GRIEVING WITH HOPE

(Preached on Sunday, November 6, 2005)

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.       

-1 Thessalonians 4:13

 

Two ninety year old men, Moe and Sam, have been friends all their lives.  Sam is dying of cancer, and Moe comes to visit him every day.  “Sam,” says Moe, “you know how we have both loved baseball all our lives and how we played minor league ball together for so many years.  Sam, you have to do me one favor.  When you get to Heaven, somehow you’ve got to let me know if there’s baseball in Heaven.”  Sam looks up at Moe from his death bed.  “Moe, you’ve been my best friend many years.  This favor, if it is at all possible, I’ll do for you.”  Shortly after that, Sam dies.  It is midnight a couple of nights later.  Moe is sound asleep when he is awakened by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calls out to him, “Moe... Moe...”  “Who is it?” says Moe sitting up suddenly. “Who is it?”  “Moe, it’s me, Sam.”  “Come on.  You’re not Sam.  Sam just died.”  “It’s me, Sam!  I’m in heaven, and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve got really good news and a little bad news.”  “So, tell me the good news first,” says Moe.  “The good news,” says Sam “is that there is baseball in heaven.  Better yet, all our old buddies who’ve gone before us are there.  Better yet, we’re all young men again.  Better yet, it’s always spring time and it never rains or snows.  And best of all, we can play baseball all we want, and we never get tired.”  “Really?” says Moe, “that is fantastic, wonderful beyond my wildest dreams!  But, what’s the bad news?”  “You’re pitching next Tuesday!”

 

Yes, we can joke about death. And we need our jokes, for they do help us deal with death, by keeping it at arms length.

We also try to ignore it and avoid it as much as possible.

The November issue of National Geographic has a cover story entitled “The Secrets of Living Longer.”  It is about three populations of people, on Okinawa, Sardinia, and Seventh Day Adventists in California, who all live longer than average lives.  It analyzes their lifestyles and what each group does unique to them that contributes to this longevity and what traits they share in common that help them live longer.  But even these folks, though they are very healthy and live very long lives, still die.

 

Since September 11, 2001, we have lived with a keen awareness of the fragility of human life.  And we keep being reminded with tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, war, etc.

Also, people we know and love die with regularity.

I spoke with a woman this past week with whom I serve on a community board of directors.  I knew she had experienced a death in the family recently, but as I expressed my condolences she shared with me a very tragic story.  One of her daughters, in her mid-forties, married with two children, was on a camping trip in early October, fell and deeply bruised her thigh muscle.  Had it checked out at a hospital and was being treated for pain.  Developed hives the next week and returned to the doctor to be treated for that.  And the following Sunday, died of heart failure.  A very healthy woman in the prime of life and suddenly without any real warning, dead. 

 

How do we live in such circumstances?

How do we grieve?

A colleague in ministry estimates that in any congregation on any given Sunday, easily 99.9 percent of those present are in grief over someone.

That’s why we weep at funerals of near strangers.

That’s why we avoid funerals.  Grief keeps coming back at odd times, grabbing us from behind, and throwing us into deep sadness.

Loss has so many tentacles that hold us in their grip.

 

Paul affirms for the Thessalonians that yes, we grieve.

Yet, we do not grieve “as those who have no hope.”

We grieve, but never from despair. We mourn, we cry, we grieve our loss; the loss of an immediate relationship with someone we love.

The Thessalonians were upset, greatly concerned for their dead loved ones.  They were living with the expectation that Jesus would be returning within their life time to set up God’s new kingdom on earth.  They had not expected any of them to die, so they were distraught that some had died, Jesus had not yet returned, and what would happen to those loved ones when he did show up?

Paul assures them their loved ones will not be forgotten.  In fact, they will be the first to experience resurrection when Jesus returns.

 

We don’t have quite the same concerns they did; our concerns are tempered by 2,000 years of waiting for Jesus to return.

But we are still concerned about loved ones, because we do not know.  All of our hope is just that, hope.  And hope is based on faith.

None of which is certain.

 

But, as Paul says, we do have hope.

Many in our world do not have hope.

They have wishful thinking:   they assume some sort of afterlife, even a heaven to which all good people go (and most assume they are good).  But just what all that is, many in our world are not too sure. “I believe that, when you die, it’s like energy being released into the atmosphere.  When we die, our essence, our spirit just goes on and on,” she said.

Energy released into the atmosphere?  That’s not too comforting, is it?  Here is a living, breathing, loving human being.  Then there’s death and all that’s left is energy released into the atmosphere?

 

The hope of the Christian faith is considerably larger.  Our faith in eternal life has nothing to do with us, with some indomitable human essence that goes on and on and on.  Our hope is in a great, indomitable God who defeats death and, in love, rescues us, and brings us along too.

Our hope in the future is based upon what we know of Jesus in the present.  In Romans 8, Paul says that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.  If our experience with Jesus has taught us one thing, it is that our God longs to be with us, will do almost anything to be near us, will go to any lengths to have us.

That is the basis of our hope, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Our hope is not in some vague and wishful immortality of the soul, or expectation of some eternal spark that just goes on and on, reincarnation, or other assumption that we have within ourselves immortality.  Our hope is that the love of God is stronger than the devastation of death, that ultimately, nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Jesus the Christ.

God, having gone to such great lengths to save us and have us in life, will continue to demand us even in death.

That is why we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

 

That is also the hope that guides our living.

For it is an honest hope that acknowledges the reality of death, even though we know God has overcome death.

We also know that God has not cast death aside.

We know that we all still die, and even though death will not separate us from the love of God, it will separate us from this precious, glorious, priceless life we now know.

And so Paul tells us to encourage one another with this hope, both to inform our grieving, but also to inform our living.

 

Let me close with guiding words from two who have experienced the nearness of death.