Grief And Hope

Focus verses: I Thessalonians 4:13-18

Grief comes to all of us from time to time. The loss of a friend or family member, loss of a job or precious possession, or wayward children can grieve us. Somehow, I seem always to have known that such grief is temporary - a reflection of our personal emotions at a specific moment in time - not a permanent condition.

It might have been Doctor G. who quoted the phrase "grieve not as them who have no hope." I was absolutely certain that it came from this passage of scripture. But I could not find those exact words in any of the translations on biblegateway.com. That quote might just have been a paraphrase rather than a quote. At any rate, the sense is certainly from this passage.

Doctor G. stood as godfather at my baptism in the Lutheran church. He was a rock-solid foundation in my life. A spiritually wise man, he taught me many things. But more than that, he infected me with the joy of the Lord and an educated faith in Jesus.

He was a bible scholar, a student of the word, and a poet. On my twelfth birthday, he gave me a scrapbook which he had put together with his own hands. And he wrote this poem about him and me and heaven. It's long, so I'll just quote the pertinent verses here.

You are twelve years old today, dear,
And I'm past seventy-three.
With back to back we're dreaming,
But it's different things we see.

You look AT the golden sunrise,
See dream castle in the mist:
It's the road ahead for you, dear -
Life at its borning best.
___

I look THROUGH the golden sunset,
With its beckoning promise bright
To a day without a sundown,
Where it's always day - not night.
___

And when you have passed the Sunset
To the day without Sundown,
When Life's pilgrimage is over,
And you've won your victor's crown;

I'll be at the gate of heaven,
With glad heart to see you come;
Glad to welcome you, my daughter,
Into our Eternal Home.

- HWG

His knowledge of the word and my faith in his always telling me the exact truth - pleasant or unpleasant - gave me the assurance that this life is not all there is. I can grieve a loss, but it doesn't decimate me.

My friend was the sister in a family with two brothers. She lost first one and then the other. At the funeral of the second brother, I went to hug her. Her grief was not only obvious, but it was painful to see. There was an element of hopelessness in it that I had never seen before. She could not be comforted.

Paul doesn't say here that we don't grieve. We simply do not grieve as those people who have no hope of Christ and the resurrection - no hope of heaven.

Father, God,

Grant that we may always keep our eyes upon You, not on the attractions of this world. Let us see with the eternal perspective the ultimate good in Your will, no matter how it looks from an earthly perspective.

In Jesus' most precious name.
Amen.