Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 13th 2011
A printable PDF file is available here
Our closing hymn this morning is to be one written by hymn writer Fanny Crosby. “Blessed Assurance”. It focuses on the themes of God’s salvation and the response that as Christians we should make to God’s Grace. Those themes complement our reading from 1 Thessalonians 5, a passage that gives Paul’s closing remarks of encouragement to the Thessalonican church.
The hymn’s first verse reads;
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,
O what a foretaste of Glory Divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood”
O what a foretaste of Glory Divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood”
Our scripture passage began with Paul talking of “Glory Divine” or rather “The Day of The Lord”. Whilst Paul insists that such a day would one day be here, he mixes illustrations in such a way as to leave us guessing as to when such a time could be. On the one hand it would come like a thief in the night. On the other hand it would also be like the onset of labor pains to a pregnant woman.
Thieves in the night can come at any time. However - your likelihood of being the victim of a thief in the night - depends a lot on where you live and how well prepared you are. For instance, if it’s the middle of winter and you live in a one-horse town somewhere in North Dakota, the chances of a thief arriving are minimal. If however you are in an inner city ghetto known for it’s high crime rate, then the chances are you will have locks, chains and security devices set to warn you of the event.
The image of a pregnant woman is equally ambiguous. Usually pregnant women have a due date when they expect their labor pains to begin. By the time that due date comes around it is fairly obvious by the bulge in mothers womb that the child will be arriving any day now. Labor pains may begin at any moment during that time of being very pregnant. You can hardly say the event is entirely unexpected. The signs are all there that something is going to happen!
Paul’s concern is not to give the Thessalonians a suggested date for the second coming but rather to ensure them that there will come a ‘Day of the Lord’ when all things will be well. As to dates and times, they really didn’t need that information any more than we do. What we need to know is that God is in control and that one-day, be it today or a billion years from now, God has the final word. Such is one of the “Blessed Assurances” Paul offers to us.
It was an assurance that the Thessalonican church needed to hear because they were a persecuted people. Paul and Silas had to escape from the city under cover of darkness. Some, like Jason, a leader of that earliest church, had been bought before the courts under the charge of harboring enemies of the state.
So Paul writes to encourage them, “On the last day, those who stand against you now will stand no longer. Hold onto the faith that you have, because, although it doesn’t look that way right now, ultimately the victory will be yours.” In a similar way Fanny Crosby’s hymn uses phrases such as “Visions of rapture”, Angels descending” and “Watching and Waiting and looking above” to interpret the faith that was her story and her song.
Paul then moves on to consider how the coming of this event in the future should influence the lives we live from day to day. The primary image that he employs is to identify the people of God as being “children of light and children of the day” (v5). To reinforce that picture he uses opposing images and speaks of people who were “of the night and of the darkness”.
Thessalonica, one assumes, was, like many larger cities today, the sort of place where some would spend their nighttime hours in what one older commentary describes as ‘the over-indulgence of carnal pursuits’. Paul speaks of how ‘those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night” (v7). So he exhorts the Thessalonians, “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober” (v6).
Paul suggests that we know the difference between living a life that is out of control, self-indulgent and destructive and a life that is self-controlled, compassionate and productive.That first way he compares to a drunken sleep.
The second way, the better way, is to live a life enlightened to the dangers that are out there and being ready to defend yourself against them. It is an encouragement to know that on the last day, “The Day of the Lord” all will be well, but that doesn’t mean life can just drift along without there being any problems or struggles.
Even if you are a soldier on the winning side you are not going to last long if you go out and fight the enemy without wearing any armor. The Thessalonians had a battle to fight. A battle for survival. Paul tells them to equip themselves with two defensive items “to put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”
The source for these items was in Jesus Christ, through the work He had accomplished on the Cross and through His resurrection presence; known to them through the Holy Spirit.
Because Jesus had died for them, they had hope. Because Christ was raised from the dead, they could live every day with the assurance of God’s presence. Because God had a purpose and plan for their lives, a plan that they should enjoy God’s salvation, then the way they lived their life should reflect the faith that held them sure. No part of their existence—present, future, or eternal—was seen as untouched by the saving work of Christ.
The outcome of their “Blessed Assurance” was a security that set them free to live their lives for others. They did not simply "rest assured"; they "acted assuredly" by providing others with the kind of encouragement that blessed their lives.
Fanny Crosby’s hymn speaks of being an “Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood”. She had the assurance that Christ had died for her and that she was destined therefore to live a life of purpose that would culminate in the blessings of a glorious eternity in Christ’s nearer presence. Let me tell you a little more about the lady who wrote those words.
Fanny Crosby was born on March 24th, 1820, in a one-story cottage in South East, New York. Her father, John, died before her first birthday. At six weeks old, she caught a slight cold in her eyes. The family physician was away. Another country doctor was called in to treat her. He prescribed hot mustard poultices to be applied to her eyes, which destroyed her sight completely. It was later learned that the man was not qualified to practice medicine.
At five years old, her mother took her to consult the best eye specialist in the country. Neighbors and friends pooled money together in order to send her. The diagnosis? "Poor child, I am afraid you will never see again." Such experiences of loss and human mistakes had the possibility of making her attitude to life bitter and resentful. Remarkably she considered her loss of sight as a great blessing, one time explaining to her mother, “If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind... for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Savior.”
Moving to Ridgefield, Connecticut, she came under her Grandmothers influence and set about memorizing as much of the bible as she was able. At 15 she returned to New York to attend a school for the blind, where despite discouragement from her teachers, she developed her poetic skills.
At 23 the school, in which she was now a teacher, sought to receive financial support from Congress. Fanny decided to write a poem in celebration of the work of Congress. It worked, and not only did the school receive support, but she herself became a friend to many of the most influential people of the day, including many presidents.
Time does not permit to recount her whole life story. By the time of her death in her nineties she had witnessed over 8,000 of her poems set to music and over 100,000,000 copies of her songs printed. She became associated with the Bowery Mission in N.Y. where the piano she wrote many of her hymns is still located. Some suggest that she was the greatest hymn writer in the history of the Christian Church. Not bad for a visually handicapped girl from a single parent family in New York!
All of which brings us back to Paul’s message to the Thessalonians. They hadn’t had an easy start to their life as a church. They faced much that was discouraging. But they fixed their hope on Jesus Christ. Their ‘Blessed Assurance’ was that the love of God was greater than the forces that opposed them.
Of Fanny Crosby’s hymns, they knew not a thing. Yet I can’t help thinking that they would identify with the words of this third verse: -
“Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love”
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love”
So what of us and what of our lives?
What will be our story and our song?
May God’s Grace touch our lives in such a real way that we allow the love of Christ to encourage us and lead us through the many different circumstances that come our way, with the knowledge that one day… all will be well.
We may never have a life quite as productive as Fanny Crosby’s, or a church quite as famous as that of the Thessalonians, but under the touch of Jesus Christ our lives truly can be blessed with divine significance. The blessed assurance of God’s love is available to us all. It shouts to us from the Cross of Calvary and blazes forth from the empty tomb. May God help us to respond in fruitful ways to the many blessings Christ sends our way. May faithfulness become our story and commitment become our song. AMEN.
Rev Adrian Pratt
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