The saddest two words in the English language are these: “No hope.” A mother can bear the pains of childbirth because she hopes for the delivery of a child. A soldier can endure hunger and pain and even death if he has hope that his cause will ultimately prevail. Once, when I was pursuing Cindy, she wrote me a letter that quoted Paul’s words, “Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not”—and it encouraged me to keep on trying—and I’m glad that I did.
Life without hope is no life at all; it’s mere existence, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Is it any wonder that violence, and addiction, and political extremism are on the rise? When despair pierces the heart like a hook pierces a worm, there’s nothing left but to writhe and wriggle until death swallows us whole.
In today’s epistle, St. Paul encourages us “not to grieve as those who have no hope.” What does he mean? Does he mean that Christians don’t grieve at all the loss of loved ones? By no means!--for when he who is the Resurrection and the Life encountered the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he groaned in spirit. “Jesus wept,” we’re told.
We grieve. In part, it’s because we think of things we should have said or done differently than we did. In part, it’s because we think of things that might have been, that now can never be. Jesus’ grief at Lazarus was neither of those. But it was this: that he loved Lazarus, and for our sake he was grieved that death’s shadow should obscure the brightness of his love.
Love led him to stop death in its tracks. He called his friend back from death, and Lazarus’ rising was a foretaste of his own greater resurrection just eight days later. By his death, Christ has destroyed death. He has emptied Hades. He has brought life and immortality to light by his resurrection. Christ’s rising is no exception: it’s a foretaste of what is coming for all those who have died. He is the first-fruits of the resurrection.
And so we grieve in hope. We live in hope. We love in hope. The Creed’s last words are these: “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.” I look for it. I await it. It is coming, as surely as day follows night.
So it is right for us to remember our loved ones whom we have lost, and to pray for their rest and repose. We do it for them, today. Others will do it for us, before we know it. For as Solomon wisely said, “Love is as strong as death.”
Soon, soon, our Lord will return. He has promised. He is faithful. And his promise feeds our hope. It helps us endure the pain, and hardship, and even the death we experience in this life.
Hope won’t last forever, of course; like faith, it will have an end. One day faith will become sight, and hope will be fulfilled, in the presence of our God, who is love. Till then, we grieve, in hope.
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