The Son of God Confronts Grief

The Son of God Confronts Grief

4.9.24 [Luke 24:26] River of Life (April Devotional)

Life is filled with many happy moments. And plenty of sad ones, too. But having joy isn’t merely a matter of collecting more happy moments than sad ones. Even if we could control that, it wouldn’t make us joyful. Sometimes it feels like sad moments are more powerful than happy ones. Some sad experiences seem to have the power to eclipse hundreds of happy ones. A single sad incident can ruin countless cheerful ones.

You can land your dream job, work with people you consider as close as family, but if they sell you out or kick you to the curb unceremoniously, it will poison your view of that part of your resume.

You can have a wonderful and meaningful relationship with someone, but if they deceive you, or prove to be disloyal, it will damage everything you’ve built together. It might even be hard to enjoy any of the memories you’ve made together.

Losses like these cause us great grief. Death does worse. When our happy moments are halted suddenly, we can feel cheated. Pictures and places and special days no longer put a smile on our faces. They may even send us running for a place to hide. A place to cry. A place to grieve.

Maybe the two men leaving Jerusalem were looking for a place like that. Luke tells us that Jesus’ crucifixion was not just on their minds, it was all they could talk about. Then, the man whom they were discussing, joined them on their trek, but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them what they were talking about and they were devastated. It was like their wound was reopened.

They spoke of the happy moments. Jesus was powerful in word and deed. God was with him. And it seemed like the people were too. Until they weren’t. When the religious rulers rejected him, the people fell in line and even shouted for his crucifixion. If that weren’t enough, we just heard this morning that his body can’t be found. We were hoping he was going to redeem our people, but…

You can hear their grief, can’t you? You know what it’s like to have a single sad event sully so many moments that brought you happiness? Do you know grief like that?

So often when we’re dealing with grief like this, we want to avoid it.

If we can’t we, just want to get through it. Process it quickly.

But that’s not what Jesus does. He doesn’t avoid the grief. He doesn’t just look to get it over with. He gets into it. He tells these men that he’s walking alongside that the Messiah had to suffer all these things and then enter his glory. The pain of the cross had to come before the glory of the crown. So, digging through the whole Old Testament, Jesus showed these men that his suffering was an unavoidable part or achieving our salvation. He had to die so that we could have life eternal.

It’s almost unimaginable that the Creator of all things would take this approach. The Lord God fashioned this world to not just be a happy place, but a perfect place. But then his creatures rebelled against him, unceremoniously kicked God to the curb, and subsequently ruined all that he had designed and made. We cannot begin to comprehend how much our sin has grieved our good God.

If we were in God’s position, we might have erased all that we had made and started from scratch. Done a hard reset on the whole thing.

But instead, God promised that he was going to get into the muck of our sin and suffering with us. God did the hard thing and became like us—familiar with our self-inflicted hardships and the frustrations of living in a broken world. That is the price Jesus paid to save us. His suffering, his death, and everything he endured was so that we might have real, lasting joy.

And that is what Easter gives us. Joy. We have joy even when we experience setbacks and endure hardship. We have the joy of knowing that God is working even those things out for our eternal good. First comes the cross, then the crown. Most times, we can’t see God’s goodness until much, much later. Sometimes, we won’t see it until Jesus gives us our crown of glory in heaven. Having joy isn’t a matter of collecting more happy moments than sad ones.

Jesus doesn’t teach us merely how to cope with grief. He confronts it for us and then tells us to keep our eyes on him through it all. Then we will have joy.

We do have joy because we have a Savior who knows suffering personally. We have a Savior who chose suffering—who even tasted death—so that we might be with him forever. We have joy because he loved us. We have joy because we have Jesus! And nothing in this life can take his love away from us.