Dear Friends,

Although I did not seek them, I was touched by the responses I received to my message about the death of my wife Patricia.

Some of you are struggling with grievous losses and struggles of your own. Thank you for sharing, I am holding you up in prayer.

On the second night after Patricia died, I went back and searched my writings on the subject of death and grief. I found this message from January 23, 2004. It was an outgrowth of an exchange of letters with a dear friend, mentor and client who was struggling with the tragic death of three members of his family.

His anguish and struggle was so profound that it caused me to think through carefully what I believed about death and eternal life as a Christ follower. My study led me to the Scriptural stones that are the bedrock of my faith in the God of eternity. That bedrock is what I am resting on in my current sorrow.

My faith has strengthened over the fourteen years since I first wrote this. I miss Patricia terribly, but I have peace about the Christ whose life she took as her own. She’d read this message and discussed it with me more than once. It represents her belief as well.

I hope you are encouraged by reading the thoughts that follow–
…
He went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise! The dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country (Luke 7:11-17).
.
There’s nothing like a resurrection to get things stirred up in a small town!

Jesus walked in with his excited crowd of followers and met the weeping widow going out with her crowd of mourners. It made for some drama.

The Creator of the world hates death. Jesus never encountered a dead person in his three years of ministry that he left in that condition. The death of a friend was the only recorded circumstance that caused him to weep (John 11:35). He came as the Savior and the Savior loves life. That is what makes him the Savior. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The quest to give his fallen children light led the Son of God through a human death on the cross and out the other side into life. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that the entire hope of Christianity rests in the success of that journey. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17).

The mom’s tears wrenched Jesus’ gut. The next few moments must have been like a slow motion film. “Do not weep,” he told her. He stepped up and touched the coffin and the pall bearers stopped. He commanded the dead boy to rise and he sat up and started talking. Jesus motioned for the mother to step up and hold her son. Then he stepped back. The onlookers weren’t entirely sure how it happened but they knew it was God and grace that made it happen.

It is a measurement of the gap between God’s intention and sinful human reality that what Jesus saw as the natural response to grief caused shock and awe among the onlookers.

Funerals and celebrations of life can be moments of enormous comfort. I have found comfort there in expressions of gratitude for the remembered love of the departed one and the strengthened life of the living. I have been encouraged by laughter responding to the testimony of a life well-lived with enjoyment regardless of the vagaries of the human experience. I have been renewed by the companionship of the faithful.

What makes all the difference is honesty. There is nothing like a real death to knock the stuffing out of a pretend life. Death puts the living on the witness stand under oath and demands answers. What happens now? Why are you alive and your friend or loved one dead?

As a healthcare attorney who often consults on end-of-life issues, I see that the persons with peace at the end have thought through these things in advance and come to terms with human mortality. The persons who have hope when facing the loss of a loved one find that all their questions and all the promises of God converge in Christ (2 Cor 1:20).

The Apostle Paul put it this way –
.
For since death came through a human being, the resurrection from the dead will also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under Christ’s feet (1 Cor 15:22-27).
.
Contrary to New Age philosophers, simpering counselors, platitude-preaching pop hymns, and list-checking legalists, eternal life depends upon its Creator and Savior, not in right living, positive thinking or good feelings. Either God gives us eternal life or there is none to be had.

The question was put to the test when Jesus approached the coffin at the gate of Nain. The name Nain itself is a derivative of the Hebrew word for a pleasant place to live. The presence of Jesus Christ made this true for the young man and his mother. The presence of the gracious and merciful Jesus Christ has the same transforming power for you and me. He will take us out of darkeness and into light.

When we agonize about death, when we fantasize about what might have been, when we dwell in the hovel of regret and demand that God change our circumstances here and now, we are in the worst denial of all–the denial of God’s redeeming grace. We cry out with Martha and Mary, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32).

Jesus answers, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they will die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).

The importance of this belief sank home to me with a letter I received in December of 1991 from a beloved friend and client who had been employed by his church before entering business. His letter revealed a faithful love for God, but he was troubled in soul and spirit. Although the business had accomplished many successes, he was struggling with the tragic loss of family members through an accident. The family business was also facing financial challenges.

He wrote to me—
.
These last two years have been the most difficult of my life, and sometimes I have to stop and wonder why! I even find myself, sometimes really arguing a case with God as I’m driving along the highway. Looking back, I am made aware of the very good and pleasant experience I had over the years I served the church. I do not recall any real or threatening crises in all those years — no cash flow problems, no serious interpersonal differences, no serious personal or family problems. So, as I study God’s Word now, I’m having to conclude that there are flaws in my character that will only be removed through trial and tribulation, and that God cares enough to allow me to go through this.
.
My heart went out to my friend in his pain, and his agonizing about God. I prayed about it, studied the Scriptures, and wrote him back these thoughts about the Christ who loves us and hates death.
.

Thank you for your letter. It was good to hear from you. I am grieved by your trials and I take joy in your hope.

I take real issue with your thought that God has beset you with affliction to work out hidden flaws in your character. The God that you and I know would never demand the lives of your loved ones as the cost of refining your soul. That would be a futile religion of human sacrifice, not the grace, mercy and hope beyond death to which we are called.

It is true that “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17). All God asks, however, is this sacrifice, the surrender of our heart and spirit to him. Then He will rebuild (Ps. 51:18). That is His condition and that is His promise.

As to our weaknesses, He says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2. Cor. 12:4). This is a hard, hurtful world in the ravages of sin, but we have a hope and an assurance and we have a God who loves us and puts us into the big picture of eternity. “So we do not lose heart though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16-17).

Satan is an accuser and a liar. He robs us of our confidence and our earthly relationships. He would leave us without hope. ButChrist is our hope–

“Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom. 5:1-5).

This world is not our home. It is neither your home nor mine nor does it belong to those dear ones you have lost this year. Christ has prepared a place for us and He will come again.

The critical issues for us are these it seems to me: Where is our treasure? Where is our heart? If we cling to what was and what could have been on this earth, we make the mistake of Adam and Eve. We trade for the knowledge of good and evil and take it in exchange for an eternal life relationship with the Creator, the source of life. Thus Paul wrote, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19).

In Christ we are all made alive forever. Those that overcome and are victorious do not settle for what was and what could have been on this earth. “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives, even unto death” (Rev. 12:10-11).

You have suffered a terrible loss. Words would be inadequate to describe it and even if I had the words, it would be wrong to presume myself into your grief, “For the heart knows its own bitterness and no stranger knows its joy” (Prov. 14:10).

But we have a Savior whose love does not end, who makes all things new and who makes for us a new heaven and a new earth. That is our assurance.

That’s why Paul could write with such confidence, “We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess. 4:13-14). “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press forward to the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).

The Apostle John, in lonely exile on Patmos, was shown it all by Christ– the final affliction, persecutions, hardships and conflicts of the great controversy between Christ and Satan. John saw it all — the blood, the pain, the darkness and the ultimate triumph of the King on the white horse and he concluded the Bible with this, “Amen. Come Lord Jesus! May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen” (Rev. 22:21-22). You are one of those saints! The Lord’s grace is sufficient for you. I love you.

I learned these things in facing my own losses. I believe them today through my grief even more than I did years ago when I wrote the letter to my friend. Because Jesus lives, we can face tomorrow. That is the truth of our hardest days and darkest nights.

Deathbeds, coffins, tombs are the ultimate repositories of human aspiration, but Jesus emptied all of them that he encountered the first time around and he will finish the job on his return (1 Cor. 15:42-57; 1 Thess. 4:16-17).

Jesus walked into Nain that day, saw the dead boy and the weeping mother, and he wouldn’t put up with it. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Expect the same reactions from him throughout eternity.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

————————–