“Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:22 NIV)
Yesterday I came across an old photo of my mom. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost five years since she went Home. I am still surprised how grief comes around the corner and accosts me in unexpected moments. I’ve been missing her a lot as we are having conversations and making decisions about the road ahead. She was always such an invaluable resource; a sounding board, a cheerleader, a mentor, a friend.
This life contains a strange tangle of grief and joy. They are inexplicably interwoven into the fabric our stories. We want to open our hearts to love, but the risk of loss is oh-so-high. We can only protect ourselves in isolation: but behind a high wall we feel neither joy nor grief.
The disciples knew great joy, they had walked in step with their Messiah in ever-deepening relationship for three full years. They also knew great loss, when the crucifixion came and their relationship, their hope was was interrupted. We think we’ve felt loss but we have not known the loss of the One who could cure death as they did. There have never been longer days between Friday and Sunday, then the hours the disciples endured as they were forced to face the reality of loving and losing Christ.
I remember this summation so clearly in the days after my mom died, calculating the cost of loving deeply and coming to the conclusion of that terrible, terrible subtraction. Loving her incurred a loss that I will bear till the day I die. And I look around at all the others, so dear in my life, the people I’ve come to love deeply. One day I’ll face their loss, too, or them, mine.
But what hope would we have without love? What is life without the intimate connection, apart from friendship, camaraderie, and relationship? Life behind the wall of isolation is dull, dreary, duty. It’s meaningless and joyless. Love is what sets life afire, what makes our days zing with the electricity of interconnection. And loves comes with loss, at least for a season.
Jesus reminds us how to cope with loss. He cups our chin and says “But I will see you again.” We can’t afford to forget, He’s coming back. The landowner will return, the Master will come home, the Groom will collect His Bride and then “no one will take away our joy”!
Death will be satisfied. Loss will subside. The gaping hole of grief will be once and for all filled with the King and Kingdom that reign forever.
Our task in sorrow today is taking our Savior at His word. He will be back. Believe Him enough to do the things He’s asked us to do in His absence: to go and tell the world, to make disciples and to do it all in love. Every day we stay faithful to the mission, we proclaim our belief in His return. Every day we are faithful, we are one day closer to a joy that will never end.
“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; He will remove His people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:8 NIV)
Death is a direct result of our disgrace, our sin. That’s why it feels terribly unfair; it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Creation was never meant to endure such loss. We were meant to live in the Garden forever in fellowship with our God. In His mercy, He sent His son, a divine rescue initiative with unbelievably high stakes. In obedience to His Father and in accordance with His unfathomable love for us, Jesus fulfilled the obligation and welcomes us back in to the Garden. Death and tears and deep injustice will be nothing more than the faintest memory; their pain long forgotten in the beauty of being with God.
“In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted Him, and He saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in Him, let us rejoice
and be glad in His salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9 NIV)
Lord, help us keep loss in proper perspective. May grief send our eyes upward, searching the skies for Your return. May the unfair nature of death remind us of the brokenness of this world and whet our appetite for the hereafter. Remind us again that this is not the end of our story, but the very beginning and the latter years will be without loss altogether. Amen.