Blessed Waiting

Do you like to wait? We definitely live in a culture that markets the value of not waiting for anything. I often think that “wait” is a four-letter word much like other four-letter words that people who follow Jesus try to avoid saying!

This past week I found myself waiting in a veterinarian office with one of our golden retrievers who goes by the name Jesse. She is nine years old and had some internal issues that she had surgery to correct a few years ago. The problem was that those internal issues came back! This wait was not an impatient wait but a sorrowful wait as we were preparing ourselves for the possibility that she would not be coming home. As I waited in that office, all the memories of the past nine years with Jesse came back and I started leaking from my eyes! Many times our “waits” are painful rather than pleasant, are they not?

As believers in Jesus, we do have a blessed wait! Paul encouraged Titus, his coworker in the faith to wait for the glorious appearing of the Lord. It is a blessed wait because our Lord’s promise to return is our “blessed hope!”

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-13-ESV).

The Apostle Paul describes this appearing in great detail in I Thessalonians 4:13-18. The believers in Thessalonica had found great hope (confident expectation) in the Lord through the gospel that Paul had preached in this idol worshipping town (I Thessalonians 1:3). Their expectation was that their Savior would return soon, but they were grieving because some of their community of faith had passed away. Some teachers had come to town saying that those who had died would miss out on the “blessed hope” of the Lord’s appearing. Some of the most comforting words of scripture are found in Paul’s encouragement:

But 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. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

There are four blessed hope promises in these verse that help us to embrace a blessed wait for our Lord’s return for His bride, the church:

• The Return of Christ to the Clouds: Our blessed waiting is a blessed hope because followers of Jesus have the Lord’s own promise (John 14:1-6) and the Apostle Paul’s greater detail that He is coming back for us someday. Maybe today. This return is to the clouds where He will gather both the living and the dead in Christ.

• The Resurrection of the Dead in Christ: When I witnessed my 17-year-old son breath his last earthly breath in 2012, I found new reason to have blessed waiting because our blessed hope is that those who die as followers of Jesus have the promise of resurrection. I have a metal wall decoration in my home that a dear friend gave us when our son passed. It says, “see you soon.” We grieve and miss but it is with the blessed hope of being together again.

• The Rapture of the Living in Christ: Paul reveals that those who are in Christ who are alive at His coming will be “caught up” to meet the Lord and resurrected believers. The Latin verb “rapturo” means to “catch up” from which the English word “rapture” is derived. The Bible does promise the rapture or catching up of believers in Jesus—what a blessed hope of not having to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. Even so, come Lord Jesus!

• The Reunion of the Church with Christ: What a joyful hope to know that loved ones who are in Christ will join with all believers around the world someday to enjoy the place that Jesus said he was going away to prepare for us in His Father’s house (John 14:1-3). There is coming a day when we will never have to say “goodbye” again, for we will be together forever with the Lord.

The blessed hope of our Savior’s return makes our waiting for it blessed as well. May you know that blessed hope as you place your faith in the One who loves you and gave His life for you!

Dr. David Ley is the President of Alaska Bible College and Pastor of Family Care, ChangePoint Mat-Su.