March 8, 2022 – “Grief”

“When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” John 11:32-37

So we have been talking about the phrase “OK, Boomer”, and digging deeper into the reasons for why people from different generations do not always agree with one another. At first we were looking at why people resist change – and one of the reasons we were examining revolved around trust. Trust in necessary in all relationships – our trust in G-d – our trust in each other. And, so we are examining different aspects of trust. So we are on reason four you can follow to help you choose to trust again after a painful experience.

Fourth Tip: Allow Time To Grieve: There are reasons we lose our ability to trust – we are hurt by someone, we are taken advantage of, or we are lied to. Loss of trust can also involve loss of relationships. So not only are we grieving a loss, we are grieving our ability to trust our intuition in understanding people. The person you thought you knew turned out to be someone different – or you are grieving the life you had and the life you thought you would have forever. We know that grief involves stages like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. It may take going through some or all of these stages before we might find ourselves being able to trust again.

Jesus came to Bethany, and his friend Lazarus had been dead four days. Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha had trusted that Jesus would be there to save their brother. But Jesus was delayed – and the sisters had lost hope, and trust. We can hear it in their words: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” And Jesus wept – I believe because of the loss of his friend, the lack of trust from the sisters, and, of course, his own grief. But Jesus did not remain in his grief – he turned to his Father for support and understanding.

Grief is important – but we must learn to use that grief to grow stronger in our faith, and in our trust. We are always losing something in life – but we never lose Jesus’ love and grace.

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, it is so easy to lose our focus once in a while – but you are always waiting for us to return, give our troubles to you, and continue to grow in a relationship with your love and grace. Amen.

Pastor Dave