grief – Dr. Kirk Lewis Books

Death, Grief and Hope

Focal Passage: Psalm 116:15

Of all the statistics Mr. Wallace shared with us in my sixth-grade social studies class back at Ropes Junior High—and Mr. Wallace loved his statistics—the only one I retained was that the life expectancy of an American male at the time was 72 years. For that 12-year-old back in the spring of 1966, 72 sounded old and seemed long enough.

I’m 72 and one-half years old today, living the last six months by those long remembered actuarial standards, on God’s borrowed time. Today, 72 feels young and those 60 extra years Mr. Wallace gave me decades ago feel woefully short of long enough.

Over the past several months, many of my family and friends have died. If it isn’t my personal loss, several of my family and friends have lost family and friends of their own. While most of those who passed away made it beyond that calculated number, a few were taken from this life far too soon.

The older we are the more we are confronted by death and the grief it brings. Grief, even for a Christian born again in the hope of Christ’s resurrection, is profoundly real.

British theologian C. S. Lewis married for the first and only time when he was in his mid-50s. Joy, his wife for only four short years, died of cancer. Shortly after her death, he wrote a book entitled A Grief Observed. He wrote, “No one ever told me grief felt so like fear.” Lewis said grief is forever tied to love. The deeper we love, the deeper the wound. He added, “Grief reveals how costly love is.”

I have reflected much over these past few months about the sadness I feel at times of death and the very real grief I know others are experiencing after losing ones they love. Grief is messy. It is not polite. It does not fit neatly into our theological narrative about “a better home awaiting.” Grief feels like shock, confusion and disorientation.

You can hear the anguish of the psalmist in Psalm 6:6…

I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.

There is no one among us who cannot relate to the writer’s sense of loss.

Death, according to one commentary I read, occurs under God’s loving care and timing.

I’ll be honest with you here. I’m good with God’s loving care. I struggle sometimes with his timing. I don’t know if God routinely decides when it’s our time to go, but if he does, we’re going to have to talk about that when I see him. I often don’t understand death’s timing.

My Grandma Mills died when I was 13. My memories of her are all sweetness, love and Thanksgiving turkey. She gave such great hugs. She took care of the nursery at her church for years, loving on those babies like they were her own.

A well-meaning woman who attended Grandma’s memorial service told me afterwards that God must have needed her to “take care of those babies in heaven’s nursery.” I didn’t know whether I was hurt more by her insensitivity to the moment or by the thought that God took my grandmother because he needed her in his nursery. I needed her more.

Does our all-knowing and loving God know the number of days we will live? Yes, I believe scripture teaches us so. I find it difficult, however, to believe that an all-knowing and loving God planned for my grandmother to be killed by a drunk driver.

God didn’t create death in the beginning and call it “good.” Death and grief entered his creation as a consequence of human rebellion. Death became our reality when Adam ate his apple. Paul tells us that sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. (Romans 5:12)

However, here’s the good news. Once sin entered the world, God maintained sovereignty and power over it. It is his power over death and grief that provides hope…not as wishful thinking…but hope as a blessed assurance of life in his presence for always and ever. God through Christ turns our present grief into future joy.

Even as he stared his own death in the face, Jesus, comforted and encouraged his disciples, acknowledging the certainty of what they would experience in the next few days.

I tell you the truth you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. (John 16:20)

I’ve spent the last eight weeks leading a Bible study at my church based on Jeremiah Johnston’s book A Body of Proof. While the book spent most of its pages outlining seven reasons to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the Bible study guide spent most of its time focused on why the resurrection matters today.

While preparing for our last session, I came across an underlined verse in my Bible in Psalm 116, indicating I once read and noted it for some reason. Perhaps the last time I read it, death was more abstract than it is today because it landed with greater force this time. Read what it says…

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants. (Psalm 116:15)

Putting it in its context, Psalm 116 is a personal testimony of deliverance and gratitude. The psalmist praises God for hearing his cries of distress and rescuing him from death itself. Verse 15 sits in the middle of that reflection of God’s care for the faithful, emphasizing his sovereign awareness and his covenant love even at the point of death.

This isn’t a detached theological statement, but a deeply personal assurance that God’s love extends into the reality of death whenever it comes.

I use the word precious sparingly in my everyday conversations. About the only time I utter it is in reference my granddaughters. They are precious…adorable…beloved. Obviously, that’s not how the word is used in this passage. Death is neither adorable nor beloved.

The Hebrew word for precious described in Psalm 116 means costly, weighty or rare in value. It seems to say that God does not take the death of his faithful ones lightly or trivially. God assigns great value to the death of His people—not because death itself is good, but because it matters deeply to Him and is tenderly regarded by him.

Jesus, God’s own son, wept at the death of Lazarus and the anguish and grief of Lazarus’ sisters despite knowing what was about to happen. His tears reveal how much God values human life and especially the lives of those who trust in him.

That’s why in one of his parables about a good and faithful servant Jesus calls us to Come and share your master’s happiness. (Matthew 25:21) It’s also why Paul tells Timothy that he has fought the good fight and there is ready for him a crown of righteousness that will be awarded by the Lord when he dies.

God regards as valuable the life of one who has served him until death. He regards as equally valuable the death of one who has served him through life.

There’s another interesting phrase the psalmist uses in this passage that I find heartwarming.

…in the sight of the Lord…

Jesus tells us God knows when the sparrow falls and he knows the number of hairs on our head. Surely, then, God is keenly aware when one of his children dies. Think about that. When the psalmist said, in the sight of the Lord, that means no believer dies unnoticed or alone. No passing is random or outside the care of God, even if it happens suddenly or unexpectedly.

God is not distant. In the sight of the Lord means he is attentive and present at the time of death. I find that both incredible and incredibly comforting. The death of any believer matters to our Creator God.

Going back to Psalms 116, God can deliver from death. When he doesn’t deliver, he holds us in his presence. Immediately. In the moment that passes between physical death there comes a new awareness. In that instant, we are with him.

That’s why I find joy in a statement Paul makes to the believers in Rome.

For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Romans 14:7-9)

It’s true. I’ve lived more years than that old social studies book predicted. Every day now is, as they say in Louisiana, “lagniappe”…a bonus, an unexpected gift, a little something extra. Each day is a gift of grace from God.

He has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (I Peter 1:3)

Like Peter, we can live in that hope. If you are a believer and have put your faith and trust in Jesus, your hope, your assurance, given its certainty in the resurrection of Christ.

That is why the resurrection of Jesus matters. Because of my faith in the resurrection, I know I will share in its promises of atonement, peace and hope for this present day.

Because of the resurrection power given to me by the spirit, I can continue to serve God for as long as he allows me to do so.

Because of resurrection hope, whenever I breathe my last breath, I know I will find myself immediately in the arms of the loving Lord who holds my life and death precious not just in that moment, but for all eternity.

It is a hope in which every believer can rest and rejoice.

Thinking Points

How does Psalm 116:15 reshape my understanding of how God regards the death of His people?

In what ways does the resurrection of Jesus give me hope not only for today’s grief, but for all eternity?

What would it look like to live each “lagniappe” day in resurrection hope? How would it change your approach to grace and purpose?

What Now?

I’m sitting here tonight with my arm in a sling following surgery to remove bone spurs and reattach a torn rotator cuff tendon. I share that with you not to garner sympathy, though sympathy helps, too.

I share it with you simply because the surgery limits my typing to a ponderous, one-fingered hunt and peck that tries my patience and stifles my creativity. The prospect of typing my regular Bible Study blog this week is one hunt and one peck too much.

My uncle, Les Lewis, is the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Slaton, TX. He writes two brief devotional thoughts each week to share with his congregation, family and friends.

Once on a snowy day in West Texas when I was in elementary school and Les was in high school, he carried me home on his back for more than a mile through a foot of snow (uphill both ways, I’m sure.) Les regales our family with stories, each with the Lewis gift of embellishing the truth to make things more interesting. He makes me laugh.

When it comes to his faith, he is a spiritual thinker and often presents a new thought that challenges my own thinking. The following is one of my uncle’s devotionals. As I think of the number of family and friends dealing with personal moments of grief in the past weeks and months, his message resonates with me as one whose hope is in Christ. I hope you find it helpful.

I Thessalonians 4:13-18

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have not hope.”

The young first century church was still struggling to find itself; deciding where it stands on issues of the day. This is was especially true of the church at Thessalonica having only recently been established by the itinerant apostle Paul.

Since the day of Pentecost, the church had been inundated with odd beliefs, theories, superstitions, and speculations about God’s organization. Leaders were forced to deal not only with each of these notions but also with those who introduced them to the church.

High upon the list of topics of discussion was the belief that the Lord Jesus would be returning to earth to redeem His Church and take His followers to ever be with God in heaven. The people of the church were in a constant state of waiting anxiously for His return.

But this very issue was disturbing for some of the people, for their loved ones had died, and they feared that the dead would be left behind when the rapture came. The letter of Paul to the Thessalonians addressed the issue. He introduced them to his own doctrinal theory, “by the word of the Lord,” to give it divine authority.

The text for today very clearly lines out in orderly fashion the event of the second coming that includes all of God’s children. It’s impossible to say for sure whether or not Paul’s discourse put the matter to bed, but I imagine it was very comforting to those grieving members for whom it was intended.

Grief has received bad press in that it tends to be looked upon as a sign of weakness, or a lack of faith. Grief is autonomous! It forces us deep into our very souls to meet with us there even as we struggle to follow the advice of well-meaning friends who tell us we “must be strong for the kids.”

The dark silence of the soul may be strange territory for many of us for it is the place where deep processing takes place; where all phony business is pushed aside leaving only the pain of reality.

We will feel as if grief is going to utterly consume us, but HOPE is the solvent that softens our grief and ultimately makes us feel human again. Hope does not get rid of grief, it only makes grief, OUR GRIEF, bearable, thereby blending “our” grief into our personality enabling us to be present for “others who have no hope.”

Paul’s image offers hope to all who are in grief. “Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

Les

*****

Thanks, Les. I add only one thought and one verse.

With every loss comes grief. It’s arrival and departure are rarely in a confined time frame or orderly progression. Just when we think grief has finally taken its last breath from us, another wave breaks over our heads threatening to drown us once again in our sorrow.

That’s why we fight it. Try to ignore it. Try to push it away only to find ourselves lost again in our brokenness. Grief is the life process God uses to put our pieces back together again, different to be sure, but whole. It is his presence, his hope, that sustains us.

I find comfort in the following verse from Psalms.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

That has been my experience and is the basis of my hope.

From Mourning to Ministry

Background Passage: Matthew 14:9-23

No physical pain eclipses the pain of losing a close friend or family member. The grief of personal loss hurts. Shatters our sense of normalcy. Threatens our emotional stability. Chokes the very breath from our souls.

Grief might be tempered by the circumstances of our loss. When a loved one has faced months of pain from an insidious disease, for instance, the believer feels a sense of comfort and release knowing that a mother, a sister or friend is no longer suffering. That realization may lessen the gravity weighing on a sad heart, but it does little to fill the emptiness one feels.

Grief is a process as anyone who has lived it knows. Our reactions to it as individual as our own unique personalities.

In their respected book, On Death and Dying, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler plotted five stages of grief that all must travel. People express themselves in various ways, passing through the stages in different ways or times because our relationship to the one who died was unique to us. The authors suggest we must go through each stage if we are to recover from the sorrow that engulfs us with the loss of someone special.

Kubler-Ross and Kessler define the stages of grief: Denial…a time of shock and emotional paralysis where we tend to avoid our new reality; Anger…a time when all the emotions we bottled up for a time get released; Bargaining…when we look for alternatives to fill the void within us; Depression…when reality weighs us down; and acceptance…finding our way forward into a new normal.

I know two families this week going through the death of a family member. Having walked in their shoes in my own family, forever uncertain what to say, I found myself scanning the scripture for words that might grant all of us a foothold of understanding on the slippery slope of sorrow.

Well-meaning folks like me will offer these families platitudes in the coming days based on our personal experiences. The intent will be appreciated. The care and concern evident. But the words will most likely fall on a heart too troubled to hear.

Many passages of scripture tells us about God’s comfort during times of despair. There is beauty and value in those verses. As we seek to live in the image of God and if Jesus represents the image of God on earth, then what did Jesus know of our sorrow?

I suspect there were a thousand of unrecorded occasions when Jesus put his arm around a crying widow, offered a prayer for a brother in mourning, took a meal to a neighbor who lost a sister, prayed for a family whose mother died peacefully in her sleep, or stood quietly beside a parent whose child was ravaged by disease when no word would bring comfort. Scripture also tells us Jesus felt the grief resulting from the death of someone for whom he cared deeply.

His experiences with grief were personal, not second hand, full of the emotional trauma death brings. Late in his earthly ministry, his good friend Lazarus died. Though Jesus knew the outcome of this experience would be new life, scripture tells us he wept. His anguish over the loss of someone he loved so real and heart-wrenching.

Yet, another profound encounter with death touched Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. Not too long after Jesus gathered his disciples together and taught them things they needed to know about the kingdom of God, he sent them out, two-by-two, on a mission trip to preach the good news of God’s coming salvation.

At the same time, Herod, the Judean tetrarch, arrested John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and early partner in ministry. The Baptist ran afoul of the regional governor when he challenged Herod’s divorce and marriage to his sister-in-law. While John was in prison, Herod, intrigued by his step-daughter, promised her anything she wished. After talking to her conniving mother, the step-daughter asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Herod did not disappoint and ordered John beheaded.

News of this horrific death reached Jesus just as the disciples were returning from their trip. The news was unsettling. Jesus and John, connected by circumstance of birth and passion of ministry, held deep respect for each other.

Jesus once told the crowds who followed him that “among those born of women there is none greater than John,” revealing his level of affection and respect for the tough-minded preacher. Jesus’ love was returned many times over. John stood waist deep in the Jordan when Jesus presented himself to be baptized at the starting point of his earthly ministry. Knowing who he was and the nature of his work, John hesitated. “I’m not worthy to tie your sandals,” he said.

When Jesus heard the news about his cousin, Matthew 14 tells us , “he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.” Saddened. Distraught. Struggling with both the loss and the method of his death. Seeing in John’s death, perhaps, a reflection of his own future.

As he so often did when troubled with life, Jesus needed to feel the presence of his heavenly father. In the middle of the excitement of the missionary reports, he moved away from the crowd to find a quiet place to be alone in his thoughts, to deal with his emotions and his grief.

Yet, the crowd would not let him go. Maybe they were unaware of John’s death. Maybe they didn’t understand the connection between the men as cousins. Maybe they were so caught up in their own struggles they couldn’t see into the hurting heart of another person. Whatever possessed them to come, a large crowd circled around the Sea of Galilee to wait as Jesus’ boat came ashore.

Many of us can empathize with Jesus. He needs his time alone…his space to deal with his own breaking heart. Life will not allow it. Jesus had a choice, to look inward or outward. We face the same choice in times like this. We can turn inside ourselves, skirt the crowd and run into the desert alone. Or we can look outside ourselves to the people pressing around us and extend God’s mercy to them.

Matthew tells us Jesus saw the crowd and had “compassion on them.” What an amazing picture this presents! A grieving Christ sees the gathering crowd. When most of us would turned the boat around, Jesus dried his tear-stained cheeks with the sleeve of his cloak, said a new prayer for emotional strength, took in a deep breath and went about his work healing the sick, comforting the sorrowful and feeding the famished.

He spent the rest of the day with them, eventually feeding them with a little bread and fish before sending them on their way. A picture settles in my thoughts. The last family finally turned to leave. Jesus, who set aside his own sorrow for that time, waited until they were out of sight before sagging heavily on a boulder, allowing the emotion pent inside to flow freely.

Scripture says at some point he gathered himself, climbed the wilderness mountain as he had intended to do earlier that day and sought refuge in a father who understood clearly the heaviness of his heart.

So, what does this tell me about grief? My faith pales in comparison to the faith of Jesus. How hard it is to carry on when all we want to be is carried away. This biblical episode in the life of Jesus tells us life never stops for the grieving. Never slows down. Never considers our emotional state. Life goes on.

The daze of days surrounding the loss of a loved one blow by with little regard to what we want or need. In the days that follow death there will be bills to pay. Places to go where no one knows our anguish. Children tugging at our sleeve who need us to be in the moment with them. Co-workers expecting us to be on our game. Work still to be done. Our ability to find the peace we need, the solitude we crave, gets overshadowed by the press of the crowd around us.

We can push the crowd away or do as Jesus did when he pulled the boat to shore…embrace for a moment the opportunity God puts in front of us to serve him. To testify through our last reserve of faith and strength to the power of the father who gives us the ability to put one foot in front of the other and move when all we want to do is turn the boat around.

I don’t want to minimize the difficulty of walking our grief walk. It is healthy to grieve. Healthy to find time alone to consider the meaning of this personal loss. Healthy to weep.

As Jesus sailed the boat across the Sea of Galilee that day, I suspect the horizon lay unseen in the distance obscured by the tears in his eyes. His vision limited to the prow of the boat as he stared blankly into a tomorrow without his dear friend. That’s the way I feel on days like that.

However deeply Jesus mourned John’s death, he didn’t stay in the boat. He turned grief into the fuel that fired his own sense of mercy and ministry. You see, all the hurt and pain we experience at the death of one we love can empower us to love more deeply, embrace more often and to serve more willingly.

These two friends of mine who mourn this week the loss of a brother and sister, respectively, will be in Collique, Peru, next week on a mission trip. They join others in building small homes for families who possess next to nothing. Despite their personal sorrow, they will step out of their boats on the shore of a dusty hill in South America to share the compassion of Christ to strangers unaware of the grief they bear. What a testimony!

In our most desperate times, our dependence on Jesus Christ serves as dynamic evidence of the power of God’s sustaining love to a lost world with little on which to cling in life’s toughest times.

Grieve because you must. Mourn for lost love ones. Cherish the memories of love that runs deeply. But, along the way, may our emotions turn ever outward to spirit-inspired, Gospel-driven, compassion.