LOSS AND GRIEF: IN CHRIST

I have been thinking about the loss and grief one experiences over a loved one.  I do not claim that the following thoughts are explicit teaching in Scripture, but I think they cohere with it.

In regard to Adam and Eve, Genesis 2:24 states, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become a new family [literally “one flesh”] (NET).  This translation has captured the sense of “one flesh” that is often misunderstood on a popular level.  It is not about sexual union.  It is about the beginning of a new kinship unit (“one flesh”).

I think there is a psychological truth about this relationship and its loss.  There are many examples in our natural world of discrete elements uniting to form a system in which new properties emerge.  The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.*  I suggest that in personal relationships something new emerges in the nature of our existence.  When I married, I did not merely have an identity label change to “husband.”  In a real sense, in my relationship with my wife, a new aspect of my existence emerged that would not be there were we apart.  Our relationship has formed part of who I am.  Therefore, when someone in a close relationship dies, we experience not just a loss of their presence, but also a loss to an aspect of our existence, to who we were.  The loss and grief are deep.

A theological truth about Christ helps with this sense of loss.  Faith in God creates a participatory relationship.  One entrusts one’s life in God.  The Greek NT expression of faith in Christ, pisteo eis. means “entrusting into” Christ.  It creates a new emergent reality.  Paul, particularly in Colossians and Romans 8, addresses believers’ struggles by teaching them about the significance of being a new creation “in Christ.”  Moreover, we are “in Christ” in community jointly with others.  What struck me recently was the thought that for those “in Christ,” when a loved one dies, our relationship with that loved one has not really come to an end.  Being jointly together in Christ means that relationship still exists.  Even though we miss that person’s presence, who we were in that relationship is still there within the being of God.  I find that thought comforting.

Father, bless those who are grieving over loss of loved ones.  Comfort them with your Presence.  Comfort them not just with the thought that they will once again meet those loved ones, but with the awareness that those relationships still exist in Christ.  Amen.
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*Probably the most universally known example of emergent properties is how the elements of hydrogen and oxygen (gasses at normal temperatures) come together to form water molecules with properties completely unlike the individual elements.

UNFOUNDED GRIEVING: A COMMON DENOMINATOR

 

Feelings of loss, grief, fear, and anger are common to many people today.  However, as real as those feelings are, they may not be well founded.  I am thinking politically about feelings the “Left” and “Right” share.  On the one hand, those who have believed in the Enlightenment’s promise of collective, human progress are in mourning.  The project of humans being self-governed by rationality presents failures all around us.  On the other hand, many people are also grieving a personal loss of power to succeed.  “Success” does not come by self-application as in the “American Dream,” which too stems back to the Enlightenment.  Such feelings of loss turn into grief, grief into fear, fear into anger, and anger into acts of destruction of self and others.

The feelings of loss and grief are real and are powerful motivators.  What catches my attention is that some such grief is caused, at least in part in America, by failed promises of the Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment did away with humanity’s “irrational belief” in God and promised progress based on liberated reason serving human freedoms and the pursuit of happiness.  A bet was placed on reason, science, democracy, and free-market capitalism leading to ever-greater progress.  With what checks and balances?  What insight was there into what happens when each unfettered person pursues his/her own “rights” and happiness?

As one who is a professing Christian, I am distressed by how the grief and anger of the some who profess Christianity are due to unwittingly embracing atheistic, Enlightenment concepts.  For example, they reject a government that would pursue righteousness toward all, and, instead want only one that protects their “rights” and “freedoms,” particularly of their separatist identity.  Ironically, they claim to worship the Christmas, Incarnate Jesus who emptied himself of rights and freedoms and called his followers to become slaves in the service of others.  As Paul basically states, in Christ Jesus all religious, economic, racial, and other “tribal” boundaries no longer exist (e.g. Gal 3:28).  More ironically, they sometimes even reject the attempts of the nonreligious who do work for expressions of righteous, such as respect for diversity, equity in opportunity, and inclusion instead of marginalization!

I, too, know feelings of loss based on false or worldly expectations, and I need to be corrected.  Although such feelings of loss, grief, fear, and anger are real, they may be predicated on a pretentious and un-Godly view of humanity, a successful life, and of the world.  Jesus did not set a model of, nor call me or anyone to, a successful pursuit of “progress,” to enjoyment of “freedoms,” or to enjoy the “happiness” of the world.  He called me and you to find wholeness, meaning, purposefulness, hope, and joy by entrusting ourselves to God and by submitting to service in God’s Kingdom in the name of Jesus.

Lord, may I examine my feelings of loss and see if they are based on what is real and worthy in your sight.  May I not grieve as those who have no hope in you.  Help me to ground my expectations on your promises.  May I find my joy and worth in you and in service in your name.  Amen.