Two weeks ago, we talked about a lot of the details of grief – what happens, who experiences it, what we can do. For that sermon/lecture go here.

Again, I want to emphasize why it’s important for us to talk about so difficult a thing right now. Our church has experienced loss and grief these past few weeks – we’ve lost several church members and family members. Grief is something that can be addressed by faith, and among people of faith. Grief is also something that can destroy our relationships with God and with others.

In other words, dealing with grief properly is as important a matter of health as watching and dealing with your cholesterol!

Adjusting to Loss or Change

I heard the story a few months ago of a family whose college-age daughter was raped and killed by an older man nearly a decade ago. They were understandably upset at the time, and felt affirmed when the man was prosecuted, and eventually put to death recently – they needed “closure,” they said. But through all of this, they continued to express their grief, and it seemed to have torn the family apart – the mother and father had separated, and their son had left home and had no contact with the family. And after the criminal was put to death, the mother expressed in an interview that she was still saddened and depressed. The execution had not given them the satisfaction or closure they’d wanted.

That’s because what is needed in a time of loss is not justice, not closure. They don’t need another adopted child to take their daughter’s place. What they need is a clear “goodbye,” a time when they can begin to come to terms with their loss.

The fact is – and this is the definition I want to leave us with in this series – is that GRIEF is ADJUSTING TO LOSS AND CHANGE. It’s the emotional process that happens when we experience any kind of loss that is significant enough to change our lives. Whether it’s a person we lose or something else, if that person or thing was a big enough part of our lives, we’ll have to adjust to that person or thing not being present anymore.

The adjustment might just be a practical one: If we wreck our car, we’ll have to adjust to not being able to get around as easily. But often, there will be emotions involved, too.

We might like to think of ourselves as self-dependent individuals, the fact is that none of us are. If we could see our emotional connections – both positive and negative – like little wires stretched between us, we’d see that we are connected to nearly everyone around us in some way. If we look deeper, we’d see connections to objects, too – things that are important to us: our homes, our memories, our dreams, our own talents and skills.

Some of the connections are stronger than others. Some are positive (love, compassion, friendship, loyalty) and some are negative (anger, jealousy, indifference). But whatever the strength or type of these connections, we rely on them to sustain us and help us make sense of our world.

So when one point of that connection is gone, our world is suddenly in disarray. Things are suddenly different, and will not be the same. We have to adjust to life in a world where that person or thing is no longer present. And this is true, whether our connection was positive or negative. That’s why you’ll often be surprised to find yourself grieving when someone dies who you disliked or even considered an enemy.

Hidden Griefs

What kinds of things can we lose that might cause us to grieve? We have to be able to recognize them, because they can have as powerful an effect on us sometimes as losing someone. Here are a few examples of our “hidden griefs.”

1 Material Loss – For instance, losing our home, or something we hold dear.

2 Relationship Loss – conflict with parents, friends or spouses, loss of connection with God. Note this is one kind of grief Job suffered – he lost his family and material possessions to be sure, but it quickly becomes obvious that his grief is made worse by his loss of relationship with God.

3 Functional Loss – When you break or lose a limb, losing your ability to move freely, or losing your ability to function mentally.

4 Role Loss/Change – When you get married, you can grieve being single. You might retire, but when you do you also lose whatever roles you had associated with working.

5 Change/Loss in a System – This is a change in a system in which you’re a part. If a coworker dies or leaves, your work system has changed. When you have your first child (and each child thereafter), your family system takes a radical shift. When a conflict happens at church, you can grieve the loss of security and safety you had.

Loss of a Dream

6 Loss of Dreams and Expectations – These can be things as small as getting called into work and not being able to take the day off like we’d planned, to greater and deeper expectations and dreams: Not getting a job we’d desired; not making the grade we needed to graduate or move on in school; not being able to have children.

Of all the “hidden griefs,” this last one is probably the hardest to recognize and the most powerful.

For an example, look at the passage we read this morning of Jesus’ arrest and betrayal. The whole story of Jesus’ conflict with the priests and people, and his subsequent crucifixion, is a story of lost dreams and expectations. Remember the common patterns of grief? Shock & Denial, Volatile Reactions, Disorganization and Despair, and finally Reorganization. Let’s look for these patterns together:

• Judas, one of the disciples, becomes disillusioned enough with Jesus that he is ready to turn him over to Jesus’ enemies. He was obviously expecting Jesus to be something he was not – a military messiah, for instance, who would save his people from the oppressive Roman empire. When it became clear that Jesus was not going to be that kind of savior, Judas experienced grief. Problem is, he let his grief get the best of him, and got stuck in the “volatile” stage.
• The other disciples also had their own expectations of Jesus, and We find a crucial moment for their Messianic dreams in the garden, when Judas identifies Jesus. At this point, a military messiah would have used the opportunity to rally his followers. Draw swords! To arms! Now is the moment we’ve been waiting for! But instead, Jesus reaches out his hands… and lets them put shackles on.
• Peter is no different from the others, but his volatility and despair are even deeper because he is so close to Jesus. You can see his growing discomfort with this “different Messiah” as the gospel narratives progress. At one point, he chides Jesus for saying he was going to die, earning him a sharp rebuke from Jesus. When Jesus refuses to fight – and even rebukes Peter for fighting – Peter finally comes face to face with his “lost Messiah.” He runs, and out of shock and numbness, even denies his master.
• How could a crowd change so quickly from hailing Jesus as a king on Sunday, to calling out for his death on Friday? That’s the power of lost dreams and expectations. Jesus was not the Messiah they had hoped for. Their response? “Crucify him!” Talk about a volatile reaction!

The Key: Recognition

All these ways we’ve mentioned are ways we can grieve. So how come we so often ignore that grief? Because we think of grief as something that only happens when we lose a PERSON, and we fail to recognize that grief is about losing someone or someTHING.

The only way to start on the path of healing grief is to acknowledge the loss you’ve experienced – no matter how trivial we think it might seem to others. Only then can we properly begin to say “goodbye.”

I encourage you to take a few moments now to write down some of the things you’ve grieved or are grieving. If the things we’ve talked about have stirred you, or prompted some response, maybe that’s a grieving process you need to begin. Take some time to look over that list, and make a note of some of the people or things you need to say “goodbye” to.

Concluding the Series

We’ll conclude the series this time, a week earlier than I’d planned (some of you are breathing a sigh of relief). So as we finish, here are a few other thoughts I’d collected but hadn’t had time to share. Most of these relate to grief over losing a person, but can be transposed to other types of grief as well.

Make the most of memories – Take time to share and write down your memories… both the good and the bad. Share them with others, and share the laughter and tears together. Expressing these things not only cements the memories more strongly in our spirits, but also gives us a chance to discover and say things we might have left unsaid.

Use grief as a prayer – Everyone who grieves the loss of someone or something knows those moments – some sight, smell, or sound brings a flood of memories and emotions rushing back, almost as if losing that person or thing all over again. Take a moment to fully experience those emotions – cry if you need to, but let yourself feel those emotions. Then think of what it was that reminded you of your loss, and turn it into a prayer of thanksgiving to God. For instance, if the smell of chocolate chip cookies reminds you of your grandmother because you used to make cookies together, offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the times you got to spend making cookies with her, and ask that you can find ways to develop similar memorable experiences with others.

Write a letter – If you find that you had a significant number of things that you didn’t get to say, try putting those things into a letter. Take the usual care you would to write a letter – make sure you say what you mean, no more and no less. You can share that letter with a friend, or simply keep it to yourself. But expressing those things will be more good for you than you realize.

Think about the future – Take some time to think about what life might be like in a few weeks or months when the grieving process is over. What’s the best possible outcome you could hope for? What kind of lessons will you have taken from the person or thing you’ve lost, and from your experience of grief?

“See You Soon” – Imagine what it will be like to see that person if heaven for the first time. How do you think he or she will look? What kinds of things will you want to say to them?

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.

The series is “Living With Death” – coming to terms with our own deaths, the deaths of those we love, and other things we typically don’t like to think about (but that are important to think about anyway). This is the second sermon in the series, on losing those we love and on comforting those who have experienced a loss. I was concerned to discuss some of the psycho-emotional aspects of the grief process, alongside our theology and how it makes a difference to people of faith.

While some of this information is just “common wisdom,” some was gleaned from the web, and from books on pastoring and counseling, though it’s not all properly documented. I did get some good information from writings at the Reformed Sovereign Grace Literature Home website (what a name!), and from basic articles on Wikipedia. Strangely, I really didn’t find any sermons that were helpful as I studied…

The materials will be posted in two section – first is a handout that I gave to the congregation (it was pretty “top heavy” as my sermons usually go), and second is the basic text of the sermon.

_____________________________

2008 Lent Series – Living With Death

Part 2: Dealing With Grief

We don’t deal well with grief in general because as Westerners and as Christians, we have a “grief stigma.”

• Human nature – “I need to be strong, I shouldn’t be weak.”
• Christian understanding – “It’s not right to mourn and weep.”

1. Understanding Grief

• Everyone deals with grief… and it’s OK. Grief is an emotion as natural as breathing.
  • Ecclesiastes 3 – “A time to weep…”
  • 1 Thess. 4:13
• Grief HAS to be dealt with. If we don’t process emotions, they can make us sick.
• Everyone deals with grief differently.
• Grief is a PROCESS, a journey.
  • It is a healing process, like recovering from an injury.
• Common modes of grief:
  • Shock and Denial
  • Volatile Reactions
  • Disorganization & Despair
  • Reorganization
• Having advance notice doesn’t necessarily make the process easier or shorter… but it can if we are intentional about acknowledging our grief ahead of time.
• It’s natural to question God in times like this. In a way, this is another kind of grief – the loss of our spiritual footing. See Job’s story for a good example of this.

2. Preparing for and Dealing with Our Own Grief

• Make sure you do what needs to be done before it’s too late
• Give ourselves Time, Space, Permission to grieve
• Remember that God himself is our comfort – Psalm 147:3, Psalm 50:15
• Remember that grief is not a mental process, but an emotional one.
  • In other words, our understanding and theology may have little effect on our emotions.
• We have a Savior and God who has experienced what we have experienced – even our grief.

3. Helping Others In Grief

• Comforting others in time of grieving is not just a nice idea: it is a command. (Rom. 12:15, Jer. 8:21-22).
• When we comfort those who mourn, we are God’s agents in their healing. And we don’t just come to this task alone: our own grief can be a starting point for ministering to others – we can be “wounded healers” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
• Usually, it’s best to just BE THERE and mourn with them
  • Note that Jesus did two very different things when he came to Lazarus’ home:
    • He spoke words of reality and truth.
    • He wept with the mourners at Lazarus’ grave.
• BE CAREFUL WITH WORDS!
  • Words in this time can be VERY hurtful, so think before you speak (look at Job’s friends).
  • Even the best words – words of faith, comfort – are meaningless if we are not compassionate
• Offer practical help with whatever is needed.
• Give them space and time and permission to grieve, and remind them to take care of themselves.
• Know that they may lash out at us or at others they love – this is normal. Don’t retaliate – be forgiving.

_______________________________

“Blessed are those who mourn” – how on earth can this be true? Anyone who has ever mourned the loss of a loved one probably knows just how “un-blessed” that can feel!

And worse, there’s a stigma on our grief – especially in our culture, and especially as Christians.

• Western and US culture says we are to be strong individuals, not showing weakness. It’s not just true for males
• Black culture and other cultures seem to have an easier time with grief – express it quickly and begin the grieving process
• Plus, as Americans, many of us are “sheltered” from death these days. Medicine and technology have advanced to a point that we don’t have to deal with death as often as we used to, or as often as other cultures do. In other places in the Third World, people are much more used to dealing with death.

I’m going to deal with this psychologically as much as pastorally. It is an issue in both realms. Pastorally, there’s all the theology of death, our understanding of heaven, and how that informs the way we look at grief and loss. But there’s a disconnect there, and we’ll talk about it. Because we can be the greatest saint in the world, and have the deepest knowledge and faith in God and salvation… and still mourn at the loss of someone we love. And because we’re often so inept at dealing with grief, we need to look at it from a psychological standpoint as well.

That’s why I gave you the handout – there are so many details, I want you to be able to process it fully. Because this sermon applies to ALL of us – every one of us will lose someone we love. Every one of us will come into contact with someone who has. Every one of us needs to understand this powerful emotion, and learn how we can deal with it so we can be most effective in God’s kingdom work.

Grief in General

• The first thing we have to remember is basic, simple. It’s so easy to hear, but so easy to forget… and even more easy to write off because we don’t quite believe it sometimes. Everyone deals with grief… and it’s OK.
  • There is this camp that says that Christians won’t ever deal with grief or anger or sadness or depression. This is bunk. When God comes into our lives, he doesn’t turn us into emotionless robots! We still FEEL – it’s part of being human (and from what we read in the scriptures, it must to some extent be a part of being God).
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – a common scripture in times of mourning, acknowledges that Christians grieve… but we grieve as people with HOPE.
  • Grief is only an emotion. (Eccl. 3:1,4 – a time to weep…”)
  • As an emotion, grief is as natural a human action as breathing.
• Grief HAS to be dealt with. We can’t just deny it’s happening. Emotions – both negative and positive – are an organic part of us, and they have to be processed. If your body stopped processing the food you eat, you’ll either explode or get very sick. Our emotions are the same way – we have to process them and deal with them, or they will make us sick (figuratively and literally).
• Everyone deals with grief differently. Every one of us is uniquely made, and we’ve all developed different ways of dealing with our emotions. No two journeys of grief will be the same.
• Grief is not a destination or a pit we get stuck in. Grief is a PROCESS, a journey.
  • It’s a journey with no clear ending or beginning, but one in which we MUST KEEP MOVING (ever known someone who was stuck in their grief? Kept the room the same way, never seemed to acknowledge the person was gone?)
  • Grief is like a vacuum (cup in the water) – it has left a hole in our lives, and eventually we have to come to terms with that – to fill the hole in a bit, to let things settle down.
  • “Grief can be looked at as God’s way of healing a broken heart.” It is a process that God can use to strengthen our faith in him and our love for others.
    • If we break a bone, it takes a long time to heal. If our heart is broken, it takes a long time to heal.
• While everyone has a different journey with grief, there are some manifestations that are common to most people who are dealing with a loss. Experts used to call these “stages,” but that term generally makes us think of each stage having a clear beginning and ending. Not so – the different methods of grieving overlap and sometimes come out of their normal order. These are the common parts of grieving that psychologists have identified (I found these on Wikipedia’s “grief” entry, but there are references everywhere).
  • Shock and Denial – at first, we refuse to believe it. It is a shift in reality, a complete change in the way we are living – our minds and emotions have to shift to a new understanding of life without this person. The initial shock sometimes leaves us denying (to ourselves and others) that the person is really gone.
  • Volatile Reactions – once we finally accept the reality that the person is gone, many emotions flood us. These emotions often cause us to act out in some way – they make us unstable, like a boat that suddenly has extra passengers on board.
    • Sadness over the fact that we won’t see them again.
    • Anger that they left us or were taken from us
    • Frustration over our own reactions
    • Perhaps sorrow over things left undone or a broken relationship that was never mended.
  • Disorganization & Despair – Once these complex emotions have calmed down, we really begin dealing with the fact that this person is dead. If we think of loss as our hearts and lives being broken, this is us beginning to look for the pieces again. It’s hard – a sober look at our lives makes us realize that we will not be the same again. This often brings about sadness – even depression, hopelessness, fatigue. Often, people get stuck in this method of dealing with a loss and don’t move beyond. Some people ignore it all together and let it infest them.
  • Reorganization – at some point, we come to the realization that we cannot stay like this forever. Maybe we realize the person we’ve lost wouldn’t want us to live this way. Maybe we look around one day and begin to see how our grief has affected our families, jobs, routines, friendships. We begin to pick up the pieces and put them together again.
• Having advance notice doesn’t necessarily make the process easier or shorter… but it can if we are intentional about acknowledging our grief ahead of time
  • If we can begin to come to an acceptance of our loss before we experience it, the grieving process can begin. Often this helps us to be calmer in the actual time of loss because we have been preparing for it.
• It’s easy to question God in times like this – but we have to hold on tightly to our faith, even though it may seem useless to do so. This is only natural – no matter how developed our theology may be, I think there will always be some element of questioning in the back of our minds. “What did I do to deserve this? How could God do this to me?”
  • In a way, this is another kind of grief: grief over our loss of spiritual footing. We’ve lost hold on our understanding of God.
    • Look at Job, who held on tightly to God even when he was in deepest despair. He had moments of doubt and anger at God. But in the end, he held on.
    • Like Job, we have to allow grief to expand our understanding of God – “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
  • When we don’t understand, we can’t just let ourselves let go.
    • Rather, we must ask, “God, help me to understand in your time, and help me have faith until then.”
    • When we do this, our hearts are open to see something new about God that we may not have experienced before.

Now we can turn these psychological understandings of death and apply them – both to ourselves in times of grief, and to how we deal with others who are grieving.

Dealing with Our Own Grief – much of this can happen in preparation if we’ll let it

• 2 Timothy 4:12 – “come before winter” – making sure we do what needs to be done before it’s too late
  • Making sure we have tied up loose ends, mended relationships, said what needs to be said (even if it’s something we’re angry about).
• Giving Ourselves Time, Space, Permission to grieve
  • We’re not good at this. We beat ourselves up because we don’t think we can afford the time and space, and we don’t give ourselves permission to have these emotions, so we feel frustrated at ourselves for feeling this way!
• Remember that God himself is our comfort – Psalm 147:3, Psalm 50:15
  • Psalm 147:1-3 – Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
  • Psalm 50:14-15 – Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
• Grief is not a mental process, but an emotional one.
  • In fact, we will usually experience grief no matter what we may remember and understand. We can remember the basic tenets of our faith, can remember what the Bible says about death and dying. But that may not change our emotions of anger and loss.
    • Have you ever watched a familiar movie (or read a familiar book) – one you’ve seen/read before and know the outcome – and still felt the emotions of it? Fear, suspense, sadness, joy. Even though we know the outcome, these things are separate from the emotions we feel.
    • Look at our passage this morning from John 11. Jesus wept, even though he probably knew the outcome. He spoke the truth to Mary – “I am the resurrection and the life.” And yet he still wept.
    • How must God have felt when Jesus was crucified?
• But in these examples, we see that we have a savior and God who knows what we have faced and has experienced what we have experienced – even our grief.

Dealing with Others’ Grief

• It is a command -
  • Rom. 12:15 – Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.,
  • Jer. 8:21-22 – For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
• When we comfort those who mourn, we are God’s agents in their healing. And we don’t just come to this task alone: our own grief can be a starting point for ministering to others.
  • 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
  • “Wounded healer” concept
• Just BE THERE and mourn with them – the “I have to be strong” mentality is not always the best
  • See Romans 12:15 above
  • Also note that Jesus did two very different things when he came to Lazarus’ home:
    • He spoke words of reality and truth.
    • He wept with the mourners at Lazarus’ grave.
• BE CAREFUL WITH WORDS!
  • Words in this time can be VERY hurtful, so think before you speak
  • Note that Job’s friends were eventually rebuked because they had spoken falsely about God. It wasn’t that they said, “I’m going to lie to my friend.” They simply spoke out of their own understanding. But their understanding was wrong.
  • Even the best words – words of faith, comfort – are meaningless if we are not compassionate
    • Story of Violet Roper in the hospital.
• Offer help with whatever is needed.
• Give them space and time and permission to grieve.
  • We need it, and they need it to. Remind them to take care of themselves in this time, and remind others of their needs.
• They may lash out – this is normal!
  • They may say things that seem wrong or even contrary to faith – this is normal. Imagine what they’re feeling! (look at the story of Job)

Grief can be a negative experience, a neutral experience (very rarely), or a positive one. It can tear us down, or it can build up our faith.

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.