A Mix of Extremes: The Way to Grieve (in a World of Love)

“The earth is full of your steadfast love, O LORD; teach me Your statutes.” Psalm 119:64

I just finished a record-long phone call with my sister. Last night she attended the visitation of a former student, whose family had over the years become friends.

This gentle young man was killed on his motorcycle a few miles from my sister’s home. His mother wept beside the coffin and would not take her hands off his body, the flesh of her flesh. Ills have great weight and tears much bitterness.

What on earth made you grieve this week?

And also, where on earth have you seen God’s love?

An Earth Bursting With Love

I saw it at dawn in the pair of cranes with outstretched legs flying just beneath the fog,

And in the dew on the clover beside the road as I jogged,

And in this butterfly.

It was in the sweet-tart crunch of the first Cortland,

And the flock of turkeys that strutted through the yard,

And the fawn and her mom who sipped at the birdbath,

And the woodchuck who munched by the culvert at the end of our drive.

And my eyes were blurry, not wide.

That was in the space of the last three days.

Everywhere there’s evidence of God, of his love. It’s there for the taking.

We only need eyes to see.

Eyes to See Hesed

Because the Lord’s steadfast love and mercy, his lovingkindness, unfailing love and devotion, surround us every single day. All of those English words are wrapped up in that single Hebrew word, the one Hebrew word to know, if you only know one: “hesed.”

Hesed conveys God’s covenantal faithfulness and kindness. In other words his committed, promised love.

“The earth, O LORD, is full of your hesed.”

Looking For Love

When the writer of Psalm 119 looked out upon the earth—the same earth, by the way that was as sin-stained, bloody, and cursed as it is today— he was sure of two things:

He knew for certain, as 19th-century pastor Alexander Maclaren wrote,

1. That God’s direct act is at work in it all, so as that every creature that lives, and everything that is, lives and is because God is there, and working there;

2. And that everything about us is the object of loving thoughts of God’s; and has some reflection of God’s smile cast across it like the light of flowers upon the grass.

When the world turns upside down and we feel more the weight of the curse than the hope of its reverse, it’s on us to prop open our eyes and look for “the signature of a loving divine Hand.”

Because God’s hesed is present, wherever you are, whatever you grieve.

God called his children to think on whatever is excellent and lovely and pure.

God’s own Son did this. Jesus had wide-open eyes. He looked at the world around him. “Consider the birds” and “look at the lilies,” our Lord said.

Because, “The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love.”

Even as the earth turns a people heavy-hearted people, we hope.

An Earth Turning With Grief

After the funeral call with my sister this morning, I texted a friend whose husband has yet another biopsy scheduled next week. I prayed for a friend whose dad is very sick and for Erika Kirk. Ills have great weight and tears much bitterness.

We rightly reel at the news of the week. We can’t help but grieve with mothers and widows and daughters and sons.

For our Brother is the same One who wept at the grave of a friend he loved, the same One who is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25).

So how don’t we grieve?

The Apostle Paul was clear: “We do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” And why? Paul was just as plain: “we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).

We do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13

Press Hope Into Grief

In “On Death (How to Find God)”, published the same year he announced the stage four pancreatic cancer of which he would die three years later, Tim Keller wrote,

Christians have a hope that can be “rubbed into” our sorrow and anger the way salt is rubbed into meat. Neither stifling grief nor giving way to despair is right. Neither repressed anger nor unchecked rage is good for your soul. But pressing hope into your grief makes you wise, compassionate, humble, and tenderhearted. Grieve fully yet with profound hope! Do you see why I said that this is not some midpoint moderation but a combination of extremes? (pp. 46–47)

In other words, we don’t tone things down. We don’t attempt to mute our emotions.

We blotchy-faced, puffy-eyed weep. And we shake-our-heads-and-laugh rejoice in hope. Both.

We believers, we prisoners of hope, mix extremes.

Grieve fully yet with profound hope! Do you see why I said this is not some midpoint moderation but a combination of extremes?
TIMOTHY KELLER

Rub God’s Steadfast Love

We do this without moderation. Rather, as Keller knew, believers in the Risen Lord mix extremes.

After the funerals, while we walk to our cars, we stand spellbound by the sunset. That woodchuck meets us again, chomping at the end of the drive. When dawn breaks, the sandhill cranes fly.

Through tears we look for God’s steadfast love that fills the earth, and when God’s children find it, we rub his hesed into our sorrowful, rejoicing hearts.