Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in
death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with
Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you
that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not
precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from
heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet
call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and
are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these
words.
(1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
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Not very long ago, two historians named Charles Philips and Alan Axelrod finished off years of research by publishing a massive book called “The Encyclopedia Of Warfare.” I haven't bought the book – yet – but I've read some reviews of it. The research sounds as if it was painstaking and detailed. Philips and Axelrod studied almost two thousand wars that have been fought in recorded human history. Now, that's a lot of wars. Two thousand! Especially when you consider that recorded human history goes back maybe six thousand years and that many of the wars fought were multi-year conflicts. So, what you've probably heard at some point in your life is probably true – there is almost always a war going on somewhere all the time. That's a sobering thought. It should be especially sobering for Christians who claim to follow a Lord who is known as the Prince of Peace and whose ethical teachings revolved primarily around love. I suppose that if there's good news that we as people of faith can take from Philips' and Axelrod's work it's that they also challenge one of the widely accepted myths of our society – which is that religion is at the root of most wars. In fact, their research established that less than 7% of the wars fought in human history have been religiously motivated. The myth probably arose because nations have a tendency to use religious language and to usurp religious symbols in order to justify their wars and call their people to arms, but religion itself isn't the cause of very many wars. Wars are fought over much more “earthy” matters like power and territory and resources. Many nations over the span of human history seem to have operated on the basis of “you have what I want, and I believe I have the right to take it – so I will.” That's what causes war. So, for me, their research includes a glimmer of something positive, but still – almost two thousand wars in about six thousand years of human history. I think of a line from one of our familiar Christmas carols (“and warring humankind hears not the love song which he brings”) and I find myself suspecting that God weeps more than we can possibly imagine. And I wonder – with this sad historical record, is there hope? Hope for peace? Or at least hope for something better?
Then I read Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians: we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope.” I admit this morning that I'm doing something that often irritates me: I'm taking this verse totally out of its immediate context. Can I justify doing that by saying that the Holy Spirit led me to do it? In the context of the wider passage, it's clear that Paul is trying to address a word of hope to Christians who are starting to see their brothers and sisters pass away without Jesus having returned. They're grieving death, and they're losing hope. And Paul reminds them that while grieving is natural, hopelessness cannot be indulged in for those who truly believe in Jesus. Can there be any greater source of hope, after all, than to believe in and follow a Lord who died and was resurrected? If we believe that then how can we possibly fall into hopelessness? And regardless of the immediate context, I think it's all right to think of a broader principle involved here. That principle is that hopelessness can never be allowed to triumph; we can never give up hope. We always have to live with a belief that something better is not only possible but that something better is coming. Our faith demands it. Our faith should bring that hope forth from us. And let's think about grief. Paul is certainly talking about the grief we feel when people we know and love die. That saddens us. Maybe because it hurts us to be without them; maybe because we know that it hurts others who shared that person's life and love. Just a few days ago, I learned that a former parishioner from Newfoundland whose family Lynn and I were very close to for three years had died. I felt grief. I hadn't seen Percy in almost 20 years, but I know how much pain his death must have caused his family – and for three years they were our family in a very real and meaningful way. So I grieved. I grieved for Percy and I grieved for those who were dealing with grief far more powerful than I was feeling. But we feel grief for different reasons as well. How can we look at the world today and not feel a sense of grief?
For the last few days, every time I watch the news I see that a regular note on the scroll at the bottom of the screen tells us that CF-18 fighters flew another combat mission – now against ISIS in Iraq. Once again, war hits home. It's reality. Its ugliness. Real people are risking their lives. Real people are dying. I don't propose to say whether it's right or wrong for us to be taking part in this newest outbreak of war. In our discussion group this past Tuesday, we talked about this in the light of two seemingly contradictory commandments from Jesus: love your neighbour (or love others) and love your enemy. ISIS is a nasty group. They do terrible things. They kill innocent people for no reason other than disagreeing with them. You can argue that if ISIS is our “enemy” then the people they're killing are our “neighbours.” How do we love them both? Can we love them both? Or does trying to protect our neighbour by trying to put an end to this group mean that loving our neighbour trumps loving our enemy? It's complicated. I don't have an answer to that. As followers of Jesus, we do the best we can to live in love, and sometimes we have to make tough choices, and sometimes those choices will be right and sometimes those choices will be wrong. I trust in God's grace. I trust that if our hearts are in the right place, God will honour that even if we make the wrong choice. But, still, we should grieve the fact that this is happening. And while our attention is on the Middle East and the battle against ISIS, it's not even counted as a “major war” by the United Nations. The United Nations defines a “major war” as one in which there are at least one thousand battlefield deaths per year. The most recent numbers tell us that there are currently, by this definition, eight “major wars” going on right now, and up to two dozen “lesser wars” being fought. And 75% of those who die in war in the modern world aren't soldiers who die on the battlefield, they're are civilians who get caught in the middle. It's sobering. It should fill us with grief.
But - we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope.” The reality of the world around us fills us with grief. The reality of how far the world is from what we know God would like it to be fills us with grief. If it doesn't, then there's something wrong with our faith. Even if we sometimes think that a particular war is necessary, or that we have no choice but to fight a particular war, the days of World War I, when people joined together to celebrate their nation's declaration of war on another nation are long gone. Today, we should only grieve when such things happen. And we should pray. We should pray because we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope.”
Our hope is in God. Our hope is in a God who is love. Our hope is in a God who sent Jesus to be the “Prince of Peace.” Our hope is in a God who gives his people visions like the one shared with us by the Prophet Isaiah: “Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” That's a vision of a world at peace. That's a promise from God.
The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who was no friend of religion but who did rather admire Jesus Christ, wrote that “perpetual peace is no empty idea, but a practical thing which, through its gradual solution, is coming always nearer its final realization...” I believe that, as aware as we are of war and violence in the world around us, that's true. I believe it's true because I believe in God, and I believe that God wants his children to live in peace. I believe it's true because I believe in Jesus, and I believe that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
So, I grieve. I grieve for those who have given their lives in times of war, and who have left behind broken-hearted loved ones and a country that remains strong and free for me to live in. I grieve for those who are called to fight wars today, because of the effect it must have on them. I grieve for those who are the civilian victims of war, who usually have no choice in the matter but who suffer greatly. I grieve for the world's loss of innocence. I grieve because violence and warfare have become such an everyday thing that we sometimes take them for granted. I grieve for all those reasons. But I do not grieve as do those who have no hope – because I believe in Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who died and who rose to life again. And I have hope because our Lord, who could overcome death, can surely overcome the human tragedy of war and create that world where “Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” May that vision become a reality.
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