Why does it hurt so much?

Have you experienced the loss of a loved one? Wept in the agony of a life taken away? Agonized over the chasm between Heaven and Earth through which we may not reach except through prayer to God who oversees it? Perhaps you’ve even blamed God for keeping careful watch over the one you so regret losing to the separation of death. The Giver of Life is not the one who steals, kills and destroys (John 10:10), but our Maker has appointed the way of things, and for each of us to die at some point (Hebrews 9:27). If we are careful to learn the lesson of our pain, we find that it is separation that hurts us. Even in the case of those we mourn whose hope of Heaven is assured, we wince and wail at the thought that our prized one is there and not here. Our certainty of their happiness in Heaven only partly assuages the grief that results from our selfish nature. We want them to be where we can see, touch, and hear them. Pain is not without purpose; it serves to direct our attention to some real need. So to what is the pain of our bereavement directing our awareness? The Father has long been bereaved of union with His created children, and the agony of this estrangement would be an alien emotion to mortal man were it not for the occasional parting of our fellows or family members. Every instance of mortality serves as a reminder that we are not where we belong, and that our home is in the presence of the Father.

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Sin is separation, a falling away from God. The contract of Eden was that when Man ate of the forbidden fruit they would surely die (Genesis 3:3). Man rebelled against the one law of Eden’s covenant and was removed from God’s presence, a separation our selfish nature tends to make us forget. The consequence of sin is death – the inescapable result of choosing separation from God was we got our wish. Now, physically separated from God, our souls’ reunion with Him comes at the cost of separation with mortal (literally “death-sentenced”) men. So we who are left behind endure a deep longing for nearness to the one we have lost – to remind us of the deep longing the One who has lost us has had from the beginning. 

Thankfully, God has not left us to suffer without cause or without benefit. As we come to recognize the great empty chasm between us and God, we find ourselves drawn to the remedy for it. The awareness of our predicament comes by the Spirit of the One who bridged the gap by His own sacrifice. The common thread between Eden’s Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant (the Law and the Ten Commandments), and the New Covenant (the Gospel of Jesus Christ) is that sin requires a death (Hebrews 9:22). It is by no accident or miscalculation that we all feel unworthy to come to God; none of us is. But the unattainable price of our sin-bounty was paid by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God Himself in human form (Romans 3:25). 

The lie Eve and Adam bought was that this life is all there is – that “you shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4) was their reality. We, as their descendants, risk believing that same lie when we live as though this temporary separation is all there is. When we fail to recognize that Earth is a nursery, training academy, and proving ground for what we will become, and embrace it as though our existence will not go on beyond this world, we stand in pre-sentenced judgment and are granted our wish – eternal destruction. But if the pain of our separation serves its purpose, and makes us long for home enough to lean into it even now; if we more than just believe in Christ but believe on Him enough to live out that faith (John 3:18), we have the assurance that we are among His beloved children (Ephesians 5:1), and He will never really leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

Our tie to the eternal realm from Earth is prayer (Psalm 102:17, Revelation 8:4). God’s people communicate with Him, and He with them, through prayer. It is as simple as talking to a friend. Won’t you reach across the great divide with the one tool we have to do so, and end the separation that so grieves the heart of God, our loving Father? When you do, you may find that you become the answer to the question, “Why does it hurt so much?”

See also: The Death of a Friend: Permission to Weep

The Death of a Friend: Permission to Weep

The Gospel of John is one of my favorite books. I like John. Perhaps it is because John was the close friend of Jesus. When Jesus excluded Himself from the crowd, He always took with him Peter, James, and John. The witnesses to the Transfiguration were Peter, James, and John. John was the one reclining against Jesus at the Last Supper, and it was John to whom Jesus entrusted the care of his aging mother as he hung upon the cross. John even referred to himself as “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” The Gospel of John is riddled with symbolism and mysterious language that screams out to one who looks for it. It is the Gospel of Jesus according to one of His closest friends.

The eleventh chapter of John is one of my favorite passages. All the stories of Jesus, even those told prophetically in the Old Testament, help us to know who He is, but it is in this chapter that the humanness of Jesus becomes real to me. It is this chapter in which we find the story of Lazarus, who was also described as Jesus’ friend. Lazarus, a resident of Bethany, with whom Jesus would often stay when He was traveling, was the brother of Mary and Martha, the two about whom we read in Luke 10. Mary was the woman who would later anoint Jesus’ feet with perfume six days before His final Passover while He reclined with Lazarus in their home (John 12). (Mary is often confused with another woman who came into the house of the Pharisee to weep on Jesus’ feet and anoint them with perfume. See Luke 7.) The point is that Jesus would go to Lazarus’ house and just hang out… He could be found there, “just chillin’,” as the kids in our youth group would say. As humanizing as that sounds, this is still not what makes Jesus real to me. Although I must admit an image of Christ patting His belly after a big meal and putting his feet up does lend itself to a little better familiarity!

In the eleventh chapter of John, we read about the death of Jesus’ close friend. Some of us remember this chapter as home to the shortest memory verse in the Bible, John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” I remember this chapter because of the biggest verse in the Bible with regard to His relating to my feelings. It is the same verse, “Jesus wept.”

We all know the story. Lazarus became ill, and his sisters summoned Jesus, saying, “The one you love is sick.” Jesus waited at the Jordan a couple days and then told His disciples to pack up for a trip back to Judea, where folks just tried to kill Him. Lazarus’ sister, Martha, ran to Jesus, overcome with grief, even though she was filled with the Holy Spirit enough to recognize and announce (v. 27) that He was the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus, confronted by the mourners, welcomed by friends, in the company of the weeping crowd, demonstrates the humanity of Christ as it really begins to blend and conflict with his son-ship of God: “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” (v. 33) As they led Him to the place where Lazarus had been entombed for four days, “Jesus wept.”

The magic of Scripture is its living attributes. One passage holds numerous truths. One could devote years to the study of this one chapter. Not the least of these prismatic truths is the allegorical relation of Lazarus to mankind, and Christ’s delayed response to call us from our spiritual sickness which leads to death. There is His willingness to enter a hostile territory to be among those in need of His ministry. The call of Christ to, “come forth,” from out of the grave seems to foreshadow the mysterious death Christ Himself will endure very soon. But the thing about this passage I carry in my heart is that Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, in all His power and might, with all the command of the angelic realms, and the foreknowledge of what was about to happen, wept for His friend. Lazarus was about to be called forth from his grave. Jesus knew that! He had announced that intent to his disciples two days prior. When I was a kid, I wondered why Jesus would cry at that moment, since He knew He was about to wake Lazarus up anyway. That’s the way someone thinks who has never experienced the separation of death. Jesus didn’t seem troubled about the task at hand when He was reclining on the banks of the Jordan River. He knew what the plan was…but He didn’t know the pain yet. He didn’t begin to feel that way until verse 33, when he became deeply moved and troubled.

Have you ever endured something really tragic, and felt you had done a good job holding it together emotionally, just to break down completely the first time you tell the story to another person? That happens to me a lot. I can be strong and hold it all together, but then when I call my wife to let her know what has been going on, I end up crying on the phone. I believe this is the type of weeping that is common to all humanity, and unless our Savior had experienced it, we might be tempted to say, “You, who are God, wouldn’t know what I’m feeling right now.” But, Jesus wept. Thank God for weeping! Because of this experience, He can really understand what I feel right now.

My friend is absent from the body and present with the Father. I am happy for him. But I am sad for me. My desire to want him with me makes me weep, although I know it is in his best interest to be with God. It is the pain I witness on the faces of those around me that makes me hurt, because I know they only feel the same way I feel: I miss him while he’s gone. There is no sting in death, and no victory in the grave, but the anguish of the bereaved is real and understandable. What would Jesus do? Even if Jesus knew he was going to raise our dearly departed from the grave, He would still weep. Brothers and sisters, allow me permission to weep, and give yourselves permission to do the same.