Normally my comments are about the day's Gospel, but today I wish to turn our attention to the Epistle (1 Thes. 4.13-18). In the West, it is often used while preaching about the last days, but in the East it is the Epistle for the Funeral Liturgy, a carryover from very ancient days in the Church. I myself used it as the reading at both my Mother and Father's funerals, to the surprise (and pleasure) of the minister officiating.
Yes, St. Paul here talks of what happens, "At the sounding of the trumpet / when the dead in Christ shall rise," but not so much to stir the hearts about that day to come but to comfort those who were grieving now. Back in the earliest days of the Church, Christ's coming, the consummation of the age, the Parousia, was expected at any moment. So for some, if a loved one died, there was that nagging feeling that they were going to miss out. Yet St. Paul assured them that was not the case. He made special pains to state that those who finished the course in pursuing a life of Grace were going to get first dibs. "Don't be sad," we can paraphrase, "the faithful departed get to see him first, they get their new bodies first, you'll see!"
I do get a bit hot under the collar when some Christians tell us not to grieve because the departed are/will be in Glory. St. Paul did not say we didn't grieve, he did not say not to grieve, but that we don't grieve as others. They grieve because to them it is over for their loved one, that's it, over and done, there is no hope of life to come. We grieve too, yes, but we are comforted by the hope of the Resurrection of the Dead, the Life of the Age to Come. We grieve because we won't see them for a while, because they have departed and we miss them, but we have the expectation that in Christ we shall see them again, that this isn't over for them, there is more to come, there will be life everlasting.
Until then, it's okay to cry, to miss them, to regret not having that last Christmas or sharing the next happy occasion. But we can also be joyful at the same time, knowing that God has not forgotten them and that at the end they shall be restored, just as everything is restored.
Thanks be to God.
