Unceasing Grief

Introduction

I am thankful to be with a group that takes time to express consolation to the heavy heart. It is visible for 5000 miles away.

I contemplated a great deal on what to preach about today.

Marshall and I have been scheduling sermons out and I had made preparation for what to preach on my first Sunday back after a long trip away.

But we have thought much about the grief that has been born here. For the Hornes, the Hams, and for the entire family. And then for the Pepper Road family who strive to know best how to help in such a time.

I do not know what the wisest thing is in such a moment. To press ahead with the planned message and let time and God’s goodness heal wounds or to wade into the present moment and address it.

For good or for ill, I generally lean in that latter direction, and so will do so this morning.

The Uniqueness of Grief

Each one of us experiences life in unique ways (Prov. 14:10).

Even when we experience the same pain, we do not respond identically (Job 2:9).

There are boundaries to grief but not a template for it (Job 2:10).

All this makes it very hard to know what to say or even if to say anything at all.

“I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll “say something about it” or not. I hate if they do, and if they don’t. . . . I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the pub as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.” - A Grief Observed

And it is not a linear path from pain to healing:

“Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again. . . . In grief nothing “stays put.” One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. . . . How often . . . will vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, “I never realized my loss till this moment”? The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again.” - A Grief Observed

The Depth of Grief

Paul speaks of deep and ongoing sorrow (Rom. 9:2).

Jeremiah landed in a place where there seemed to be no solution (Jer. 8:18; 20:18; 45:3).

The Psalmists frequently speak in almost despairing tones (Psa. 38:17).

These are the same men who wrote great words of instructive comfort (Lam. 3:22-23).

Joy for Sorrow

What do you think of when you hear Bethlehem?

Do you think about the death of Rachel (Gen. 35:19)?

Do you think of the Levite in the story of Micah and the Danites (Judges 17:7).

Perhaps the story of the Levite and his concubine who was from Bethlehem (Judges 19:1).

Perhaps it is the story of Ruth and Bethlehem being the place from which the family flees because of a famine (Ruth 1:1).

Finally, there is the slaying of the children in and around Bethlehem by Herod (Matt. 2:16-18).

Bethlehem is the place of the birth of our savior (Matt. 2:4-6).

What does the word cross conjure up in your mind (Gal. 6:14)?

“Why has this happened?” is a question we all ask at some point (Jn. 9:1-5).

Death is a curse (Psa. 58:8).

But this sorrow planted will reap a harvest of joy (1 Cor. 15:35-38, 50-58).

Conclusion

We are not left with shallow platitudes for our comfort.

When we go to funerals, there are things we say in certain circumstances that fall completely flat in another.

The resurrection is a comfort that never fails.

Is that a promise that you have put your trust in?