John 3:16-17
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
As many of you know, we’ve been coming at this wall of grief behind me, week after week, on Wednesdays, throughout this Lenten season. And tonight is the last straw, the last stand, the last hurrah … whatever we might want to call it.
I hope those of you who’ve been playing along remember what we’ve left here this season. For those who haven’t that’s okay. I’m certain you are acquainted and familiar with the road of sorrow we’ve been walking – that you’ve walked it, too.
… grief for lost loved ones;
… grief for the losses and destruction of God’s creation;
… grief for unmet hopes and expectations in our lives;
… grief that comes from those who’ve gone before us – from generation to generation – that still lives in our bones and in our bodies and still impacts our lives in the world;
… and grief, too, that is known only between us and God, that buries itself like so much shame, in our heart of hearts.
We’ve called all of this “Grieving Well,” because that was my goal for these Lenten days – that we would find meaningful, practical, holy ways to name the many ways grief and sorrow find their way into our lives. And that by naming that grief, by putting it into words, and by attaching to it some tangible rituals and practices, in worship, we would “do grief well,” in ways that are more real and true and faithful to our experience as people on the planet than we’re always allowed to be.
See, in a world that doesn’t encourage or always have words for – or a comfort-level with – grief, we aren’t practiced at doing any of those things, often enough. We are a people who grieve alone, too much of the time, unto ourselves.
We are a people that has convinced ourselves and each other that grief is, somehow – impossibly – something to be avoided.
And if not avoided, then kept to ourselves when it comes, so as not to show our weakness, or our fear, or our vulnerability; maybe to be polite and not make others uncomfortable about our sorrow.
And we seem, too, to pretend that grief is something to be conquered … accomplished, perhaps … so that we can get on with our happy, blessed, abundant lives, as the good Lord intends.
Well tonight, as I said, is the last stand and last straw for this kind of pretending and pretense. Tonight, God gets the last word. And it’s different than something I’ve ever considered before on Good Friday. It’s cosmic and universal. And it is much closer to home, too. Yes, it’s about God’s love redeeming the world. Yes, it’s about the grace of God being poured out, in Jesus Christ for the sake of all. Yes, it’s evidence that God didn’t send Jesus to condemn the world, but in order that the world would be saved through him.
And it is also God redeeming the world one grief at a time. It is God loving the world one sorrow after another. It is God’s heart breaking, right along with yours and mine whenever the sadness stings. And it is God reminding me that none of us was ever promised this would be easy. The story of Scripture is filled with nearly equal parts horror and hope, if you ask me.
And we do ourselves… and each other… and the world around us … a profound dis-service if we pretend otherwise; if we pretend that life in this world isn’t supposed to include suffering, sorrow, or grief, I mean. And God forbid, Christians, if we convey the message that life for believers is somehow supposed to be immune from any of the above. “If we say we have no sin, no struggle, no sorrow – or that we don’t feel separated from God, from time to time ? – we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
Because God shows us tonight that even God’s very self, in Jesus, grieved in that garden when he prayed that all of this might be taken away from him. He suffered. There were whips and thorns and nails remember. He was utterly lost and alone and separated from the heart of God when he cried “my God my God, why have you forsaken me,” and then descended into whatever hell that was for him.
All of that is to say, all of our grief – and God’s sorrow – gathers itself at the cross tonight. And we are called to see it there – our grief, and God’s – because God means for us to know that it doesn’t and will not stay there forever. We can name it. Claim it. Nail it to a tree. And we can watch God gather it all up, unto and into God’s very self, and transform it into something else, much to our surprise.
I watched Stephen Colbert interview Paul Simon last week and found Colbert predictably, reliably wise and faithful in the way he’s able to talk about grief and sorrow and faith in beautiful ways.
After Paul Simon pontificated a bit about the way he understands God and faith, he asked Colbert what he thought about it all. Stephen Colbert, seemed genuinely caught off-guard by the question (he’s the one that’s supposed to ask the questions on his show, after all), but this is what he said:
Having lost his father and two older brothers in a plane crash as a young boy – when he was 10 years old I believe – it’s not a surprise that Colbert wrestled with atheism for a time.
But did you hear what changed his mind? He said that he was “overwhelmed by an enormous sense of gratitude for the world.” And it wasn’t a sappy, happy-happy, joy-joy kind of gratitude. It was gratitude that comes even in grief – even for heartbreaking things – because, “grief with you is an act of love.”
“Grief with you is an act of love.” How beautiful is that?
We can be sad – deeply grieving – and yet there is joy there, because we can share [our] love and share our grief and heal and care for each other in the midst of it.
“Grief with you is an act of love.”
And I think that’s a perfect, faithful way to see just what God means to accomplish on Good Friday – on the cross – by way of Jesus’ crucifixion – for all of us and for all the world. And it’s what I hope we’re up to tonight.
“Grief with you is an act of love.”
God is saying – and God shows in Jesus – what “grief with you” looks like. It is, indeed, a profound act of love. Life on this side of heaven is hard so much of the time. There is grief and shame and sorrow too terrible to name, for too many of us and for too many of God’s children. But when we recognize that we are invited to share our love and to heal and care for one another, even and especially in our grief and struggle – as God did and as God does in Jesus – we are also invited to see and to experience this enormous, overwhelming, uncontainable sense of gratitude.
And we see, in all of that, the hope of Easter.
So, on the cross, may we see and experience the depth of God’s grief and sorrow for our own grief and sorrow tonight, that Jesus came to redeem. And may we trust that God shares that with us as nothing less than a divine act of love too mighty for us to imagine or deserve. And may we be moved by that love in a way that comforts us in our grief, that gives us hope in the face of our despair, and that promises us new life, even, on the other side of our greatest sorrow.
And may we share all of that – comfort, hope, and promise – as an act of love for the world around us, just Jesus calls and shows us how to do in his name.
Amen
