Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 (April 15, 2025)

April 15, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16

Good morning, dear friends in Christ. 

It sounds like this weekend, for the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ, will be wonderful temperatures, and at the very least here in the desert, an opportunity to come to our carry-in Easter breakfast from 8:30AM to 9:45AM, and then to join us for our Easter Festival Worship at 10AM.  I pray that you allow the Spirit to move you this Sunday to be with us.  In prayers today, please keep Liisa in your prayers for her travels to provide signing for the hearing impaired.  She has flown to Texas to be a stand in for her good friend and colleague Itai who is the victim of brain cancer which has metastasized into his ears.  He is losing his hearing.   Please pray for Liisa and Raul as they travel to Dallas to be with their son for Easter.  Godspeed for their safety.  Please pray for Kandice in Hawaii as she battles cancer, and for Jeff here in Tucson who is battling a very similar cancer, that they find hope and healing in their treatment and care and have the best possible quality of life in the weeks and months ahead.  Give thanks that both Shannon and Joshua in Colorado have found work after six months of unemployment and part time work.  Offer prayers that the JOY of EASTER will fill our hearts with the Love of God and grow our faith and certainness in Christ's gifts of life now and forever, forgiveness of sin, and Salvation.

In our reading from 1st Thessalonians today we encounter Paul's thankfulness for the faith and witness of the new Christians who have spread the Good News of Jesus Christ far and wide, so that others may come to know what they have found in God's Only Begotten Son, the compassion of Christ for all people, the gift of freedom from the burden of sin, and the steadfast promise of eternal life for all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior.  Doesn't it all sound wonderful?  Well, my friends, read on.  This wonderful faith in this foreign land was facing the very same reality as the Christians were facing in Judea.  Persecution!  The gentiles were, for the most part, comfortable with the pantheon of gods and the benevolent leader of Rome, so when this faith arose on the scene with gentiles listening to Paul, having a change of heart (metanoia), the persecution of this new community of believers in Jesus Christ began.  It has been the way for several thousand years now, and the people who have faith in Christ as their Savior find themselves called to stand against the lies and bullying of those who don't want that Truth revealed.  Usually when people are persecuted for some human message that they have clung to, many will separate from their faith, and act as if they had never really believed.  But Christians, filled with the Spirit gift did not, and do not today belie their faith and trust in the Christ of God!  In terms of the world, over the years since the recession back in 2008, our nation has been chugging along at a pretty good pace.  In spite of military interventions and the fairly new war in the Ukraine, our economy has rebounded nicely, though homes are out of reach for too many today, we beat a worldwide pandemic, and our recovery has gone very well, and during that time Christians have been pretty comfortable because no one has started to persecute us.  But just like the new Christians in Judea, and the new Christians in Thessalonians, and having seen the history of the church, we must now know that the persecution of we who believe in Christ as our Lord and Savior is in a tipping condition, and in all likelihood will bring persecution on those of us who believe that the ultimate authority in our lives must be Jesus Christ, and the justice of God through Christ, must always be our priority and our proclamation!!  We cannot, as the richest people of our nation are attempting to do, fail to care for the least, the last, and the lost.  They are in every part of our neighborhoods and communities and our nation, and they are also our sisters and brothers in Christ.  The Gospel charges us to intervene on their behalf, doing all that we can ourselves, and then encouraging the resources of our nation to pick up the rest.  The big question today for all of us who accept Christ as our Savior is whether or not we can be as bold as the people who stood in the face of persecution, the Christians of Judea, and the Christians of Thessalonica and beyond.  These early Christians lived under a dark cloud of suffering, and yet, carried their faith in Christ forward with courage.  All we need to do is to ask our forebears in the Church how it was in their lives.  We find their answers in their own word in the histories of church communities who dealt with racism, poverty, and social justice issues of their day.  It was the Word of God, the living Christ, who brought the power of faith and love as the answer to the brokenness of nations and their leaders.  That very same Word of God leads you and me too.  In the state of our nation today, we must be constant as we maintain the gift of faith and the TRUTH of GOD in the face of those who would bring harm upon us all.  The promise of Christ that we will be vindicated, no matter how beaten down we may become, is sure and certain.  I never ceased to be amazed at how the sin of people tries to stand in the way of the victory of Jesus Christ.  This Sunday, once again, you and I will proclaim to those who want the human way to win, that the victory is already won, because Christ Is Risen!  He Is Risen Indeed!

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim