Hope At A Gravesite – A Man’s Journey Through Grief continued, #12

Many of my posts since Mary Helen’s death have been laments which doesn’t tell the whole story of grief. I visited Mary Helen’s grave yesterday. I didn’t talk to her. I didn’t weep. I had no sense of her spirit hovering. She is not there. My soul was possessed by a certain, absolute hope, a firm assurance. Oh, I know the shell of her body are there, but she—the real Mary Helen—is in heaven with Jesus and a multitude of angels and saints. Her body awaits the resurrection when Jesus will descend. “The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:16-18).

As I look back over the past five months, the two things that stand out are faith and hope. They are connected. Not a wishy-washy, hope-so hope. Not a groundless faith. No, hope that merges with faith as a confidence in what God has said. “Faith is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1). And we understand what we do not see because God has told us in broad strokes what will happen to believers who die in the Lord. It is written. As someone has declared. “God said. I believe it. That settles it.”

Such concrete hope has not meant that I haven’t grieved or that I should not grieve. The Bible makes clear that grief is a real and necessary emotion. That hope does not erase my sense of loneliness, the emptiness of our condo, or the weeping that comes unbidden. Hope does not overcome memories nor the longing I have for her presence. But hope forms the backdrop of all my days. I know where she is. I know I will go to her. I know Christ will return in triumph and create a new heavens and a new earth in which joy and purpose and harmony and holiness meet. That will be glory!

That faith and hope is what makes Christian grief so distinct. As Paul wrote “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13,14). He continues by describing the victorious descent of the Lord to call the dead to rise. (By the way, sleep in death does not mean that souls are unconscious until the resurrection. Sleep is but one of many comforting euphemisms for death. Christ told the thief on the cross that, on that very day, he would wake up in paradise not fall into some insensate state. As Paul said in another place, “Absent from the body is present with the Lord.” Moses and Elijah, who were both dead talked to Jesus on the mount of transfiguration.)

Christians who are bereaved are not like unbelievers who have no hope. Hope is like the air we breath. The lungs that keep that air pumping to sustain hope, is faith. And that is why, when a loved one dies, we can either descend into bitterness and anger against God or be sustained by faith. Death is either a time for our faith to grow or fizzle into gloom and anger with God.

Consider the response of the disciples when Jesus died. They descended into unrelieved grief. Their hope was gone. They didn’t believe in the promise of his resurrection. He had appeared to Mary Magdalene and others of the women. They had told the apostles, but the women’s account “appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them” (Luke 24:11). He appeared to two men on the road to Emmaus. They admitted their disappointment at Jesus’ death. They failed to believe Mary’s testimony and were going home to grieve. They said, “We were hoping that it was He who would redeem Israel.” He responded, ”O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25).

Later Jesus appeared to the apostles in a locked room where they had gone to grieve. They were startled and frightened…And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts. See my hands and my feet’” (Luke 24:37-39). Earlier, Thomas had been categorical in saying that he would not believe until he could touch Jesus wounds.

Death without faith results in hopelessness, gloom and despair. But fortunately, after the disciples realized that Jesus was indeed alive, they were transformed. They went out everywhere preaching the gospel in spite of persecution. The certainty Jesus generated in their hearts was due to his visible appearance. In our case it is due to trust in what is written. As Jesus said to Thomas, “Blessed are they who did not see yet believed” (John 20:29). Faith is the dividing line between those who have hope at the time of death and those who don’t.

I am grateful that God, by grace, moved me to believe in the Gospel. And so, during Mary Helen’s deteriorating health and eventual passing, hope and confidence in God’s goodness and love surrounded us like a blanket. Mary Helen longed to depart and be with Jesus. Could I deny that? No, God knows best. Faith and hope makes this painful loss bearable. It doesn’t still the tears nor fill the lonely hours. But underneath are the everlasting arms!

Mary Helen

Five months. What about now? I am left. From Scripture I know that suffering, sorrow, grief and pain have a redemptive purpose. Clearly, I have much to learn through my grieving. I pray that I will be teachable. And I pray that my “confessions and vulnerabilities” will help others. God is good—all the time—whether we feel it or not.

A wonderful verse I’ve recently reviewed summarizes the comfort we find and it challenges me to look to the future for that “good word and work”. “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work” (2 Thess. 2:16,17, KJV).

(There are other posts in this series, such as #11, that I have not shared. Some are too personal. Others are in flux.)

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