We grieve with HOPE
If someone were to ask you to define the word “stop,” what definition would you give? Would you use synonyms like: conclude or cease, or finish or halt or come to an end or even terminate? As you consider the many words that can be used in place of the word “stop,” would you ever use the word “pause”? In the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923) the poet Robert Frost describes a traveler who pauses to watch the snow fall to the ground. “My little horse must think it queer/To stop without a farmhouse near/Between the woods and frozen lake/The darkest evening of the year” (Frost).
As I wrote that last sentence, I found myself pausing to look out the window before me, watching the snow fall to the ground. The traveler in Frost’s poem pauses to watch, sensing the stillness, the calmness, and the quiet beauty. “He gives his harness bells a shake/To ask if there is some mistake./ The only other sound’s the sweep/Of easy wind and downy flake” (Frost).
Yesterday, and for many days before, we stood near a grieving wife as she sat near her husband of many years, and near the one sick, who seemed so near death. This reminded me of years gone by, when we stood near the deathbed of my mother-in-law and then, years later, the bedside of my grandmother. A few years after that, we again stood near the bed of my father-in-law. Each aforementioned persons and even the one we visited yesterday, stood near death’s door. There remains a quiet solitude each time, as loved ones are gathered.
In Frost’s poem, his traveler pauses to watch the snow fall to the ground, momentarily forgetting his duties, his responsibilities, and the long journey that lay before him. He speaks in the poem of an earthly journey, one filled with duty and struggles, of life and work.
As we walk through life, we find ourselves deep in the seasons of struggle, of duty, of work. In those moments, we stop, pausing to see the quiet calmness of the world surrounding us, standing in the moment, in the solitude of our current season. For those who walk through a season of grief, grieving who is dying, we hear the words of God’s prophet Isaiah.
“And the ransomed of the LORD will return
(The Book of Isaiah 35: 10 NASB)
And come with joyful shouting [with singing] to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads.
They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
We grieve with HOPE. This is not a dream, nor a wish but a secure and glad confidence that God will bring His promises to pass. The apostle Peter called this a living hope because we know that we know (that we know)—We who believe and have given our hearts to Jesus will live with Jesus forever. Not a pipe-dream; not a wishful thinking, not a “I hope so,” but AN ASSURANCE. Jesus is coming back, and the apostle Paul records what that day will look like for every single person who lives now or who has ever lived and died.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep,
(The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians 4: 13-14 NASB)
so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.”
In the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” the poet ends his famous poem with this stanza: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,/ But I have promises to keep,/ And miles to go before I sleep./ And miles to go before I sleep” (Frost). To the Christian, the word “sleep” resonates, for we have read the many Scriptures, those which speak of one’s death as sleep. The Great Day Is Coming When Jesus Will Come Again! We rejoice though we grieve for those we love who are passing away before that great day.
“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
(The First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians 4: 15-18 NASB)
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
[May We Shout & Sing, Raising Our Hallelujah!]
“Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Yes, we grieve with HOPE.
God, our Father, will keep His Promises.
Our HOPE in JESUS is a secure, glad confidence.
We stand, lifting our voices, raising our hands in worship to the KING of kings, proclaiming—
“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way
(“It is Well” by Horatio G. Spafford, Keith Getty, and Philip Paul Bliss)
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.
. . .
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part, but the whole
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul
It is well, (It is well) with my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well, with my soul”