My Only Comfort In Life and in Death - 10/18/2019

This morning I learned of the death of a college classmate.  Celebrating their 30th anniversary, she and her husband were vacationing in Italy when the wife died in a tragic accident.  While students at Dordt College, I knew who she and her boyfriend -- and then husband -- were, but I really did not know them.  He was a basketball jock, and she was a musician, if I remember correctly.  Unfortunately I didn't hang out with athletes at all, and very little with many serious musicians.

On a very cold and snowy January this past year, I finally got to know this couple just a bit.  They are members of a supporting church in Sioux Falls, SD, and led the junior high/high school Sunday school class to which I had been invited to share about my ministry in Japan.  Harry is a very kind man, with a gentle spirit I hadn't expected.  He treated the students with patience and a little humor, despite how squirrelly these young teens may have been.  Dori was an exceptionally gracious woman.  It was soon apparent that she was not only highly knowledgeable of the Bible, but her gentle spirit reflected her love of Jesus Christ and of those around her.  Although my time with the class was brief, I regretted having such a limited circle of friends while in college.

My heart breaks for Harry and his children.  How utterly horrible to lose a loved one who is so full of love and life one moment, and then gone the next.  Her loss leaves a gaping hole in the hearts and lives of her family and her church.  How does a spouse, family, church, go on?

Death comes to each of us, sometimes much sooner than we expect.  It's so final;  so scary;  so unnatural -- but that's a blog for another time.  So I pose the question again:  how do we go on with life following the death of a loved one?

In the first letter from the Apostle Paul to the Christian church in the city of Thessalonica, he says to them, "But we do not want you to be uniformed, brothers, about 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, so even, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep" (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).

Some Christians may say we shouldn't mourn the death of a saint;  after all, they are now with Jesus.  Considering that Jesus Christ himself mourned at the loss of his friend, Lazarus, these Christians could not be more wrong in their calloused attempt to comfort the mourning.  The verses above say that we should not mourn in the same way as those who have no hope.  We do mourn, but we mourn with hope.  And what is that hope?  That Jesus Christ himself died to take the punishment for sin that you and I deserve, but that he then defeated death, rising back to life so that we too may have life that never ends -- life with God in heaven, where there is no death, no pain, no tears.

Perhaps you too have lost people you love.  In the span of just 13 months, in 2015-2016, I lost both my dad and my sister;  I know the sting of death.  Perhaps especially those of you who have lost a spouse or a child can attest that you don't "get over" the death.  But if you know Jesus, and especially if your loved one loved Jesus, you also can attest that your mourning is not without hope.

If you do not feel the sense of hope that persists even through life's most difficult times, I plead with you to pray to God, to confess that you are a sinner in need of salvation, and to trust that what you could never accomplish on your own, God has already done for you.  If you want to ask questions, or seek guidance in any of this, please reach out to me or to another trusted Christian friend or pastor.

Life is hard.  But in Christ, there is a hope that does not disappoint.