English psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes wrote “The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love; it is, perhaps, the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.” We can see the truth that is in this statement in the third chapter of Lamentations, the center point of the book, traditionally by Jeremiah, grappling with the fall of Jerusalem.
Grief is part of our experience of life. “Life is pain… and anyone who says differently is selling something.” We learn something when we accept that the life we live in is peppered with grief and will end in grief. This is a truth that we want to ignore but that scripture implores us to address head on.
The book of Lamentations does so forcefully. Jeremiah and those around him have watched the temple – the connection point between the creator of the universe and His chosen people – be destroyed by pagans, who have slaughtered those people and scattered them across their sprawling empire. The sorrow goes even deeper, though, with all this coming as a judgement against the people of Israel for their sin.
In this life, we all bear the consequences of sin – toil, death, suffering, loss. Our hearts break when we lose what is meaningful to us. Grief is an expression of what our heart loves, but also of the eternal perspective God has placed in our hearts.
Some people seem to think that sorrow and grief are an indication of a lack of faith. But we see from Jesus’ tears at the tomb of Lazarus that this is not the case. Our grief and loss and death and evil is an awareness that something in this world is not right. There is something broken, something wrong, and our hearts know this at their very core.
How we handle our grief matters. Jesus calls us to walk well in our grief, and when our grief aligns with the heart of God it is more a sign of weakness or doubt but rather entering into the process of life. Jesus grieved, Paul grieved, David grieved, Jeremiah grieved, Moses grieved and all who came before us grieved.
Grief happens in a larger context. Grief is a result of the Fall, but there is a bigger story than that. Grief is for but a moment because we do not grieve apart from God and His truth. In grief, God has provided us with two tools. One of those is patience – the author of Lamentations did not live the 70 years it took for God’s people to come back to Jerusalem. The other is the promise that God is faithful.
We will one day walk in wholeness because of the blood of Jesus Christ. This is why Paul can tell those in 1 Thessalonians that we do not grieve like those who have no hope. We experience the grief now, but it is a reminder that we have a future of wholeness. Our grief is not hopeless, but rather a lifeline to eternity. God is with us and working His God and perfect will. There is Joy on the other side of our grief.
If we are in Christ we grieve with hope.
– Sermon Notes, Jeff Sickles, Snohomish Evangelical Free Church, Snohomish, WA, November 7, 2021