Recently I learned of the passing of two people. The first was a sweet 14-year-old. The second was an old saint of God, 101 years old. Family and friends are grieving their loss.
Succinctly, grief is the price we pay for loving someone. When we love someone, we become vulnerable to loss and to grief. Yet, to me, not loving at all would be a far worse way to live.
The Scriptures remind us that as Christians we do grieve but we grieve differently from the world. We grieve with hope. “And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.” [1Thessalonians 4:13 NLT]
That does not mean we hurt less. It means we have something incorporated into our mourning that those do not have who live apart from the LORD – HOPE.
We have the hope that this life is not all there is … in fact, this life is a brief burst that will take on eternity when we enter the presence of the LORD we love. There we will gather around the throne with the saints of all the ages. There we will be reunited with loved ones who have entered that eternity before us. There our hope will be fulfilled.
And still, I remember that short little verse in John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”
The very LORD who is our Living Hope stood outside the tomb of His friend, Lazarus, and His Heart broke for all those affected by death—even while He knew that in the next few moments, He would raise Lazarus from the grave.
Loss hurts. We grieve.
