You are born, you live, you die, and that’s it: that is the default understanding of reality, and it seems to be supported by ample evidence. If there is nothing after death — no hope of something more — then grief is an understandable response. Scripture indicates a different reality: not only is death not the end, whoever believes in Jesus “will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in [him] will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Paul was not telling them they could not grieve, but they should not “grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope”; their grieving should carry the understanding that they have hope in a full, eternal life. In fact, that understanding should be present as we live; as Paul notes in Philippians 1:21,23, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” Paul carried both a longing for the eternal and responsibility in the present, and lived in that tension.

Why were the Thessalonians grieving death? They were undergoing intense persecution. Paul’s letter was read by believers who had lost loved ones in sudden, unjust ways. It could be enough to make them recant, but they did not; they resolved to hold to hope. They lived and died convinced that this hope would not put them to shame. How can we resolve to hold to hope as boldly, especially without such persecution in the way?