Grief can hit especially hard during the holiday season: all those memories of loved ones crowd in as we celebrate traditions of which they were once an integral part. Worse yet, as we focus so much on giving and receiving gifts, it’s easy to slide into a belief that the things of this world are all that really matters.

Of course, the central meaning of Christmas should undercut both our grief and our worldliness. For when God came into our world as Bethlehem’s Babe, He proved that there is more to this life than the material possessions that we can touch and see. As He denied Himself, embracing our pain and poverty so that we might be saved from our brokenness and sin, He showed us the value of eternal things even as He demonstrated to us the meaning of true love.

But today’s passage provides an even greater perspective. For one day, all our griefs will disappear. Yes, all our goodbyes will become hellos when all those who trust in Christ are raised from the dead. But verse 17 reminds us that we won’t just be with our loved ones forever. For we’ll also be with the Lord, living in His presence in a much fuller, more immediate, undeniable way. And it is the blessing of being with Christ Himself that will fully and finally displace all our worldly desires.

And as Paul points out in verse 18, we can draw encouragement from this future reality even today. For even as we grieve the loss of our loved ones, we can have hope that we will see them again. And we can even now begin to turn our hearts away from the passing shadows of this world, setting our hearts instead on Christ, Who is and always will be our greatest blessing.

So, let us hold on not just to the precious memories of our loved ones, but also to the hope of the resurrection. And let us look forward to the day when we will see Jesus face to face, and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 7:17)

I Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NASB)

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.