not
fight but she does it anyway because she knows it’s a battle that has to be
fought. Holding each other up in faith,
hope, and love in a time of social media rancor, endless death, and multiplying
hardships is precisely that kind of struggle.
But Paul is teaching us that that is who we are – we are children of
light and not darkness, eternal life and not death, faith and not skepticism,
hope and not despair, love and not hate or fear.
A few years ago, at our current
president’s inauguration, a young lady, at least for me, stole the show with
her incredible poetic talent and even more impressive poise when she read her
poem, “The Hill We Climb.” It was for me
a beautiful expression of what I was talking about above. . .hope in the midst
of despair, brave living in the midst of a lot of death, and faith instead of
skepticism. I substitute that reading of
Amanda Gorman’s poem for our song today.
Prayer: God, arm us
with all we need to be children of light in the darkness around us. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for God to instill faith, hope, and love in your family in the midst of this
2023 Holy Week.
Link: Amanda Gorman – The Hill We Climb
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