Note: this post is a little different from the usual Listening Project posts because it’s from my perspective. But I think God directed these words and maybe they will give you hope in your grief.
For Christians, today is often overlooked–the day after Jesus’ crucifixion and the day before Easter. The in-between day.
But then I thought of the grief that the friends and followers of Jesus felt as he lay in the tomb.
I understand the numbness, the finality, the cold, hard grief that descended on them like an unexpected hailstorm, devastating their hearts and faith.
It’s easy to forget that those people faced searing agony. That in-between day had to be one of crushing loss of a beloved friend and the apparent shattering of the dreams they had about Jesus as the Messiah.
They had been slammed against a jagged wall of loss, and I understand their deep pain.
Their grief directly correlates to our grief.
But here’s the crucial part: their grief ended with the unbelievable joy of resurrection.
Our pain of losing loved ones is not the final word, but only a temporary state. We live in that in-between time now.
It is crushing at times. Searing and empty. Like for those friends of Jesus.
But resurrection is coming for us as well.
As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body.
Luke 23:55-56
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.
