Greiving With Hope

As I mentioned earlier, this memorial service for Hannah Pohl-Mappoy was conducted this morning. And I have to say, as we learned about the accident where Hannah died, it's been a week ago yesterday, and so it's only been a week or so, but I have to say that it's been for me a difficult week, I think, perhaps for many of you. It's a painful time, a time to maybe look back into the Word of God, to be able to know exactly what the Word of God tells us, how it is that we can be washed and actually cleansed by God's Word, and be encouraged by it.

And that's what I hope to be able to do today. We certainly grieve with the entirety of the Pohl family over their loss of Hannah. And yet, we want to be guided by the Word of God in the way that we express love and compassion, and we truly share in their loss. They've lost a young daughter, a 14-year-old girl, and that certainly is not a common thing. You don't always go through that type of experience. But it is something that, as we know, if we are to be Christians, then we are wanting to be stably guided by the Word of God.

We want to be convicted by the Holy Spirit. We want to be led by God's Spirit, and truly come to know the Father and the Son. And come to understand God's purpose for our lives, and come to understand how it is, even as Mr.

Erbaugh mentioned in the sermon, how it is that we have to choose to look to God for help, and to look to God for development, and to grow. And many times that's over a lengthy period of time. Actually, for most of us, it's throughout the remainder of our life. To when God brings us to Jesus Christ by calling us. And as I mentioned to you earlier, I thank all of you for your prayers, and expressions of love and concern for the family.

As again, they told me they very much feel that God has been helping and comforting them. And certainly, it's very hard at times to express the grief or heaviness that we may have in common. Whenever someone dies, it is often. And certainly, in this case, a sudden death, it really is sometimes very difficult to deal with. And so we're sad, or we grieve with them. And in addition to this situation that occurred a week ago, and then finally the service that was today, not very long ago, we shared with Christine the loss of her husband, Ron.

Again, an accidental death, not something that was expected, not something that you anticipate, but those type of things do happen. And yet, the Bible offers us encouragement. It offers us hope. It offers us deliverance. And we're familiar with what it says in 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 25 and 26, it talks about the members of the body drawing together. It talks about them sharing the joys, but also sharing the sorrows that others feel.

Members of the body are to have the same care for one another in verse 25. And in verse 26, it says, if one member suffers, then all members suffer with it. And that's right. That's how difficulties that others face. That's how it should affect us. It should be that we desire to share in the suffering. And that we desire to understand that. In Romans 15, or excuse me, verse 15 of chapter 12. Romans 12, verse 15 talks about weeping with those who weep. And so, certainly grieving a loss, whether it is a death unexpected or even possibly expected if it's an older person and ill or maybe very close to death.

It's something that we can share with others. And in Galatians 6, verse 2, Galatians chapter 6, Paul says in Galatians 6, in verse 2, that as members of the body, we should bear one another's burden and in this way fulfill the law of Christ. See, sharing in the suffering of others or sharing in the loss of others, being affected by that is correct. It's right. And in so doing, we do share in those burdens. And yet it says in doing so, we fulfill the law of Christ. We fulfill the royal law of love for God and love for our fellow man.

And so that is a part of the responsibility that all of us have. And certainly we want to not only pray for one another, as I know you do, I know you bring others before God, you send cards, you sign cards here locally. We try to stay in touch as much as we can. But we also share in the suffering of others as we understand it. We may not be fully familiar with it, but if we're close to people, then we probably do know some of the things that they're suffering because we're praying about them, we're thinking about them.

So this afternoon I want to just cover the topic, and I guess you could say the title for this sermon today, is grieving with hope. So you can grieve, you can suffer, and you can be in misery, you can be sad, or you can grieve and in a sense share in suffering and do that with hope. And yet, it's important for us to understand some things about grieving. I think sometimes we often may try to stifle our grieving or try to limit any suffering or feeling of loss that we might have.

See, all of us, surely, in our own families, have lost parents or grandparents. Sometimes we've lost other members, other family members, and other times there are other types of losses, not just death. But I want to talk about specifically just grieving with hope. And in essence, the sermon is about grieving and about how that it's not wrong to share tears with others. It's not wrong to openly cry, men or women. That's not wrong to do. That actually, in some ways, is beneficial.

It's beneficial to have the right concern and the right love and express that in other ways. The first point I want to make, I've got several points that I'll try to point out to you about the whole topic of grieving. Because sometimes we may not be familiar with that. It is something that all of us are going to run into in our lives.

And right now, at this time, we are sharing the grief and loss that the Foy family is suffering. But whether that grieving comes from some type of an accident, a vehicular accident, or whether it's a death that might occur some other way, from very poor health or even just the end of life.

Suffering through grief is a normal part of living. Now, we don't like to feel bad. We don't like to feel sad. But it's a normal part of living. It's something that each one of us are going to experience in a different way. I used to work dealing with many people in nursing homes. And many of those people eventually died. Some of them at least did. Quite a few of them did. Some of them were able to go home. But I would often talk to people who were caretakers there at the nursing home. They have a very difficult job. It's not an easy job. It's actually one that requires not only a good amount of skill and certain training and knowledge and awareness of what to do and how to care for others, but it also requires a heart of concern and care for others. I have talked to many different groups of caretakers, mostly again in facilities, and explained the fact that I know that over a period of time and especially if you care for someone for a period of time that you may get attached to them and their death, that's a real trauma. The price that you pay for loving them and caring for them is the grief that you may suffer. And so I think whenever we think about the topic of grieving, we should understand that grieving is simply a normal part of life. It is okay. It is okay to grieve. It actually is a needed part of living and continuing to go forward with God's help. I want to turn to an example you find here in Genesis, Chapter 50. You find one of the patriarchs at the end of his life, and he's an agent. He's been brought there by his son, Joseph. Of course, this patriarch is Jacob, the one who was named Israel. And it says here in Chapter 50, it talks about the death of Jacob. He had come down, and of course, Joseph had been sent before him, and he had prepared a way where Jacob and his other children and their families could be protected in Egypt.

But here in Verse 1 of Chapter 50, it says, Joseph threw himself on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. This was as Jacob was dying.

And in the rest of the account here, you see how that clearly Joseph was respected by others there in Egypt because in Verse 3, it says, they spent 40 days in doing the embalming, and for this is the time required for embalming, and the Egyptians wept for him for, in this case, 70 days. They had a custom or they had a type of mourning for others, and in this case, they were mourning for Joseph as a respected leader for his father who had died.

And then, in Verse 4, when the days of weeping for him had passed, Joseph addressed the household of Pharaoh, told him, I need to take my father back to the land of Canaan. That's where he had come from. He had come to Egypt to be fed and to be able to be spared and cared for. And yet now that he has died, I need to take him back. In Verse 7, Joseph went to bury his father, and with him went all the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of a household, and all the elders of the land as well as a household of Jacob and his brothers in his household.

This was a huge group of people who are transporting Joseph back to the land of Canaan, where he would be buried. And yet, I point out, not only was there weeping, not only was there a period of mourning that the Egyptians were used to or that they customarily did, you also find that Joseph mourned for his father, Jacob, for a week. Here in Verse 10, he says, When they had come to the threshing floor of a rat or a tod, which is beyond the Jordan, they held there a very great and sorrowful lamentation, and he observed a time of mourning for his father for seven days.

See, this is a biblical example of showing respect, showing honor, showing concern, showing love, in this case, Joseph, for his father. And so I hope that in just going through this, that this helps us to realize that, well, grieving is respectable, it's honorable, it's the right thing to do. And yet it is something that people benefit from as they go through this process. The second thing that I want to mention is simply what we read here in 1 Thessalonians 4, because you also, in this chapter, find Paul talking to the church about some members of the church who had died.

And yet he told them, he told them that they need to grieve for these people who have died, but they need to have hope. They need to have hope, and I want to explain that a little more, because that can be misunderstood. We truly do need to have hope in understanding God's purpose for our lives, in understanding his plan and his way of dealing with us, and in understanding how that he provides a resurrection beyond the grave. When we die, we are buried, we are placed in the grave, and we awake that resurrection.

And yet, here in this chapter, Paul talks about, to the people there, you need to grieve, but you need to grieve with hope. And you need to understand that that hope is in the resurrection. It is looking forward to God reviving us again. We can have hope in this life, basically dealing with the physical lives that we live, but we have true hope beyond the grave. We have hope in the resurrection of the dead. And so, we look forward to that time and anticipate that.

We think about that. We pray about that. Do we pray about the Kingdom of God coming? Well, sure. We are told, thy Kingdom come to pray for God, to send His Kingdom and His Son and His Government to restore the earth. That's what we are praying for. And yet, to minimize that or to not understand that tends to be confusing and conflicted.

And yet, thankfully, God gives us a great deal of clarity in His Word about what it is He is doing with us. The second point is simply that hope is a positive characteristic of God that we can share. We share in the hope that God has. 1 Thessalonians 4 is a section that we often read because it's a description from Paul about what it is that we can expect.

1 Thessalonians 4, starting in verse 13, he says, we don't want you to be uninformed. We don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have died, those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. And so again, that verse points out that you can grieve and not have understanding. You can grieve and not have hope of what's going to happen in the future. Or you can grieve. You can understand the loss. This is really what Paul was addressing. He was addressing the fact that, well, there's some concern with people who have died, people who were a part of the church there in Thessalonica.

Well, how should we deal with that? What should we think? Well, we know what God is going to do. And of course, Paul is going to describe it here, starting in verse 14. He says, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. So whenever Jesus returns, when he comes back, when he establishes the kingdom of God on earth, well, then he is going to, at that time, resurrect people who have died, people who are in need of being given that eternal life at that time. It says in verse 15, for this we declare to you by the word of the Lord that we were alive, who were left until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died.

So he uses the term falling asleep or dying in a similar sense because it is a type of death or a type of sleep death is. And so in verse 16 it says, the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of God's trumpet will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. He says, when Christ returns, a resurrection is going to happen. A resurrection is going to occur, and that is a resurrection to eternal life, a resurrection to life everlasting. And yet until that time, we simply live our lives, and if we die, we are buried and awaiting that resurrection.

He says in verse 17, that we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. We will be with the Lord forever. Of course, we know that Jesus Christ is going to establish a kingdom here on this earth, and for the first thousand years of that, he'll be ruling from Jerusalem.

That's where he's going to be. That's where he will be, and that's where he's preparing us to be with him and to be serving during this life as we encourage one another. It says in verse 18, therefore encourage one another, comfort one another with these words. And so, as we grieve with others, or as we grieve ourselves, we want to do that with the hope of the resurrection. See, in Jesus Christ, we find comfort.

He's the one who says he is the Good Shepherd. He's the one who says that he is able to nurture us and to care for us and to give us the support of the Lord. The support and the love and the encouragement that we need. This is exactly what Jesus is able to do. And yet, we know he does that because of his love for us. We know that he provides that comfort because of his love. And in Jesus, we find comfort. In his promise of the resurrection, we find hope.

See, that's where we can receive both comfort, support, and hope in the future. We are subject to that plan and that purpose of God. And so, we can benefit a great deal. A third point I want to read to you a little bit about is just understanding grief. Understanding grief in general. We actually should learn about the process of grieving and how to help and how to encourage one another to endure the pain of loss in their lives.

All of us need that kind of support in our lives, and we need to understand it in the lives of others. Actually, the whole field of study of grief is called Thanatology. It's a field that some people are schooled in. They've studied it a lot. It's how people are affected by grief. And, of course, I want to read a little bit out of a pamphlet that I picked up several years ago. But it covers some of the basic information that you find almost anywhere whenever the topic of grief is being studied.

And it talks about how it is. Actually, Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and others with her were writing about this some 50 or 60 years ago. We've been aware of some of the things that happen to us whenever we are grieving a, most of the time, sudden loss. And yet, this is perhaps not always understood by us. They explain in this pamphlet, Grief comes in all shapes and sizes, often arriving suddenly and taking up residence without an invitation.

Grief is something that we are susceptible to, and whenever something adversely affects us, especially the loss of someone that we love, well then, we might be suddenly affected by that, but that might hit us a little later on as well. Empathizing with others, meaning looking through the eyes of common experience, and reaching out to friends to walk humbly together through a difficult time is a part of what we want to learn to do.

We want to be able to do that. And I think in some ways, many of you were able to express that this morning, reaching out to those that we know and that we love and that we're concerned about, that we know are grieving, and yet we want to be able to help them.

As I mentioned, Dr. Kubler-Ross explained some common stages. Actually, I think she was the one who was putting together this study to begin with. Again, 50, 60 years ago, it's commonly used today. And she writes about particularly five stages, they call them, or phases of grief. And it's good for us to understand these. And yet it also is good to know that they're not always sequential, even though I'm going to go through the common five forms of grief or phases of grief.

I think phases actually seems to be a little better description than stage. But nonetheless, this is what is commonly known about grieving. And they're not always sequential, and they should be understood to be very individual, and not a one-size-fits-all type of a formula. See, that's what we often think about. Well, if you learn something and it's written down, and this is a study about this, this is the way it has to be. No, it may be similar, it may have variations, it may have parts here and there, but nonetheless, it's important to understand grief in this way.

The first of these stages, or phases, is just denial. And this would certainly be the case whenever you initially find out of a shocking report of someone you know dying. You don't want to accept that information immediately. Denial is a time of confusion and disorientation that appears more like shock.

We often feel like we're in shock when we are in those situations, and may include physical symptoms and disbelief that this is happening. Denial of this type can be initial, and yet it can be a valuable form of self-preservation. Sometimes we find that people are enduring a very difficult or very shocking situation, a very unsuspecting situation.

They may be in a period of denial for some time. And yet that is, and as I'm thinking back several years ago when my brother died, I had no idea that that was coming, but my other brother called me and I listened to what he said on the phone, but my mind was just spinning. I couldn't believe that this was actually happening. And yet it is kind of a form of self-defense or self-protection. And you kind of have to pull back and think through things a little bit. And so that first phase is denial. The second one, there are five of these. The second one is anger.

And again, this is not untoward. This is not something that would never happen. This is something that is very likely, that at times we would be angry over something that we couldn't prevent. Anger is a natural response to helplessness. And then anger can be directed at God, or it can be directed at other people, or it can even be directed at ourselves. Because often we blame ourselves for either doing or not doing something that we could or should have done.

And yet we should understand about that. It often is simply a period of uncertainty and fear and panic and nervousness. And that anger, as we're told to be angry but sin not, that anger shouldn't control us. But being angry, being upset in that way, or fearful, apprehensive, that's not wrong at all. But we don't want that, again, to control us. The third phase that they often write about is bargaining.

Bargaining is a time when attempts are made to change the situation by bargaining with God. I don't think that's going to do a lot of good for probably any of us. But this is something that they write about from studies of what many people try to do. But this is describing a pleading with God, praying. And he says prayers often take on the quality of business negotiations with God. Well, if you'll help me with this, then I'll do that. And that, again, is not terribly helpful, but it's often something that someone will do, and someone can find themselves doing.

The fourth phase is called depression, but it's really a deep discouragement. It could very much be depression. Depression has appeared when there is a sense of hopelessness, I guess that would fit with depression, and numbness, and a fear of losing memories.

And yet, whenever we think about it, these phases, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, all of these are stages that God can comfort us in. These are not out of the ordinary. They are, in a sense, to be expected. And they may not even be in this order, but if we're going to understand and really love, if we're going to understand and really care for and pray for and help and assist, lift up others, well, then we need to have some understanding of the likelihood of this. And certainly, God can comfort us in this stage of depression or hopelessness. And finally, the fifth one is, in essence, a solution, and yet it may be a very wide-ranging solution. It's called acceptance. Acceptance, the fifth phase of grieving. Acceptance is a time of understanding that this situation is not going away, relaxing with the change and adjusting to the reality and having hope for the future. That's obviously a readjustment or realigning of our looking at things and thinking about them. And that may take a good amount of time. See, that doesn't happen in a day or two or a week or two, often. It's going to happen over an extended period of time.

What I was reading in this booklet says, grief work. They talk about it as being work. Grief work is not always linear, and always just follow these patterns. It doesn't always follow a straight line from denial to acceptance, and yet it is very individual, and it could vary in many ways. And so if we're going to be able to reach out and help, if we're going to really do what it says to suffer when another suffers, or to weep when another weeps, or to be encouraged, and to be encouraging, well, then we're going to have to be accepting of the fact that, well, others feel and view things perhaps in a different way than I do, but I want to be accepting to that. I want to be able to show that amount of love. And so grieving our losses, and going through, in a sense, some of these phases, and maybe going back and forth with some of them, that's an important part, a necessary part of grieving, and a necessary part of growing beyond that.

This grief pamphlet as well, covered four, actually several things here that I want to mention as this fourth point. They point out, as far as trying to help other people who are grieving, some things that you could do or not do, mostly things to say or not say. I'm just going to read these, because you have to apply these to every situation you might find yourself in. First one was, don't let your friend, of course he or she is kind of interchangeably here, don't let your friend, or excuse me, don't tell your friend that he shouldn't feel sorrow over this loss. Reassure him that grieving is a natural process. So sometimes we could mistakenly think, well, you just need to pick yourself up. You don't need to be grieving in this way, and yet that's not helpful. The second one is don't trivialize or downplay your friend's grief or sorrow. The third one, don't be afraid to ask, how are you doing? That's something I think often we learn to do, but they follow this up by saying, but only ask that. Only inquire, how are you doing if you're willing to take time to listen? That would be important if you are casually saying, how are you doing, and you're not, you know, you're going on somewhere else. You're not even setting aside maybe a time for a response. So you may not be meaning that, how are you doing, as much as you really intend.

So they point this out in verse number four of this. Don't say you should just snap out of it. Grief takes time to work through. And so it's not something that you can do for someone else. You can encourage, you can try to help. Number five, avoid speculating about all the possible reasons why God might have allowed your friend to experience this loss.

I think that's very common. Very common that, you know, we wonder, you know, why God allowed this. And yet, it's better simply to reassure others that God is much aware. He is continually present. He is able to help us, or able to help our friend if we're trying to help someone else. That we understand the biblical nature of grief, and that we appreciate how it is that others may go through this grieving process. And finally, number six, don't ignore or avoid your friend during this time of grief, but also don't pressure him to engage socially.

See, again, people are different. Some people are going to like one thing and another something else, and maybe at different times, you know, we'd like several different things. If we're going to be truly understanding and loving, then I think we're going to be considerate of some of these things that are mentioned. The fifth thing that I'll point out, as far as just the sermon, is that we don't always know why something's allowed to happen.

We just don't. It doesn't tell us in the Word of God. It doesn't tell us, and to know exactly what the answer to that question is, is virtually impossible. But it's good to think about physical life. It's good to think about the reality of death. It's good to know that God is different than us.

He is spirit. We are physical. We are limited. We are in need of relating to God, yes. But we don't always know why something is allowed to happen. Sometimes we think, well, this just isn't happening, or why is this happening? There doesn't seem to be any reason for something to happen. I can think of several situations over the last several decades, certainly situations that I was asked to help with, and I had no answer. No answer as to why that type of thing could happen.

And certainly it doesn't help us. Indeed, one of life's most difficult challenges is to live in the midst of unanswered questions. We may not know. Even when we look at 1 Corinthians 13, which is often an important chapter for us to study and read and think about and try to emulate, we're told in that chapter how it is the love of God is expressed, and how it is that we are shown to move away from being harsh and being arrogant and being boastful, being resentful, and actually have patience. Being willing to believe all things and bear all things and hope all things and endure all things.

Those are qualities that are coming from the Holy Spirit and coming from the love of God that He says He can give us if we are seeking them. Now, He provides His Holy Spirit, and yet He wants us to grow in that love.

And of course, later on in this chapter, it talks about how that the love of God is absolutely complete and it's absolutely permanent. It knows everything. And yet, I want to read this section. Here in verse 8, it says, love never ends or never fails. As for prophecy, they come to an end, and as tongues they cease, and as for knowledge, it will come to an end. And for we know, in verse 9, only in part.

See, we know only in part. We don't know everything that God may be doing in our lives while we go through certain suffering, even maybe not directly connected with death. But if we are grieving from the loss of someone, then we need to realize we may not understand the answer to the question, why? And dropping on down in verse 11, he says, when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I felt like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

For now, in verse 12, we see through a glass darkly. It says, we don't see everything maybe as clearly as we would like. And so, we don't always know why. And sometimes, we are going to be in the midst of not being able to know and simply have to rely on the love of God to be able to care.

And so, I think it's important. The last thing I want to mention here in the sermon today is simply the example of Jesus. As he displayed hope for those that he came in contact with, even those who died, we have several different examples of Jesus.

But his example is one of hope. Whenever I gave the sermon title as grieving with hope, that is focused on learning to view things as Jesus did. That was his focus. Well, his focus was on the future. His focus was on life after death. His focus was on the kingdom of God and the resurrection that would occur at that time.

Now, we know, as we study the remainder of the Bible, and we have to put the whole Bible together, we know that there will be another resurrection beyond that. There's a resurrection at the beginning, and clearly a resurrection at the end of the thousand-year rule of Christ on earth.

God is the one who rules over that. He's the one who knows people's hearts. Let's look at John 11. John 11, of course, is a remarkable chapter about the power of God. In this case, Jesus was going, and he said he was going with his disciples to raise Lazarus from the dead.

He knew he had died. And yet he delayed several days and finally got there and finally was able to talk to Martha and later to Mary, and he was going to interact with them, and he was going to explain to them some incredible truths. Here in John 11, he's come to meet Martha and then later talk with Mary about Lazarus, and of course, both of them tell him, well, if you had been here, you could have healed him. You could have helped him. You could have saved him. Of course, Jesus understood that wasn't, that's not my purpose.

I'm going to show the power of God in that I can raise the dead to life. I can raise Lazarus from the dead. But the interaction when Mary came in verse 32, John 11, 32, when Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died. In verse 33, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her, they were weeping. He was greatly disturbed and troubled. He was deeply moved, and he said, well, where have they laid him? And of course, in verse 35, it says, Jesus wept with them.

And the Jews said, well, see how he loved him. Yes, he was, he was concerned about Mary and he was concerned about Martha. But see, he had told them how to have hope. This is what we read up in verse 24. Martha said, I know that he will live again in the resurrection of the last day. And Jesus said, I am the resurrection and I am the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? He was pointing out to her that, you know, I rule over the resurrection of the dead. I rule over the hope of eternal life. I'm the one that you need to relate to and understand and believe in. And of course, they both express some belief. And they clearly were friends with Jesus and of course Lazarus was his friend too. And he was going, he was going to bring Lazarus back to a very unusual circumstance.

Having died and having been buried for four days and then being physically alive again. And I don't know how long Lazarus lived, but he would eventually die a little later. And he'll ultimately rise in another resurrection as well. And yet, what we see about Jesus is that he had, he had the compassion and the love and the care. He had all the answers. He knew everything that was going to happen. And yet he was concerned. He was willing to share with the weeping and with the concern that he had for Martha and Mary and for the others there.

Who didn't really know, actually, what he later says in talking to the father in verse 41, he says, Father, I thank you that you always hear me. I knew or know that you have always heard me. But I'm saying this for the sake of the crowd standing here so that they may believe that you sent me. He really wanted them to understand that their relationship with the father, their relationship with the purpose of God's giving us physical life, their understanding of how it is they could repent of their sins and be forgiven and ultimately have eternal life.

See, those are all factors that are very biblical and have to be fully understood. And yet what he was telling them in this case, he says, I want them to truly believe who I am. I want them to relate to me and to my father, to our family, and to how it is that we are all growing to be a part of that family. We are growing in that way. In Isaiah 61, you read, and Jesus would later quote this, you read it in Luke and I believe in Matthew.

But in Isaiah 61, you see the prophetic statement here in Isaiah of what Jesus was to do as he came. As he came to this earth as the Son of God, what was his purpose? Well, Isaiah 61, he explains how that he's going to offer aid. He's going to offer encouragement. He's going to offer strength beyond physical strength, beyond physical power. He says here in Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me, he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed or the poor to bind up the brokenhearted.

Who can really bind up the brokenhearted? In many ways, we interact with others. We try to help them. We try to do things that we hope are helpful. We try to send cards. We try to bring food. We try to serve them in whatever way we can. But who can really heal the brokenhearted? Well, Jesus Christ is the one who can do that. To bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.

He's certainly addressing some wide-ranging topics here because he did some of these things when he came, and he's going to proclaim even more of God's rule whenever he comes this second time. But see, we understand that Jesus' purpose for coming to the earth was to be a sacrifice for sin, to be the way through which we could have forgiveness, to be the way that we could have a perfect example to follow, and that we could seek the mind of Christ.

We could see Christ living in us, and we could know what that is, one who is concerned about and interested in loving and serving others. You also find in Psalm 31, Psalm 31, a lot of different Psalms talk about, and of course David writes many of these, as he wrote about needing to be rescued or needing to be picked up, or needing to be protected or helped. But here in Psalm 31, he explains how God, in our closeness to God, in our desire to relate to God and to his Son Jesus Christ, is a safe zone. They are a comfort zone for those of us who weep, for those who grieve, and for those who want to help those who are grieving.

Here in chapter 31, verse 9, he says, Be gracious, O Lord, for I am in distress, my eyes are wasting away with grief. My soul and my body as well. He's describing a traumatic situation, crying and being concerned over an issue that has hurt him. Verse 10, For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing, my strength fails because of my misery and my bones waste away.

Down in verse 22, actually in verse 21, he says, Bless be the Lord. For he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege. And even when I said in my alarm, I'm driven afar away from his sight, even when he thought God was far away, because many times we feel kind of distressed and suffering when we're in grief. And yet as he goes ahead, but, in verse 22, you heard my supplication when I cried out to you for help.

Even though it seemed difficult, it seemed troubling, God was there. God was able to care for him. And that, of course, is what we pray for others. That's what we seek whenever we want to be comforted. And so we want to be able to do that. Even back up in verse 14, he says, But I trust in you, O Lord, I say, you are my God, and I realize that my times are in your hands. See, I think that admission in Psalm 2031 is the fact that I need to be subject to God's will, subject to his direction in my life. And, of course, that enters into our understanding of how we can help others to grieve.

And then finally, in Matthew 11, we have a statement that Jesus makes that I think, in many ways, is a direction that we should understand, yes, to receive help for ourselves or for others. We need to go to the source, the source of the one who is able to help us.

And as we've already seen, well, that's the Son of God. That's a relationship with Jesus Christ and with God the Father, because he says knowing the one true God and knowing his Son is what's going to lead us to eternal life. But here, in Matthew 11 and verse 28, he says, come to me. And, of course, that has to be directed even as he points out in the few verses right before that.

Verse 25, he says, I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and yet you've revealed them to infants. This is talking about those who truly do understand the calling of God and understand a recognition of their commitment to God and of their repentance of sin, of their receipt of the Holy Spirit, and of being able to live a life that is in conjunction with God, in a relationship with God. Here in verse 28, this is often misunderstood, but it's directed to us. It's directed to those who have been drawn to Christ. He says directly, can you come to me? Come to me, all of you who are weary and are heavy laden. Those of you who are carrying heavy burdens. This would certainly be the case within any type of grief that we suffer. Come to me, those of weary and bearing heavy burdens, I will give you rest.

He goes ahead to say in verse 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. I am gentle and lowly in spirit. He says, I am willing to help you, and I am the one who is the source of comfort, and I am the one who explains the source of hope, which is the resurrection from the dead.

Life beyond the grave. And so he says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Because he says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I am able to, in a sense, carry you along under any type of suffering and distress. But clearly this has to be a part of the outlook that Jesus has on the whole process of grieving.

And so, I hope this is helpful in going over this. I know I've not addressed, perhaps, all the issues that we could discuss. And yet, we need to realize that whenever we grieve, or whenever we help others to grieve, through a process of grief, that I guess that's the way you would describe it, the process of grieving. And maybe even the lengthy period of time that grieving involves, that we're not really trying to figure out the answer to the question of why.

But we're trying to figure out the answer of how. How will God strengthen us? How will God give us support and encouragement and strength, and allow us, then, to return that to him, in praise, in worship, in honor, in gratitude, in thankfulness? And so, it's not so much a question of why did something happen, but how do we respond? How do we react now that this has taken place?

See, we're not always going to be protected from life's pain. We're going to suffer some. But we want to be looking to the Father. We want to be looking to Jesus Christ, who is the one who is able to provide comfort, able to provide consolation. And the better we understand that ourselves, the better we're able to extend and help other people with that.

I want to close here with this verse in 2 Corinthians, because it is the description of what I just mentioned. That the better we understand grieving, realizing the individuality of it, realizing how that only in Christ can we receive comfort, and only in understanding His purpose of the resurrection. How it is He's created us physical for a reason, and that we have to grow and develop with the help of His Spirit.

And then, if we die, then the future begins with the resurrection from the dead. Eternal life begins with that resurrection. And yet, here in 2 Corinthians 1, it says in verse 3, Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Father of mercy and the God of all consolation. Who in verse 4 consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we are set to be.

We ourselves are consoled by God. See, that tells us that He's the source, He's the one who's able to help us, He's the one who is concerned about us. He's the one who cares for us, and He's the one who's able to provide comfort and peace. Verse 5 says, Just as the suffering of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. We are so very conflicted. It is for your consolation and salvation.

If we are become being consoled, it is for your consolation. Which you experience when you patiently endure the suffering that we also endure. We also endure that suffering. See, Paul was describing how that he and others were able to help others because God had helped them. God had been a comfort to them. He had been the consoler. And so, ultimately, that's what we want to keep in mind.

We want to do our part, but we want to know that God is ultimately the ultimate healer. He's ultimately the ultimate comforter. And even when we read in the book of John how Jesus said, I'm going to go away. And yet, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm not going to leave you orphaned. I'm not going to leave you helpless.

I'm going to send you the Spirit of Truth. I'm going to send you the Spirit of Truth, which is described as a helper, described in some ways as an advocate, but described as the comforter. And so, we have access to that Spirit. We have, we can pray that God will stir up the Spirit of God within us to be able to help others. To be able, not only to understand grief, but to be able to share that grief with others based on the conviction of the Word of God and of the working of the Spirit of God in our lives.

So, I will just close here in this sermon regarding grieving with hope, that in Jesus, we do find comfort. And in His promise of the resurrection, we have hope beyond the grave.