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First Encounters with Grieve
The first time I remember hearing the word death, I was 10 years old and my uncle had died very suddenly at the age of thirty, I later found out he had been suffering with diabetes and left behind his long term partner and three young boys.
It was shocking and confusing for my young mind to make sense of such a nonsensical thing. I was a latch key kid and had only known the freedom of being outdoors, riding my friends bike, building forts, having adventures with neighborhood friends, being free and living forever, there was no room in my safe world for such harsh realities as death.
Loss is inevitable, many years on I’ve come to expect it, we will all loose someone in our lifetime. My mum died when I was thirty-seven, my dad when I was 45 and there have been plenty more losses in between, family, friends, expected and unexpected, 37 years on and the sting is no less painful now, than it was when I was 10.
‘Death is not natural’
Ephraim Buckle
‘Death is not natural’, my former pastor wisely once said. It had no part in Gods design from the beginning, in everything God made and gave life to, he describes as being good, there was only life and goodness in his creative mind and power. In Genesis chapter three, man enters the scene and a catastrophic decision to take the forbidden fruit, would see the whole of creation plummet down to a withering decay and devastating destruction and death, that would have far reaching consequences to all mankind.
So if death is inescapable, how are we to deal with it and how does the bible say we’re to grieve? It’s a question I’ve thought of a lot lately, after finding out my friend of over 25 years died very suddenly. It was devastating, I was afraid to cry in case I wasn’t able to stop, it was a deep feeling of emptiness, knowing I wasn’t going to see my friends face or hear her voice at least in this life.
Just like Job, her death cast a barrage of questions, each of which needed to be carefully examined and answered, though the answers never satisfiable. The sorrow that come played tricks with my mind, where I needed to play out every scenario, was there any way her this could have been prevented- the cycle is never ending and exhausting. I couldn’t believe she was dead and still can’t. coping with unexpected reminders of my friend brought on by a sound or a smell are just as difficult and would catapult me into an flurry of really difficult emotions.
There is no doubt that even for a believer, death is very hard to understand and cope with, if not for the fact that it awakes us to our own mortality. I needed to know how to grieve properly. The story of Mary and Martha’s brothers death in the book of Matthew helped me understand how to respond to my grieve.
Focus on the Resurrection
In order to know how we should grieve we need to understand the resurrection of Christ. This is the hinge of our Christian faith, the idea the our Captain and forerunner Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and if he did, then we will also. He even symbolised this truth in baptism that all believers are to obediently observe.
The word resurrect means, to rise or raise from the dead; bring or be brought back to life. This should be rooted in our mind like a well established tree because it’s the foundation of our faith, the idea that Jesus dies and is brought back to life, is central to the gospel message. If we understand this, it will help us understand how to put our trust fully in this truth, even when we’re facing the toughest times in our lives.
The story of Lazarus’s death and his sisters reaction, is a great example of how to understand Gods plan. Jesus wanted to reveal to them (and us) the realities of every aspect of life in the Kingdom of God under a new covenant, and how/what we should think about everything including death and loss. Even in death Jesus wants to teach us to think correctly, so as to draw the right conclusions that we might trust him more, nothing in the believer experience is wasted, there are no random sequence of events, everything is purposed and planned to draw us to a place of complete trust.
John Chapter 11
Mary said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” I used to read this as Mary rebuking the Lord and saying his delay caused the worst imaginable outcome, but thinking about it more carefully now, Mary didn’t know Jesus plan to ensure Lazarus was dead and buried by purposely delayed his coming to them by four days.
Mary’s tone is actually tinged with much hope here, she knew her Lord, she had seen his miracles, and had no doubt that if Jesus had got there earlier, this would never would have happened, no funeral plans, no inviting relatives to come and mourn with them and certainly no pain. Lazarus would never have died because Jesus would have healed him from his sickness straight away.
Isn’t our grieving minds just like this, we conceive that God could have retrospectively worked out something different somehow. We have hope enough to say, if only God had intervened sooner and fixed things, so this tragedy might not have occurred, we run through the timeline of events and know God could have altered the results at any point so the outcome might have been different.
It was the sisters who had initially sent for Jesus when they saw their brother get sicker and sicker, their conviction of faith was so, that they knew to call for the Master, but they unlike the Centurion who understood the of principle of authority and submission, Matthew 8:5-13, thought that Jesus physical presence was directly connected to his power to change things.
She showed even more faith by adding, “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give You.” Mary was expressing here, cautious hope, she had walked with Christ, she saw the miracles Jesus had performed, she had heard the prayers of Christ and Gods answer through his hand and knew very well he could do the impossible. But I don’t think her mind could ever have dreamt he would raise her brother from the grave, as far as she knew it was too late.
Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Jesus had something a little different in mind, not to simply heal Lazarus from his sick bed as Martha had hoped, but miraculously raise Lazarus from the dead, to bring glory to the name of the Father. His lesson was for Mary and the other disciples, to demonstrate his power and show them he could raise a dead body in the throws of days of decomposition and able to interrupt the process of decay and restore him back to full life, the most magnificent sign that he could restore dead souls in like manner.
The very purpose of Christ’s journey was to be accomplished in this moment, as he had said in V11 “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him”
Mary not seeing it yet, responded, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” her response is telling, she’s saying, I’m convinced I will see my brother again, her mention of, ‘I know’ makes that clear. She had a sure hope of a bodily resurrection somewhere far in eternity future, but her ability to conceive that Christ would raise him in the immediate was no….
Mary’s eschatology is sound, her, ‘at the last day’, statement makes it clear she understood the bodily resurrection of believers, perhaps because of Christ’s teaching, but she would have known old testament scriptures and would certainly have been familiar with verses like, Isaiah 26:19,
‘Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
Mary’s response to the Lord is her confidence placed firmly in the idea that believers will receive the ultimate resurrection of their bodies, and is what her use of the word, ‘will’ is anchored in, she knew and was convinced that somewhere in the distant future there was the promise of seeing her brother again. But what she was not able to imagine was the Lords present plan to raise Lazarus’, body immediately.
Then Jesus replies with a stunning statement, “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. “
This is the hinge of the whole story and the key to grieving well.
Jesus takes the discourse to another level, from a physical principle of restoring rotting flesh, to the spiritual one of restoring rotten souls. The only way death on all plains can be conquered is through himself alone. Jesus is saying, that He is God, the Messiah the very embodiment of life, the life giver who alone could bring an end to the devastation of the fall and would evidence his power to it by raising a man from the dead.
This heart of what Jesus wants to teach Mary, he puts the focus smack bang on this extremely important truth, Jesus was to be the fulfillment- of Isaiah 26:19, there can be no resurrection of life for the believer physically or spiritually that exists outside of God himself.
She was aware of the incredible power ….
”Jesus wept”
Most people imaging Jesus with one solemn tear rolling down his face, and if read this passage is read in isolation ( as many people do) it would be easy to think that, but any of us who have ever lost a loved one will know this wouldn’t be the response of someone whose close friend had just died. The statement, “He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled”, means he was agonising.
Jesus just lost a friend, “he whom you love”
He agonised over his friends death and felt the deep sense of loss as well as the impact it was having on others, not only for the reason of loosing a close companion and friend, clearly this was a man he loved deeply, but deeper still he knew that every family would experience this kind of loss and heartache, everyone will loose loved ones, every person will loose a dear friend, a family member, death would impact all types of human relationships and communities all because of sin. He knew the consequence of sin and the ultimate destination of all those who would not put their trust in him,
death will break up every family, separate friends.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
To instruct the stone should be taken away is an audacious act of Christ, it would be akin to Christ digging up the grave of your loved one and pulling the coffin out of the ground, removing the lid to expose the intense stench of putrefaction. Jesus could have miraculously removed the stone but getting participants involved he chose to make sure there was absolutely no doubt about what was about to happen.
Jesus begins his prayer to the Father, and ends it by shouting at the top of his voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
And with that Lazarus is restored back to life, decomposition has become composed, the victory of Jesus over the power of death on full display- their brother and friend standing before them alive in his grave clothes, breathing, every cell, every sinew, every muscle, completely recovered.
Conclusion
So what did this magnificent story teach me about grieve?
- Well firstly, that God wants me to carefully and deliberately understand how I must think about death and those that die, because the inevitability of death is real. This account taught me that, God is caring and comforting in equal measure, when we feel pain he feels our pain and sympathises with us, he is compassionate, when we cry he cries with us, Hebrews 4:15.
- This account taught me that, God is caring and comforting in equal measure, when we feel pain he feels our pain and sympathises with us because he knows our weaknesses (namely we expire because of sin), he is compassionate, when we cry, he cries with us.
- We can put or expectations on him, because He is listening when we cry out to him in pain, when we send for him to help us, he will come and pays attention to our hurts and concerns as a good Father should.
- And finally (but not extensively) the Lord has used the story of, Mary and Martha to help me when people I’ve loved have passed away, and every time it has taught me to look at death through a new lens, from the viewpoint of Jesus’ claim to being the resurrection.
Raising a man from the dead, may look like the main attraction (I don’t underestimate the magnificence of this miracle btw) but the heart of what John wants me-us, to understand is that Jesus is himself the raiser from the dead; the bringer back to life, which is the essence of what’s being conveyed in this miracle.
He is God over everything, it’s him and him alone who can conquer death because he is the embodiment of life itself, so death can’t hold us because death couldn’t hold him.
This is so crucial for our faith because what we read can often be abstract/ or conceptual notions to our faith but God wants a personalised trust that can only be learnt where the hottest of trials enters our life. He wants to make the connection from our minds to our hearts. Once our minds are filled with right doctrine then our believes and principles must be tested and only then can we get to utter these words along with Job,
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” Job 42:5
I found both immense comfort and great challenge in the story of these two ancient Jewish women who had to face the sudden and dramatic death of their brother, I feel a connection to them I understand their faith and their blockages
The realities of life whether that be the reasoning of the heart or the wisdom of the world, always try and contradict Gods truth and this is the believers battle to overcome those
He is God with us Emmanuel
The bible says we’re to grieve but not as those in the world do, without hope
Gods relationship to dead believers is as important as his relationship to alive ones
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no no more death”