“David took up his lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathon.” (2 Samuel 1:17 NIV)
King Saul had lost his sons in fierce battle with the Philistines. Additionally, he’d been wounded himself in the skirmish. Instead of waiting for infection to set in or healing to happen, Saul took matters into his own hands and fell on his sword in full view of his armor bearer. The armor bearer immediately determined himself to be an abysmal failure and joined his King in suicide. When David caught wind of this cacophony of loss, he was deeply grieved: mourning, weeping and fasting as described in 2 Samuel 1:12.
David’s grief over his adoptive family was complicated. He had loved Jonathon as a brother and had sought to serve Saul as a father. The relational dynamic was continually strained by Saul’s narcissism and emotional instability. David likely grieved the physical loss as well as the painful epiphany that relational wholeness was now permanently out of reach.
I get it. And I am encouraged by David’s brutal honesty amidst his deep sorrow. Several of the recent losses in my own story have been complicated, twisty connections leaving more questions than resolutions. I still spend many moments each day trying to make sense of past history, even though the strugglesome souls involved have already gone on Home. When such a perplexing person passes (or difficult season changes) in your story, the grief is convoluted, because your hopes for resolve often die along with them.
Eugene Peterson has helpful thoughts on dealing with loss. He writes:
“We don’t become mature human beings by getting lucky or cleverly circumventing loss, and certainly not by avoidance or distraction. Learn to lament… We are mortal, after all. We and everyone around us are scheduled for death (mortis). Get used to it. Take up your cross. It prepares us and those around us for resurrection.”
Death prepares us for resurrection. What a startling and redemptive revelation! What implications we find in such a statement! Death to our dreams and ambitions, death to ideals and agendas, death to our ego and carnality, death to self lays the requisite groundwork for resurrection. Even physical death (ours and others) prepares us for spiritual revival. Resurrection wouldn’t mean anything if we didn’t first have to die. Resurrection would be just another Tuesday without the painful business of death preceding it. We require death the way spring requires winter. The wild crocuses won’t bloom without first withstanding winter’s icy grip.
It’s interesting, on a Sunday afternoon errand, I discovered two sheep that recently moved into the area. “They are Dorper sheep”, their ninety-year-old owner informed me. He’d wanted a pair of Dorper sheep since he was a little boy. The sheep keeper leaned heavily into the saddle of his field-weary four wheeler and adjusted the cannula that fed oxygen to his failing heart. “Sheep are born looking for a place to die.” It was a startling sentence, especially as I considered the myriad of scriptural implications.
I’ve passed by the sheep several times since on my routine evening walk. My aged neighbor was telling the truth. In just a few short observations, I’ve already seen these animals run breakneck toward the fence only to face-plant into the barb-wire still full feet in front of their ambition. The sheep routinely traipse into the most dangerous parts of the yard where old tools and trailers lay hazards for hooves and ankles. At this point, the pair has even been separated for fear of injury amidst infighting, I’m sure.
It seems to me that we are born the same as sheep; looking for a place to die. We will blissfully spend our lives on so many lesser things: sacrificing our ourselves on the altars of wealth, popularity, position and power. The sheep remind me, we will die for something. What if we chose to die with Jesus, instead? What if we sacrificed our one little life for the sake of God’s glory?
Death does us a favor. Death sends a loud and clear alarm that something in this life is broken and lacking. Death alerts us to the fact that there must be something more, something beyond what we can hear and see and feel. We respond well to the bell tone of death when we let it’s ominous toll send us straight to God, determined about His ability to address our losses.
It occurs to me that even Jesus was subject to this system of death and resurrection. I’m reading Mark 9 again in preparation for Wednesday night’s discussion. It’s there, I notice, dear Jesus still attempting to prepare His disciples for His approaching demise and resurrection.
“because He was teaching His disciples, He said to them, “The Son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill Him and after three days, He will rise. But they did not understand and they were afraid to ask Him about it.” (Mark 9:30-32 NIV)
His disciples didn’t get this death and resurrection business any more than we do. And because it was hard teaching, they shied away. This is also our tendency; we pull back from the things that hurt, the things that confuse or frighten or frustrate. But we learn from Jesus’ interaction with His friends that we can ask God anything. There’s no point in retreating with our concerns, He already knows the questions that assault our hearts.
Instead of avoidance (which proves ineffective) we can bring our inquiries and pain straight to the throne room for divine insight. We may not like the answers, but we will receive divine clarification, for sure.
If we can’t find the courage to take our questions to Jesus, they will consume us. The disciples were totally paralyzed in their fear and frustration over Jesus’ teaching about His approaching death. They were useless for ministry and just about everything else until they got this issue resolved. It was only, really, after the Resurrection and Pentecost that they began to fully recover.
Friend, we can recover quicker and return to ministry sooner when we bring our tough questions to the Lord and let Him teach us all about death and resurrection. He alone can explain His process in a way that both pierces and comforts our aching hearts. Grieving without God is a miserable and unresolvable experience. Apart from our Heavenly Father, we get stuck in our losses indefinitely, convinced that something has gone horribly awry and blind to God’s bigger, better plan. Don’t get stuck. Take your inquiries to the One who can absorb the interrogation and love you through it.
Lord, today we are learning that loss is inevitable, it is the byproduct of brokenness and the planned interruption of existence. We are also learning how death lays the groundwork for resurrection, a promise we are still laying hold of. Please meet us in the midst of our grief. Give us courage enough to ask our questions. Give us grace to lament and still hold fast to hope. May the expectation of resurrection eventually eclipse our fears about death. Amen.