Grief with Hope
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
When God created us, he created us as being to love others just as God loves us. Beings that would embrace each other and grow in healthy, pure, and trusting love. But before the fall, God did not create such relationships to end, but to live on in a world without death and without hatred and betrayal. That is not the world we live in today. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they sealed the end of their life on earth and so also their marriage and relationship.
What a hardship it must have been for them to taste the bitter fruit of their rebellion when they found Able dead and Cain exiled by God. They would have felt something they had never felt before, something they have never heard of before: grief and loss at the hands of death.
Since then it is fascinating to look at how humans have dealt with the wholly unnatural state of grief in different ways. In a vain attempt to immortalize the dead, graves have been erected, some so massive and grand they have stood thousands of years as symbols of their entire civilization. Others place more importance in cherishing the moments spent with a person they loved. I still have a message on the church answering machine from the last time Nichole tried to call me. I can’t bring myself to erase it.
Death is unnatural, and so it is natural to feel lost, confused, and deeply cut off in times of grief. Losing someone you love to death is like losing a part of yourself, and while you can learn to live with it you never get over it.
In our text today we witness a death and the grief it brings to the family. It’s not any death, it is the death of the patriarch of the people of God, a prophet and a man who has seen the faithfulness of God in extraordinary ways. Though he is grieved in the Egyptian manner, his burial reminds us that for the people of God there is hope in grief. Hope that stems from a knowledge that God is the God of the living, not the dead. That his promises transcend death and bring on his faithful people an everlasting life.
The Death and Burial of Jacob
The Death and Burial of Jacob
Jacob’s instructions for his burial. Our text begins concluding Jacob’s words to his sons, giving them blessings and curses according to their character. The last thing he does in this life is give instructions as to his burial. Interestingly, before he dies what is important to him is how his body is treated, even though he will be dead and will not be there to experience it. It’s not like the Egyptians, who believed the things you were buried with helped you in the afterlife, but it is the most important thing nonetheless.
Gathered with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs
Specifically, Jacob is concerned about the location he will be buried.
He will not be buried in Egypt, away from the land God promised him. He was a stranger in life, but he will die believing that God will keep his promises.
He will not be buried with Rachel his favourite wife. Although Rachel was the mother of Joseph the faithful son, she herself was not a woman of faith. She was only concerned with competing with his sister, but Leah at the birth of Judah had learned to praise the Lord and rest in faith. Leah was the wife God had sovereignly put in Jacob’s life, but he pursued his flesh and married the pretty one as well. Instead of looking for a woman of faith like Abraham’s servant had done, he looked for a girl that was good looking and nothing more. So God had providentially made to so that Leah would be the one laying in the tomb as the Matriarch and Rachel will not. Jacob, after his worldliness has been stripped away by God’s work with him, sees being buried with the covenant family as more important than his emotional connection with Rachel.
In expectation of the promises
This is because the covenant family in that grave in Machpelah represented the people waiting for the promises of God. Although they never recieved those promises in full, they died in faithful expectation of them and Jacob will do the same. Although throughout his life Jacob had wrestled with God, now all that matters to him are these promises. Jacob will die in faith that God will do what he says and that he will experience those promises beyond the veil.
Jacob’s death and Joseph’s grief
The rest of the story details the grief and funeral procession for this Patriarch of the people of God. Joseph specifically is greatly broken by it, and the rest of Egypt mourns with him because of their love for their leader Joseph.
Jacob Embalmed and Mourned in the Egyptian Manner.
At first, this may seem like Joseph is not going to fill Jacob’s wish. However, although not part of Hebrew or Canaanite culture, embalming in Egypt was a sign of kingly respect and honour which Israelite and Egyptian alike both show to this man.
Buried in a godly manner
Afterwards, Jacob is buried in Canaan and the Egyptians come to mourn him there too. This impresses the local Canaanites who name the valley after the mourning of the Egyptians.
In Joseph’s life Egypt had been brought to a place where they could witness the marvels of God. In Jacob’s death they show a genuine care for God’s people through this mutual blessing.
The Life and Resurrection of Jacob
The Life and Resurrection of Jacob
Like Abraham and Isaac before him, Jacob recognized that he was a stranger and exile on earth, just as he was in both Canaan and Egypt. He never saw the promises fulfilled, but greeted them from afar (Hebrews 11:13). It was therefore also true what it says about Abraham, “they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
Jesus spoke about this concept while challenging the Sadducees on the resurrection from the dead.
And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
For God to presently call himself the God of these men proves their eternal life. I was watching a true crime show where someone had gone missing and they later found out her husband had killed her. One thing that put the police on his trail was that when he was interviewed he kept using the past tense, “she was a caring mother. She was a wonderful person” ect. They suspected that someone wouldn’t subconsciously say that about someone who had gone missing only a couple of days before unless he knew she was dead. God, when speaking to Moses in Exodus 3:6, tells him “I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He was there God and he is still their God. So Jesus proved to men who only took the first 5 books of the OT as Scripture that the resurrection is evident from the very beginning.
The reality of a resurrection is hinted at throughout the OT but makes its full revelation through the coming of Christ and the teachings of the Apostles.
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
In that passage, Jesus affirms Martha’s belief in a future resurrection by claiming that he is the resurrection and the life. That true life is to believe in him and to partake in his resurrection just as we partake in his death to sin. Jesus than proves this statement through the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus. When Jesus raises him for a few more years of earthly life, it proved two things:
The human soul exists beyond death.
Christ has the power over life and death.
With the resurrection of Christ, we have the assurance that he will likewise raise us to eternal life in him. Paul talks about how this is the essential cornerstone to our faith as Christians.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Salvation from sin and the wrath of God, the fulfillment of the promises of God, the assurance of knowing God, joy in the midst of pain and trials in this life, all of these things are meaningless if we do not take the resurrection and an eternity in a new world with new bodies into primary account. It solidifies the truth that Christianity is a faith that focuses, not on the futility of this earthly life (see Ecclesiastes) but on the hope of future life.
Facing Death with Tears and Hope
Facing Death with Tears and Hope
So how do we take the truths about future life and resurrection in God and bring to this funeral for Jacob, and even to our own seasons of grief?
First, recognizing that, for the people of God, this life is not true life and therefore death is not true death.
Second, coming to terms with the very real experience of grief. Although we know that true life begins after death, in this world we will still feel the pain and sorrow of grief. This is not wrong and is perfectly natural, even though it seems opposed to what we believe about the resurrection. Grief is experienced by Christians because:
We still live in this world, in temporary bodies. Grief is a natural physical response that even Christ embraced as part of being in a fallen world. Our desire to see the person we love is denied in a most painful way. This doesn’t mean that being less worldly means being less in touch with out feelings of love and grief. Grieving us human, emotional turmoil and part being what we are. This should not discourage us from mourning, but rather have us mourn with each other in love. What it does mean is that the experience of grief is something a Christian can go through with a context and clarity that the world doesn’t have.
We are grieved by death because it is a reminder of the wages of sin. As a Christian mourns, it is appropriate to consider how our sins have such devastating effects. How our loved one is taken from us because sins like ours. How this will humble us unto godly repentance and hope for a day when our sin, and the death is spawns, will be done away in eternal life.
We are especially grieved by the death of the lost. It reminds us of what we deserve and would get apart from the grace of God, and is gives us the same heart of compassion that God has for the lost who reject him every day. The greatest of tragedies is to see someone live a life full of good things from God and still reject him.
We can come to terms with our grief through an earthly service and a heavenly hope.
Joseph embalmed Jacob, a custom that was never practiced by Israel or Canaanites, only Egypt. The Egyptian-style funeral is never seen as wrong or denying faith in God. Rather, it gives them a culturally appropriate way to grieve while also giving unbelievers, the Egyptians, a chance to reflect on their faith and dedication to God. After all, they were saved through the faith of this man’s son.
Then Joseph buried Jacob. Although embalmed in the Egyptian manner, Jacob was buried in the tomb at Machpelah, not with his favourite wife Rachel and not in an Egyptian tomb. The takeaway from this is not that we must be buried in some sacred place, but rather than we need to recognize the promises of God and the hope of future life in him.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
How we are buried is not what is important, but how we treat the body is. That is, I don’t believe there is a Scriptural command here or elsewhere in Scripture detailing how a Christian is to be buried, however the way a Christian’s body is treated after death should reflect the fact that this body will rise again. Whether cremated or buried, the body will turn to dust and ash until Christ comes when it will be restored at the resurrection from the dead. A Christian funeral will always highlight this truth: that death is not the end and that physical life will one day be restored to that body that has died in a new world. The body is important to us because of our hope in the resurrection. It was important for Jacob to be buried with his fathers because of the resurrection, the promises, the covenant, and the life he has after death in the same faith. How we treat a body after death should reflect that as well.
A Christian funeral should speak two truths very clearly
Christians weep together lovingly and affectionately.
Christians do not weep without hope, or as if this body will remain dead forever.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Christians feel the agony of grief just as strongly as unbelievers do, perhaps more at the death of an unbelieving loved one. However, the kind of grief a Christian experiences is of a different nature altogether.
Christians weep with hope.
For the spirit
For the body
Despite their own coming death
In the faithfulness and justice of God
Un-believers have no hope in anything after this life. Thoughts of heaven are unrealistic for them. Hopes of God’s mercy are vain, for they took his mercy in vain in this life. Disbelief in a life after death is fictional, and so this becomes the most important subject anyone will have to face: do you have hope after death? Who can say “yes” except he who rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God? And if he has so fully defeated the lasting power of death, than those who trust in his promises can truly say with the Apostle
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The promise is this,
He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
This promise is great, but only for those who are the people of God. Those who have died to their old self, to their sin, their self sufficiency, their own good works, and everything they have in this life and embrace Christ and the hope of eternal life in the next one. These are those who submit everything to Christ, willing to forsake possessions, family, friends, careers, dreams, goals, pleasures, opinions, and everything else they hold dear at the feet of Christ that they may be resurrected as sons and daughter of God. Only by Spirit-inspired faith can such a drastic change of life happen, and so my prayer is that if you do not have this hope, or if you are unsure whether you have it, you will speak to me or someone else in the church and begin to respond to the call of Christ to come and have life, real life.