Peace & Safety! - 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Please read and meditate on 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 for a bit before reading this devotional.

I park cars for a hotel’s guests. In addition to people who are staying at the hotel, many people come to eat at a famous restaurant on the first floor. Last week, a man eating at the restaurant rode his bike to the hotel and locked it up about a block away. Roughly two feet long with a link more than twice as thick as a man’s finger, the padlock that secured the bike made it appear that it was safe.

Just after nightfall, the man finished his dinner and went to retrieve his bike. However, the padlock did not protect the bike. The perpetrator came like a thief in the night—though the bike was probably stolen in broad daylight. The padlock cried “Peace and Safety”, but alas destruction came anyways.

Like the bicycle-reader, many people gather defenses all about them in order to feel safe: Padlocks, fences, high-tech security features for their house and car, and the list is endless. Yet, things are still stolen. The violence of our world walks right through our fortifications. They will also be surprised when God ends the world. While everything they accumulated on earth cries “Peace and safety! There is no harm that will befall you,” sudden destruction will come.

This is what Paul was telling the Thessalonians. Only he reminds them that they are “sons of light and sons of day”, capable of being fully aware that the world will end, or at least be catastrophically changed when Jesus comes to earth for the second time. This event is often referred to as “The Day of the Lord” in Scripture, as it is in our passage. Notice Paul doesn’t tell them that they will know when, only that they know that it’s coming.

We as Christians, like Paul’s Thessalonian audience, do not need to be afraid of Jesus’ second coming. Instead, “having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation,” (1st Thess 5:8) we can trust in God’s immense grace and love to save us, by-way of Jesus’ death on the cross. As reflected by their frantic accumulation of defenses, the world is profoundly terrified by death. Yet Paul says that Christians shouldn’t be. Hope in the salvation of Jesus is like a helmet should guard our minds from such fears and anxieties.

“God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that…we will live together with Him” (1 Thess 5:9-10). Both now, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and after Jesus’ second coming, we are together with Him because of His saving blood.

We Christians should a live a life proclaiming this peace and togetherness with Jesus Christ. Empowered by the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ redemption, it should be evident to the world that we are not afraid of the end. A great deal of sin is the result of fears associated with fear. Such sin should not mark the church. If it doesn’t, the world will notice.