When Jesus returns to earth, He will not be alone. During His earthly ministry, He explained to His disciples that He would return in glory, “and all the holy angels with him” (Matthew 25:31).
In his first epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul explains that believers—both living and deceased—will be part of this event:
The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
This matches a description in a revelation received by Joseph Smith in 1832:
The saints that are upon the earth, who are alive, shall be quickened and be caught up to meet him.
And they who have slept in their graves shall come forth, for their graves shall be opened; and they also shall be caught up to meet him in the midst of the pillar of heaven—
They are Christ’s, the first fruits, they who shall descend with him first, and they who are on the earth and in their graves, who are first caught up to meet him; and all this by the voice of the sounding of the trump of the angel of God.
Doctrine and Covenants 88:96-98
What will this be like? Will our bodies literally rise in the air, or will our experience mirror the experience of the apostle Paul when he was “caught up to the third heaven…(whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell)?” (2 Corinthians 12:2-3). Or the experience of the three disciples on the American continent, who “were caught up into heaven, and saw and heard unspeakable things…. And whether they were in the body or out of the body, they could not tell; for it did seem unto them like a transfiguration of them, that they were changed from this body of flesh into an immortal state, that they could behold the things of God” (3 Nephi 28:13, 15).
Regardless of the exact nature of this experience, it is clear that we will be overjoyed to see our Savior. Elder Neil L. Andersen declared:
Nothing lifts my desire to speak of Christ more than visualizing His return. While we do not know when He will come, the events of His return will be breathtaking! He will come in the clouds of heaven in majesty and glory with all His holy angels. Not just a few angels but all His holy angels. These are not the cherry-cheeked cherubim painted by Raphael, found on our Valentine cards. These are the angels of the centuries, the angels sent to shut the mouths of lions, to open prison doors, to announce His long-awaited birth, to comfort Him in Gethsemane, to assure His disciples at His Ascension, and to open the glorious Restoration of the gospel.
Can you imagine being caught up to meet Him, whether on this side or the other side of the veil? That is His promise to the righteous. This amazing experience will mark our souls forever.
“We Talk of Christ,” General Conference, October 2020, italics in original
Today, I will find joy in the assurance of a future reunion with Jesus Christ. I will visualize the experience of being “caught up to meet Him,” in the company of angels and of other believers, on both sides of the veil.