Lent, Easter, and Grieving

Sometimes you don't find what you want, but what you need.

First week back in the office after our sabbatical, I'm preparing a sermon for this Sunday. As I flip through books, listen to sermons, and reflect on God's Word, I have discovered two phrases of truth and comfort that speak into my soul's season of grief. They don't fit with the direction my sermon is taking, but meet me where I'm at.

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Grieving is like exercise for the soul.

~ Shane Hipps (sermon, April 16, 2006)

I am conviced that when we bring our griefs and sorrows within the story of God's own grief and sorrow, and allow them to be held there, God is able to bring healing to us and new possibilties to our lives. That is, of course, what Good Friday and Easter are all about.

~ NT Wright Christians at the Cross (pg xv)

G&P
- Andrew

Not Feeling Christmasy at Christmas Time

via Flickr

Misery loves company, as the saying goes.

With Advent upon us and Christmas accelerating towards us, I am again drawn to the sad and lowly and tragic parts of the Christmas story. I caught myself doing this when Josiah died and I'm on that same path again this season.

Christmas and sorrow. They go together more likely than we think. Most of our holiday rhythms have drubbed out any hint of sadness, for it is after all supposed to be the season of perpetual joy. And so we put on a seasonal sheen to fit in and a festive glow is projected in all that we do. We cloak ourselves with holiday goodwill and merriment, and yet within, our souls are aching and the Christmas season is just making it worse.

Loneliness. Pain. Heartbreak. Grief. Shame.

Christmas sometimes comes at the worst time of the year.

And yet, it is the story of God coming to us. To us. It is the beginning of the slow renewal of the world. It marks the return of God being with man for the first time since He walked in the garden with His creation.

God chooses to be with us.

In sadness. In sorrow. In suffering. God comes.

To suffer with us. To suffer for us.

This is Christmas.

... Advent is not just remembering how the world waited for the coming of the Messiah, but how we still wait for His coming. It is a time to embrace the ache of our lovesick hearts, to rejoice in our hunger pains, to survey the broken mess of our world and know that, because God fully entered into it, He will also fully redeem it.

As we sit in our suffering and know that the God of the universe decides to sit with us in it, we have a truth that is weighty enough to answer our heavy hearts, our loneliness and disillusionment that are intensified during the holidays. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that while God wants us happy as little children, it is the grown-up knowledge of God’s desire to always be with us, the fact that “we are no longer homeless; a bit of the eternal home itself has moved unto us,” that brings true joy. “Therefore we adults can rejoice deeply within our hearts under the Christmas tree,” he said, “perhaps much more than the children are able. We know that God’s goodness will once again draw near.”

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She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’
~ Matthew 1:23

Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.
 ~ Luke 1:78-79

[via RELEVANT]

G&P
- Andrew

Shane Hipps - Does God Suffer Like Us?

via Flickr

 
A wonderful post by Shane Hipps, a pastor and author serving at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Somewhat fitting of a read for me, coming off the heels of my preview post.

Here's a snippet of what Shane's getting to:

But when pain finds purpose or meaning it transforms from mere hurting into suffering.  We could use the word Suffering to describe pain with purpose.  Suffering is pain set in a larger context.  Suffering is what happens to a woman giving birth.  The labor pains are extraordinary, but the pain becomes mere memory when the child is born (so I’m told). The pain is matched only by the clarity of purpose.

Discovering that pain may have a purpose doesn't alleviate - even a smidgen of - the grief or insult, but it can help put the pieces of your life back to better. Better to have a God that spends sleeplessness nights tending to us than a God who falls asleep on the job.

G&P
- Andrew

Readings - Mourning

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4


Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
~ Matthew 5:4


Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep.
~ Romans 12:15

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared.
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
~ Revelation 21:1, 3-4

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As I was gathering passages of Scripture to guide my heart and steps, I stumbled upon an obscure passage in Amos which was affirming and gut-wrenching all at once. The prophet is telling of a coming day when all the joy in the lives of the Israelites will be replaced with great sorrow, and he uses the death of an only son as an example of how bitter their grief will be (Amos 8:9-10).

Sometimes it feels like our grief is bigger than me, bigger than I can handle, bigger than I can work through. And in the mind of the prophet Amos and the people he spoke to, losing a son is about as worst as it can get. Like a brief burst of sunlight through an overcast sky, some days you can find solace in the unlikeliest places.

Thank you for your prayers.
- Andrew & Marie

Readings - Lamentations

I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
to those who search for him.

~ Lamentations 3:20-25 (New Living Translation)