I
Thessalonians 4:13
Last Tuesday,
6/6/06, I heard a lot of unsound theology on the radio. Somewhere, someone had realized that by
dropping the zero you have the always-ominous “666.” That number, which the Revelation associates
with the earthly leader of the anti-God squad, has become a springboard for all
kinds of speculation, a cause of fear, and a great marketing tool.
This wasn’t what
Paul had in mind as he wrote to the Thessalonian Christians. Some in the church were wrestling with
grief. They had lost loved ones and
mistakenly thought their deaths had somehow abrogated or invalidated the
promise of the gospel. Paul corrected
their misunderstanding and then told them, “comfort
and encourage each other with these words.”
Paul meant the insights of our faith can be a source of comfort to
those grieving.
But how do we do
this? It isn’t easy. Yes, it helps if we’re trying to comfort
someone who shares our world-view but that doesn’t always mean we will have an
easy task.
The Character of Grief
Doing this work
demands we understand something about the character of grief.
Les Carter has
given a helpful definition of grief.
Grief is the emotion that most often accompanies
loss. It is a feeling of anguish,
sorrow, or longing for the person or thing that is gone; regret over something
done or unfulfilled. More than just a
singular emotion, grief often causes a person to sort through many thoughts,
feelings, and questions.
In reality, grief
is a medley of emotions in which one emotion may, at times, sound out louder
than the rest or all the emotions may sound out at once, creating a cacophony
of feeling.
While there’s no
doubt that people experience grief differently, it seems certain any
demand that we greet loss with a Stoic demeanor is wrong. I’ve known of parents who have forbidden
their children to cry at the funeral of a beloved relative. That’s just wrong.
Tears are a normal
part of the human experience of loss.
Expressions of grief will vary from person to person, but failure to
grieve a loss in some manner is a warning not a blessing. Failure to grieve can be emotionally
hazardous. Yet, many believers think
this is the Christian thing to do.
Whether you’ve
experienced the loss or someone else has, you need to respect the grieving
process. It is a sign that the grieving
one is capable of caring deeply.
Standing outside the tomb of his friend Lazarus, Jesus wept deeply. The story goes on to suggest that Jesus felt
a deep anger at death and its ravaging ways.
Grief is not a
sign of a loss of faith. Anyone
suggesting that probably fails to understand
the nature of
grief and the dimensions of the faith.
Sometimes when a person receives a physical blow, they’re
momentarily dazed. When they come around
they may ask, “Where am I? What
happened?” On rare occasions, they may
even experience temporary amnesia and ask, “Who am I?”
Doesn’t the same thing sometimes happen to us
spiritually and emotionally? We receive a hard blow--like the loss of a
loved-one or some other loss--and we momentarily forget who we are. We forget we are loved by a God who is good,
caring, and wise; a God who wants only the best for us.
Victims of amnesia have to be allowed, with gentle
help, to rediscover their identity on their own. Perhaps victims of this kind of emotional and
spiritual amnesia are best helped when we allow them to rediscover their
spiritual identity on their own. We may
gently share a scripture, a promise, an insight but we have to avoid any kind
of bullying to force them to remember.
We have no right to try to force a grieving person to behave as we
imagine a person of faith would behave.
Simply put, not everyone is ready to sing “It is
Well with My Soul” as a loved one’s casket slips into the ground.
Since people experience grief differently, grief
shouldn’t be rushed. The notion of a
prescribed mourning period seems old-fashioned to us but at least it reflects
the understanding that grief takes time.
While people experience grief differently, grief
usually follows a somewhat predictable pattern.
A person may experience each facet of grief
more than once in the process. Those
facets are:
à Shock and crying.
à
Hostility.
à
Guilt.
à Restless activity (starting and
not finishing projects).
à Usual life activities lose their
importance
None of these
things should shock us whether we are experiencing grief or observing grief in
another. They are part of the reality
behind the truth that grief is hard work.
The work is hard
but the time will come when grief begins to abate.
This, then, is the
character of grief. Once we have a grasp
of grief’s nature, we’re better able to be a friend to the grieving.
A Friend to the Grieving
Paul’s words to
the Thessalonians burst with profound ideas, yet don’t you find it interesting
he doesn’t conclude this passage by saying, “Now,
debate these words among yourselves?”
He’s calling us to
be a friend of the grieving. He wants us
to be sensitive to the emotional and spiritual needs of those around us. How can we be this friend in a time of grief?
We’re able to
offer that help, in part, because of the foundation of faith on which we
stand. Remember of how Lucy and Linus
were once looking out a window at a downpour.
A worried Lucy asked, “What if the world floods?” Linus answered, “In Genesis chapter nine God
said he would never again destroy the world with a flood.” Breathing a sigh of relief, Lucy says,
“You’ve taken a great load off my mind.”
Linus simply responded, “Sound theology has a way of doing that.”
But, have we
always been careful to use the doctrine of the Second Coming to take comfort
and encourage?
All theology should have some practical
application, be useful to our day-to-day faith. I can’t think of any other place in the
Bible where this is more explicitly illustrated than I Thessalonians 4:18.
Paul grounded the possibility of true comfort to
the grieving on what he had just said about Christ’s Second Coming. Christians could draw upon this great hope in
speaking to their bereaved brothers and sisters in Christ.
This gave them a distinctively different
perspective than that of their non-Christian neighbors when it came to offering
comfort to those who had lost loved ones.
Early in the 20th century, a letter from
a second-century Egyptian woman was discovered and published. Her name was Irene and she was writing to
friends whose son had died. She tells
them that she weeps with them, just as she had wept over her own recent loss,
assures them they had done everything fitting to honor his memory, and then
adds: “But, nevertheless, against such
things one can do nothing. Therefore
comfort one another. Fare ye well!”
Unlike Irene, Christians have something of
substance to say to mourners.
There may be many Christian affirmations which
provide comfort to those struggling with the loss of loved ones but, in this
place at least, Paul recommends those associated with Christ’s Return.
That’s an important reason for being careful how we
regard this doctrine. Paul gives us
enough information to comfort one another, not enough information to allow us
to wildly speculate about the future.
When we do speculate about such things we leave ourselves open to making
foolish pronouncements which might eventually cast doubt on other things we
say.
One of the finest Old Testament scholars of the 20th
century is remembered not only for his contributions to the field but also for
his suggestion that Nikita Khrushchev might very well be the Anti-Christ.
In trying to unwrap the many images and
word-pictures we have in passages like this, we need to exercise restraint and
seek balance.
I appreciate what Nazarene Arnold Airhart says:
“In describing so indescribable an event the use of symbols is helpful,
but we may take Barclay’s warning against a ‘crude and insensitive literalism,’
at least as respects details involving the physical senses. We should resist however, as a fatal blow to
the Christian hope, any view which makes this passage a piece of so-called New
Testament mythology. Unless the
language itself is false, the events described are literally promised in time,
and thus necessarily in space also. One
cannot be comforted by a mythology any more than he can be warmed by a painted
fire. We are assured because this is the
‘word of the Lord.’”[1]
With that in mind, how does this cluster of
doctrines comfort us?`
Let’s focus on one area, the promise of the
resurrection.
At the heart of that promise is the expectation of
a radical transformation. In I
Corinthians 15, Paul says that both dead and living Christians will be
transformed at the time of the Second Coming.
We usually apply this to our physical bodies: We speak of the feeble having endless
strength, of the blind seeing, of the lame being able to leap with joy. Sometimes, we may even become more specific
and speak of how a believer's cancer-ravaged body will be whole and free from
pain.
The emphasis on the physical transformation that
will take place is appropriate, but we might be missing the full picture.
I was well into my adult years before I finally and
reluctantly acknowledged my mother had, for as long as I could remember,
suffered from some form of mental illness.
In fact, at her funeral, an older cousin of mine told Pat that my
mother’s attitudes and behavior had always been strange.
There were hints, but not the kind of hints a
little boy would notice. My parents had
no friends. We went to church but we
never saw fellow church members outside the church. When my parents shopped for anything other
than groceries, we crossed the River and shopped in St. Louis, to avoid seeing
people we might know.
There was my mother’s obsession with death. There was her temper which my father went to
great lengths to avoid arousing.
My mother didn’t learn to drive until I was about
twelve, so my father had to take her to the store, the doctor, or anywhere else
she wanted to go. They would never use a
baby sitter, so I went with them for my mother’s regular visits to a “nerve
specialist.” I didn’t know what a nerve
specialist was but I knew my father often told me that my mother had “nerve
problems." My father and I would
walk around the local stores or just sit in the car while she visited with Dr.
Friedman.
Years later, now an adult, I was in that St. Louis
neighborhood and walked past the familiar building. I glanced at the sign that still had Dr.
Friedman’s name on it. He was listed as
a psychiatrist. She never talked much
about Dr. Friedman but I do recall one of her favorite mottos was, “those
doctors don’t know anything.”
As she grew older, her paranoia and her fixations
became more prominent. She took delight
in saying hurtful things. She made it
clear she didn’t like Pat. When we were
going through a particularly tough time because some major plans we had failed,
she said, “God is punishing you because you’re too proud.” We lived hundreds of miles away but called
her weekly, tried to visit a couple times a year, and regularly issued an open
invitation for her to visit us. Yet, she
once told our boys--her only grandsons--that they were no more to her than the
children she didn’t know playing down the street. (She was incensed that I would leave that
“little country church” in Texas to go to a “big city” church in Ohio.)
Our visits to her were so stressful that almost
every evening while our family was in that little Missouri town the four of us
would find some reason to make a late night visit to the Wal-Mart Super Center
(this was back when the super centers were still experimental and that store
was one of only two). Some of you may
not like Wal-Mart but we looked at that store as a resource for maintaining
mental health. We got to know the stock
really well and the staff began to think we were casing the joint. (This might shock and disappoint some of you
but you weren’t there. Besides I came
away with a bit more compassion for those who have had to deal with parents,
children, and siblings who suffer from mental illness.)
My mother died early in 2001, a couple months after
I had placed her in a nursing home because she had started blacking out and
falling at home. It was in Missouri so
she’d be close to the few people she knew.
The last time I saw her she accused me of selling
her house and pocketing the money. (Her
house was sitting empty, still in her name.)
She also ominously told me that I’d be sorry I put her there; that she
wasn’t going to live like that. I don’t
believe my mother took her own life but I doubt she did much to cooperate with
her caregivers.
Just after the funeral, Pat made an observation I
had never thought about. The preacher
had cited Paul’s words about our being changed in the twinkling of an eye. He, of course, applied it to my mother’s
physical body. But Pat said, “Why
shouldn’t it be true of her mind as well.
Maybe for the first time in a long time your mother is mentally well.”
The Bible doesn’t specifically promise that, yet it
makes sense. I shared that long personal
account because I want us to think of this powerful transformation in ways
broader than we might traditionally do.
We need to think in view of what is in store in the future God has in
story for those in Christ.
If the miracles of Jesus were signals of the
closeness of God’s Kingdom, if they showed us something of that Kingdom’s power
and character, then we can look at them to get a foretaste of the world to
come. For example, Jesus’ liberation of
the Gadarean demoniacs from the power of Satan would become a clue to what we
might find in God’s new order. Shouldn’t
we expect that one day, in heaven, we will find those brothers and sisters who
suffered chronic depression, schizophrenia, fear, or other emotional problems—whatever
the cause—sitting with Jesus, clothed and in their right minds?
When Paul tells us to comfort one another with
these words, he is inviting us to use our sanctified imaginations to
apply these truths to our hurts and pain, and to the pains and hurts of others.
Whether writing to
the Corinthians about the resurrection or to the Thessalonians about the Second
Coming, Paul used sound theology to temper the power of grief with the power of
hope. Not every grieving Christian is
immediately ready to hear that message, but all will ultimately benefit from
it. You probably shouldn’t plan to give
an unsolicited lecture on the theology of heaven while standing shivering in a
cemetery in January but you should be ready to answer, in simple terms,
questions your grieving friend may ask.
We’re also able to
be a friend to the grieving as we demonstrate informed compassion.
Such informed
compassion certainly involves a basic knowledge of the dynamics of grief. We don’t need degrees in psychology or
counseling but we do need to take the time to reflect on how we have seen grief
work itself out in the lives of others.
Sometimes, this
thoughtful compassion grows from our own experience of grief. Paul says in 2 Corinthians that God “…comes
alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings
us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be
there for that person just as God was there for us.”
Paul is not simply
talking about grief; he’s speaking of a variety of troubles. Yet, what he says has a twofold application
for those who would be a friend to the grieving. First, we’ve all been in situations in which
we’ve experienced loss and needed comfort.
Second, we are better able to comfort others when we draw upon our own
experiences and recall what helped us in those dark days.
With that in mind
let me outline how you might be a friend to the grieving.
1. If you would be a friend to the grieving,
recognize that each grieving person has certain fundamental needs.
--Grieving persons
need safe places. (Where they may weep
without shame, rage without censure.)
--Grieving persons
need safe people. (People who will not
demand too much of them or treat them as incompetent.)
--Grieving persons
need safe situations. (Situation where
they may ease back into the flow of life.)
2. If you would be a friend to the grieving,
remember that being available is more important that being astute.
Most mourners
would probably prefer having a friend who quietly cares that having a friend
who thinks he has all the answers.
3. If you would be a friend to the grieving,
be ready to acknowledge there may be times when you come to the limit of your
ability.
Sometimes grief
becomes destructive and unhealthy. If
you sense this, your friend may need the help of a specialist. This is especially true if you suspect your
friend may be hurting himself or herself.
4. If you would be a friend to the grieving,
keep in mind that mourners often have very mundane needs.
This may be as
simple as making sure there’s milk and bread in the house or helping relatives
get to and from the airport. As the
shock of the loss begins to abate, they will be able to care for more for
everyday needs, but during the initial stages, they may need some help.
Make yourself
available for the long haul but avoid the suggestion that the mourner is
helpless.
5. If you would be a friend to the grieving,
stand ready to welcome them back into the business of living.
In the final
stages of grief, your friend may be ready to take some tentative steps back
into the routines of life. You won’t
want to hurry them, but do be there when they’re ready.
Conclusion
Several years ago
I wrote a column for the Worthington News on Jackie Deems, a woman who had lost
her son to a devastating illness and, out of that experience, found meaning in
trying to help others who were grieving.
This was the only
column I wrote which received a response from people in the community. A family whose teenaged son had suddenly died
a few years before asked me to visit them.
They wanted to tell me they had found comfort in what I had written.
Actually, Deems
deserves the credit. In addition to
telling her story, I quoted her “Beatitudes for Those who Comfort.”
Blessed are those who do not use tears
to measure the true feelings of the bereaved.
Blessed are those who do not always
have a quick ‘comforting’ answer.
Blessed are those who do not make
judgments on the bereaved’s closeness to God by their reactions to the loss of
their loved one.
Blessed are those who hear with
their hearts and not with their minds.
Blessed are those who allow the
bereaved time enough to heal.
Blessed are those who admit their
uncomfortable ness and put it aside to help the bereaved.
Blessed are those who do not give
unwanted advice.
Blessed are those who continue to
call, visit and reach out when the crowd has dwindled and the wounded are left
standing alone.
Blessed are those who know the
worth of each person as a unique individual and do not pretend that they can be
replaced or forgotten.
Blessed are those who realize the
fragility of bereavement and handle it with an understanding shoulder and a
loving heart.
May God bless you
as you attempt to be a friend to the grieving.
