Thursday, April 16, 2009

Grieving with Hope.

1 Thes. 4:13-14 (ESV)
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. [14] For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Here are a couple verses in line with the Easter Season. We tend to forget Easter after the first Sunday in Easter. Well it is hard to follow on the heals of that glorious celebration. In reality, though, every Sunday is a celebration of Easter. Easter is the reason we celebrate on Sunday at all. But we don’t grieve as others do who have no hope. It should be noted that Christians grieve, as do all humans. Christians are I think able to grieve even more. Today, people hate grieving. They try to short circuit it. I hear about people wanting to have the memorial “celebrations” at Chucky Cheese. People want the funerals to be light hearted affairs. They are afraid of the reality before them. They grieve with a pretence of celebration. They are afraid of death. But it is precisely because we have no fear of death that we are able to grieve. We have hope we have Christ. He rose from the dead. We know that this is not the last say, death has no hold on us. But it is still painful, saying goodbye to a loved one like that. We grieve. But we have hope we have a resurrection. We don’t need to cower in fear hiding behind fake smiles and sponge cake. We can say goodbye, we can curse death. And we can know that it has been swallowed up forever in the death of Christ. So those who fall asleep in him, will rise with him.

4 comments:

Steve Martin said...

We will surely suffer and die.

And we should grieve.

But, as you say, Pastor, wqe ought rejoice in the hope of Christ. Our Sure Hope!

Friend of the Predigtamt said...

Memorial celebrations...the first I've heard of that phrase was when Jim Henson died and his last request was that no one wear black. I expected that from Mr Henson as he was THE master puppeteer.

Later when I was with the Assemblies of God, they do call some memorials "celebrations". It did no good as it does not matter what you call it as the absence of our loved ones gnawed at you.

Chuck E Cheese?! LOL... That's the last place I want my memorial service...it's when po' trash families cause trouble and the parental units get sloppy drunk because no adult would want to go there sober.

Brigitte said...

I stole this post. How does one properly do this?

Nancy said...

Brigitte...First you don't confess...then maybe you could just link it with words in your own post...*: )