Some weeks are harder than others. This is one of those more challenging weeks. It is the great irony of our Christian faith, isn’t it? We ground our lives in the hope of the life to come. So, we trust & know our loved ones are in glory when they pass from this earthly realm. Yet, there is a hole in our lives filled with grief & sorrow, sometimes anger & deep pain, perhaps guilt over a feeling of relief, or any other combination of seemingly “wrong” emotions.” If the hope is the glory to come, shouldn’t we rejoice when believers pass from this world because they have gone on to that next place? This hope is why, in his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes that for him to live is Christ & to die is gain. Living in this world is living as Christ, which is awesome, yet dying is better because it means he will be with Christ in eternity. The intellectual knowing of these truths does not create a magical relief & release from the grief & heartache of our loss in this world; the hole in our hearts & lives remains.
As a pastor, there is a sacredness of journeying with people in their grief. It is humbling to sit with people in the rawness & vulnerability of physical death. When I was early in answering my call to ministry, I distinctly remember a conversation with a mentor in which I said I didn’t want to do funerals. Having spent my 20s in the space of dual diagnosis counseling, I worked with numerous people struggling with addiction & many of them did not survive in this world. I had no desire to return to the emotional space of physical death. However, in God’s infinite wisdom, I have found a restoration & feeding of my soul as I sit in the face of death, holding space of pastoral care rather than clinical counseling. In these moments, we can draw closer to the Source of Life or turn toward the pains grounded in this world.
Perhaps when a faithful servant is called home, the best way we can honor that person is through steadfastness in our own journey. Loving God through sharing our faith, loving others through care & consideration, & transforming the world through obeying the still, small voice that calls to us. Honoring the hole in our hearts, acknowledging it’s there, even as we hear the echoes of a voice we won’t hear again this side of glory. Then we pick ourselves up, go to our next meeting, tackle our next task, and play the next game with our children (or grandchildren), seeing how life continues on this side of glory. And doing what we can at that moment to honor the one who has now heard, “Well done, good & faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
In Christ’s Love,
