Psalm 90:15-17 Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us and the years in which we suffered adversity. Show your servants your works and your splendor to their children. May the graciousness of our God be upon us; prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork.

Introduction

Have you gone from pitch dark to bright light? I’m guessing most of us have experienced such a thing. So, you know the pain of that experience. It’s just as painful as having very, very warm comforters yanked off your very, very toasty body in the middle of a winter’s night when the bedroom is real, real chilly. Going from one extreme (darkness, warmth) to another (brightness, cold), hurts, it’s uncomfortable, it’s also startling and fear inducing, soliciting one toward anger (especially at the person who dared to yank your warm blankets off suddenly).

So, I have some bad news: the encounter with God in the event of faith is kind of (read: exactly) going from pitch dark to bright light, or from very warm and comfortable to not so warm and very uncomfortable. You see, the gospel is God’s word of love made known to you in the pitch dark or deep in the recesses of your comforter-cocoon. It flips the light on and lets it shine into unaccustomed eyes; it yanks back the covers and summons the sleeping awake. There’s no dimmer switch on the gospel; there’s no gentle nudge to waken. When it comes to an encounter with God in the proclamation of God’s love for you made known in Christ, it’s a death—not a little bit dead but a full on and total death.

But, get this, I have some good news: where there is illuminating and awakening there is God, so there is love, there is life, and there is liberation. So, if God’s word made manifest in Christ is the word illuminating and summoning those who hear out of darkness and from under cocoons of comfortable, then those who hear are illuminated and summoned by God into God; accepted not rejected and have God’s divine love, life, and liberation to love, live, and liberate in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

For you yourselves perceive, siblings, that our entrance to you has not come by being empty but suffering previously and being insulted—as you beheld in Philippi—we spoke boldly by our God to say to you the good news of God in many struggles. For our comfort [is] not out of deceit and not out of impurity and not in guile, but just as we have been put to the test by God to be trusted [with] the good news, in this way we speak not by means of pleasing human beings but for God the one who puts our hearts to the test.[1]

1 Thess. 2:1-4

Traditionally associated with being authored by Paul, this epistle is written to small churches in Thessalonica—think northern Greece, formerly known as Macedonia. While there’s debate about the authorship of all the letters including this one and its twin, this is not the place for that discussion (and I am not the scholar you are looking for). For now, we’ll just look at the message because it’s a good one; it’s an important one.

Paul—I’m going with tradition here for ease and flow—writes to the Thessalonians a letter of exhortation and encouragement, and some reporting. The letter is filled with references to what has been going on, threaded through with reminders to remain committed to God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to continue in the faith, to love one another deeply, and to wait expectantly for the return of Christ. The letter is basically a bold reminder to love as they have been loved. Meandering through the letter, though, are references to the difficulty Paul and his cohorts experience while proclaiming the good news in other territories. (Here, Paul specifically references Philippi.)

This difficulty is worth pointing out, for Paul, while discussing their presence with the Thessalonians. Why? Because even though the Gospel is good news, it isn’t always comfortable. It can be quite comforting to have good news, however this good news—the gospel, the Word of God, Jesus the Christ—isn’t always comfortable because a lot of the work of the gospel is about bringing the one who hears to its—the gospel’s—conclusion. The gospel’s conclusion is nearly (most likely 99.9999% of the time) in opposition to the way the world and the kingdom of humanity operates. In other words, the gospel is offensive especially to those who have grown quite comfortable cloaked in the bliss of the darkness of and snuggled deep within the cocoon of the status quo.

Paul writes further,

For not at any time did we come by words of fawning, just as you have perceived, and not by a pretense of avarice, God witnesses, and not by seeking glory from humanity or from you or from others (having weighty power being as apostles of Christ). But we came vulnerable into the midst of you, like a nurse cherishing her own children. In this way being caused to long for you we were well-pleased to give a share to you not only the good news of God but also of our own souls, because you became our beloved.

1 Thess. 2:5-8

As Paul moves through this portion, he articulates well that he and his group did not come in glory and power to please humans, but came vulnerably into the divine beloved’s midst because of their deep, abiding love for the Thessalonians. Paul proclaimed the gospel because he loves the Thessalonians and in proclaiming this good news, Paul shared not only the gospel but also of his own soul. And here in is the paradox of the gospel in that it illuminates and awakens the one who hears—which is hard to endure—it does so by also anchoring the one who hears in the yoke of love with the lover. The beloved is illuminated and awakened into acceptance and not rejection.

Conclusion

I know that there are very hard moments in the journey with God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. It can feel painful to be suddenly thrust from the security of darkness into the blinding and piercing light; it can be scary to be yanked out of our warm cocoon of comfortability. Yet, when God is in the mix, when Christ is the one turning on the lights and pulling back the covers, you are being ushered into something even better: into the love of God bringing new life by the liberating word of love.

It’s not easy to be faced with the truth of the situation, but you do not face that situation alone, as if it all is now on you to figure out. God is with you for God called you into the light and summoned you out of sleep and into divine love to live a present tense, liberated existence in the world. So summoned and called, you—those who hear—are no longer held captive by narratives bringing death and not life, but you are liberated to call a thing what it is and to move forward and into hard situations without recourse to ignorance or denial, to turning those lights back off or pulling the comforter back over your head.

You are the Beloved; no matter what you are facing right now, you do not face it alone for God is with you, always and forever. You have hope, you have possibility, you have love, you have life, and you have liberation from captivity. And never forget, most of all you have each other and thus you have God in your midst.

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[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted