How Our Grief Steals Christmas (Or Tries To) - Various Texts

©December 19th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent

Most of us have experienced grief in some form or another during our lives. Most often, we think of grief in connection to the death of a loved one, but we can experience grief any time we lose something we care about. People who have gone through divorce grieve the loss of the life they thought they would have when they got married. Those who lose a job can have a similar kind of grief. Someone who has been through a fire, tornado, or other event that caused them to lose their home or treasured belongings has experienced grief. A serious illness can cause you to grieve the loss of your health. The death of a pet leads to grief. And even having a dear friend move away will cause grief. Those feelings of grief may never disappear. Years later, you may still feel the pangs of that loss at different times. Grief is part of the human experience.

Nnot every person works through grief in the same way or on the same timetable. Even family members grieving a loss together will each walk their own journey through grief because their relationship to the loss and their personalities are each unique.

For our advent series this year, we have been trying to answer the question, “Who are you looking for?” I believe that many are looking for someone to help them with their grief. Holidays tend to magnify our feelings of grief. Christmas is often especially difficult for those who are grieving. Sometimes Christmas brings up feelings of grief we didn’t realize we had. Our goal this morning is to look at how we can deal with grief without allowing it to steal the blessing of Christmas. The good news for those who are grieving is that Jesus can indeed help us with our grief. My hope today is that we can find practical and biblical truths that will help us as we walk through grief throughout our lives, but especially during the Christmas holiday.

Truths About Grief

There are several truths we need to understand when we talk about grief. First is that it isn’t sinful to grieve. Grief is a response to losing something we care deeply about. It isn’t a sign of weakness or lack of faith, but a sign of love.

In the Bible, we see many examples of people grieving. On at least two occasions people whose children had died came to Jesus in their grief. In the Old Testament we see many examples of grieving individuals. What we don’t see in the Bible is people being condemned for grieving. Jesus didn’t cast such people away, nor condemn them for grieving their loss. Instead, Jesus drew close to them and entered into their grief with them.

Probably the greatest example of this is the story of the death (and resurrection) of Lazarus. Jesus’ friend Lazarus had died, and Jesus went to see Lazarus’ sisters and to mourn with them. Jesus didn’t condemn them for their sadness and mourning. In fact, Jesus wept along with them! Jesus grieved the death of his friend and he grieved at the pain of those around him. Jesus wept, even though He knew how the story would end!

Grief is not a sin. It is not a sign of weakness or a sign of a lack of faith. It is a sign of love. And we don’t need to apologize for grieving—it is a normal response to loss. Our goal should not be to get rid of grief, but to work through it in a way that allows us to continue to live, rather than getting stuck on the loss we’ve experienced in the past.

The second truth we need to see is that God isn’t afraid of our grief. I think many people withdraw from God when they are hurting because they feel like they can’t be honest with him about what they’re really feeling. But nothing could be further from the truth! The Bible is full of examples of times in which people pour out their hearts before the Lord. Much of what they say is messy and not how we think a person should talk to God. But God doesn’t turn them away or condemn them. He gives them strength and reminds them of truths they can hold onto. This pattern is played out over and over in the Psalms. A great example of this is Psalm 77.

1 I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh, that God would listen to me! 2 When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted. 3 I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. 4 You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray! 5 I think of the good old days, long since ended, 6 when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now. 7 Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me? 8 Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion? 10 And I said, “This is my fate; the Most High has turned his hand against me.” (Psalm 77:1-10, NLT)

Asaph, the man who wrote these words, doesn’t pull any punches here! We don’t know exactly what Asaph was grieving over, but it doesn’t really matter. He is honest with the Lord about his grief, and about how he feels abandoned by God. God doesn’t condemn Asaph for saying these things. He lets Asaph share his honest feelings. By the end of the Psalm, however, Asaph has changed his tune.

11 But then I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. 12 They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works. 13 O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? 14 You are the God of great wonders! You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations. 15 By your strong arm, you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. (Psalm 77:11-15, NLT)

What changed? It is almost as though a switch got flipped, as Asaph goes from complaining about God to declaring his trust in Him! What changed is that as he worked through his feelings of abandonment, he was reminded of how God had not abandoned him, and how He had consistently shown himself faithful in the past as well. This is an important key for dealing with our grief—we must rehearse the truths we know about God’s faithfulness. Reminding ourselves of what is true will help us confront the lies Satan often whispers to us in the hard times. Reminding ourselves of the truth about God’s character and love for us will enable us to stand firm, even in the darkest of times.

The third truth we need to see about grief is that it doesn’t have to control or define us. Grief is an intense feeling that comes from the loss of something dear to us. Sometimes people struggle to work through their feelings of grief and get stuck in the past, constantly reliving the loss they have experienced. Here’s the good news, even if you are in a place where you cannot see anything but your hurt and loss right now, you do not have to stay in that place. Your grief may never fully disappear, but you can find ways to work through it so you can continue living.

Part of the challenge of a significant loss is that we feel like life will never be the same. And that is true. Our lives are forever changed by our loss. But sometimes we conclude that since our lives will never be the same, that means our lives are over or that we can never be happy again. That isn’t true. We must choose to continue living, even though our future looks different now. We must decide that we will not miss out on the present by fixating on the past. We can get so caught up in what we’ve lost that we miss what we still have.

Why Christ Helps with Grief

The good news for us is that we don’t have to walk this path alone or in our own strength. Jesus provides help for us as we walk through life, even as we walk through grief. The Christmas holiday is hard, but if we take time to reflect on the promises we see revealed through Christmas, we can find great comfort. I see three truths that Christmas reminds us of that can help us.

First, Christmas reminds us that God is in control. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, God made numerous prophecies about his birth. Here’s just a few examples,

· He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14)

· He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)

· He would be born of the family line of Judah (2 Samuel 7:12-13 and others)

· He would be called Immanuel, which means God with us (Isaiah 7:14)

· He would be worshiped by kings from distant lands (Psalm 72:10)

· There would be weeping in Bethlehem after a slaughter of children (Jeremiah 31:15)

· Jesus would be called out of Egypt after this slaughter (Hosea 11:1)

When we think about the fact that these prophecies occurred hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, and over the course of hundreds of years, it should be a reminder to us that God is orchestrating events in a way we cannot possibly imagine. All of these events (and many more) were used by God to bring about His good and perfect plan. Those who read the prophecies didn’t understand this fully, and neither did the people involved in these events. But God did. He is in control, even when the world feels out of control.

This should serve as a profound comfort to us. When we experience great loss, it is tempting for us to conclude that God has forgotten about us or abandoned us, or that He isn’t real. But the birth of Christ reminds us that God is still on the throne, even when things happen that we don’t understand. It reminds us that we can trust in the Lord. And if we can trust Him, we can continue to live, even when we face great loss.

Second, Christmas reminds us that we matter to God. Jesus came into the world to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sin. When you find yourself questioning whether God loves you or whether you matter to Him, remind yourself that Jesus came into the world for you. You matter, and He sees you.

We see this demonstrated in the way Jesus dealt with people as well. The people everyone else overlooked were often the people Jesus gravitated towards. Jesus reached out to the people who had been marginalized and cast aside by society. He reached out to the demon-possessed, the disabled, the notorious sinners, the children, and the grieving. He chose people who seemed insignificant to be his closest and trusted friends. When other people pulled away, Jesus came in close. It was the consistent pattern of his life on earth.

It is no wonder that when Jesus began his earthly ministry, he stood up in the synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah. These are the words Jesus read,

1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. 2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. 3 To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory. (Isaiah 61:1-3, NLT)

The verse Jesus chose to announce and sum up his ministry was a verse that talked about bringing good news to the poor, and the promise of comfort for those who mourn. How does Jesus provide comfort? By promising to be by our side in all things, and by showing us He loves us. Everything we see in the life of Jesus and in Jesus’ birth shows us that He came into the world to save ordinary people like you and me and to come alongside us as we walk through life. Even if you feel forgotten by the world, looking at Jesus should remind you that you are not forgotten by God.

Third, God is working for good. When you are grieving, this is a difficult promise to trust. In Romans 8:28, Paul says God is working everything for good in the lives of believers. Notice that he did not say that everything that happens to believers is good, but rather that God is using it to accomplish good.

I think the biggest reason we struggle to believe this truth is because we cannot imagine how God could bring good out of our loss. We cannot see the future God has planned, all we can see is the pain we have now.

I remember a time when I was struggling to understand what God was doing in my life and praying, telling God that I trusted Him, but I just needed to know how the story ended. I felt the Lord respond to me that if I truly trusted Him, then I didn’t need to know how the story ended, I just needed to trust that He had a plan that I couldn’t see. That has stuck with me. When I struggle with trusting the Lord, I keep trying to remind myself that I don’t know how the story ends, but I do know the One who is writing it. And that is enough. I can keep moving forward, believing that God has a plan and that His plan is good, even if I can’t see it yet.

There is ample evidence for us to conclude that God is working behind the scenes even when we can’t see it. The Bible is full of examples of God’s faithfulness, bringing good out of what seemed like terrible situations. If you take the time to look at your own life, I’m sure you can find examples of God working even when you couldn’t see it at the time as well. God consistently accomplishes good things, even out of the hard things of life.

Practical Steps

I don’t know what grief you may be feeling this year. Some of you will acutely feel the loss of a loved one. Others may feel the sting of a quiet house when you long to have it full of people. And still others may feel loss because of the challenges of this year. The truth is, there are lots of reasons to grieve, and it’s ok if you find yourself struggling with grief this Christmas. But grief doesn’t have to steal the joy of Christmas from us. I want to give you some practical steps for how to navigate Christmas and grief at the same time.

Look for blessings you have in the present. Sometimes grief can cause us to get stuck thinking about what we have lost. The danger is that we become so focused on what we have lost in the past that we miss the blessings we have in the present. At funerals we often remind people that even though their loved one has died, they also lived! Their life is to be celebrated even as their death is mourned. The same is true for us as we grieve. We have experienced loss, but our lives are not over. We must choose to continue living, and to look for the ways God continues to bless you and be faithful to you. Choose to live in the present. Choose to find ways to enjoy God’s blessings. Choose to make positive memories now instead of allowing grief to paralyze you and keep you from enjoying the life God has given you.

Acknowledge your grief, but don’t allow it to dominate your thoughts. One way people try to deal with grief is to pretend it isn’t there. But that doesn’t really work. Sometimes we do this to protect the people around us. Most people don’t know how to react to a grieving person, so we pretend we’re not. But often you can help people by simply addressing the elephant in the room. If you acknowledge your grief, people feel like they have permission to acknowledge your grief as well, when they might have been scared to before. A healthy approach is to find a way to acknowledge your grief, but to do it in a way that enables you still to enjoy the present.

There are lots of ways you can do this. If you’ve lost a loved one, do something in your celebration that will remind you of them. Sing a song, tell a story, share a memory, give a special gift, or do something they enjoyed. There may be tears, but that’s ok because what we are doing is celebrating the gift of their life. Often, once you’ve acknowledged your grief, you can feel free to celebrate the blessings of the present. I’d encourage you to be creative—find ways to acknowledge your pain and loss without allowing it to take center stage.

Recognize that if you’re grieving, others probably are too. Grief sometimes gives us tunnel vision. We become so focused on our pain that we don’t see that others are hurting too. So look for those who are hurting and see if you can find a way to help them. Sometimes doing something to bring healing to others helps us to heal as well.

Find ways to celebrate your new life. Grief means dealing with the loss of the life we once had. Things are forever changed. But often those changes open up different opportunities for us. Maybe you have a freedom you didn’t have before, or you can start a new tradition, or something else. Enjoying your new life is not the same as saying you wish your old life never happened, it is simply coming to grips with the reality of the way things are now and choosing find joy in your life. You may need to start small, but as you find ways to celebrate the way things are instead of lamenting the way they aren’t, you will slowly find yourself working through your grief to find joy once more.

The biggest thing I can recommend to you is also the most basic: Remember the reason for the celebration. The world tells us that Christmas is about lots of different things: family, traditions, abundance, etc. When one of those things is disrupted, we feel that the holiday is ruined or tainted in some way. But if we will take the time to remember what the Christmas holiday is all about, I believe we will find strength, peace, hope, and joy, even in the midst of grief.

The Christmas holiday reminds us that God has a plan for each of us. It reminds us that we matter to God. It reminds us that God is working out his plan on a far grander scale than we can possibly imagine. No matter what you have experienced in life, these are truths that are always worth celebrating.

My hope is that this Christmas is joyous for you even though there may be waves of grief that try to steal some of your joy. Some of those feelings may be new this year, others may have been with you for a long time. One thing, however, remains the same: you can still find joy in the blessings God has given to you. Chief among these is the baby, who was born in the manger—and who changed the world for the better forever.

©December 19th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent