Sermon: Tuesday of Trinity 22 Vespers – 2022

St. John Lutheran Church – Mattoon, IL

15 Nov 2022

Text: 2 Thess 1:3-10

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

In this, St. Paul’s second epistle to the Christians at Thessalonica, we learn that they are suffering “persecutions” and “afflictions.”  And yet, the apostle commends them for their “steadfastness” and their “faith” through all of their ordeals.  Paul goes so far as to say that he and his associates “boast” about them, for their “faith is growing abundantly” and the “love of every one of [them] is increasing.”

Think about how extraordinary this is, dear friends.  For when things are going badly, that is when we often see man-made organizations crumble into disarray and blamecasting, finger-pointing and chaos, becoming divided, and thus becoming conquered.  But these Thessalonian Christians are actually doubling down defiantly in response to persecution: in their growing faith and in their increasing love for one another.

And so, in their case, their persecutions seem to be paradoxically strengthening them.  And we will see this miraculous response by the Bride of Christ often in her history, in which her enemies and detractors try to destroy her, but instead of withering away, she prospers, grows, and bears the fruits of faith and love.  And bearing these fruits, she multiplies.

St. Paul will soon reveal to the Corinthian Christians what outlasts our sufferings in this fallen world, what abides, what is transcendent, that which endures even unto eternity: “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three” (1 Cor 13:13). 

The suffering Christians at Thessalonica are growing in faith and increasing in love, but their hope is what needs shoring up.  For they have some problems with their eschatology.  They seem convinced that the Day of the Lord has already come.  And perhaps as a result, this has caused some in the church to become lazy.  St. Paul reveals to them that there is indeed much that is yet to happen before the Day of the Lord.  There will appear the “man of lawlessness,” the Antichrist, who will come, “proclaiming himself to be God.”  And though the Caesars make such claims, this particular Antichrist will come from within the church herself, not from the Pagan Empire.  Indeed, there is still more to come in the future, so St. Paul urges the little flock at Thessalonica  to “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught,” by the apostles, whether by “spoken word or by… letter.”

For though love is the greatest of these virtues, and though faith is the means by which we receive the grace of God, we also need hope, dear friends: hope to endure, hope for our salvation, hope for vindication in the midst of persecution, hope that we indeed “may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God,” especially in our suffering in this fallen, temporal world and in our sinful flesh.  And part of that eschatological hope includes the promise that God will “repay with affliction those who afflict [us].”  Indeed, vengeance is not ours, but the hope of our vindication by God is ours, dear friends. 

And so we, like the Thessalonians, have hope, for no matter how much we may be afflicted and persecuted, no matter how powerless we are to fight back, no matter what befalls us in this broken world – we know how this war ends: in victory for our Lord and vindication for His saints – victory won for us at the cross and the empty tomb: victory over sin, death, and the devil; victory over hell; victory over the grave: eternal victory.  And as St. Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica shortly before in his previous letter, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). 

Dear friends, indeed, we have a sure and certain hope, because of the ironclad promise of our Lord’s return, and “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”  The Day of the Lord has not already come, rather, it is coming!

So thanks to the promises of the Father revealed in Christ Jesus by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, given by the hand of St. Paul in the Holy Scriptures and in the preaching of the kingdom – we join with the Thessalonians, and with Christians of every time and place – in faith, in love, and in hope.

For these three do indeed abide, as our Lord Jesus Christ abides with us, now and even unto eternity.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.