Jesus and Grief

Recently, in my weekly email, I wrote about the idea of women as bearers of Gods messages to His people. I loved what I found.

In the process of that research, as I was reading/thinking/writing about Jesus' having given Mary of Magdala a message to speak to His followers, I started to notice another facet of the situation. I saw it in the account given in the gospel of Mark, but wanted to double check my theory. I read through that same section in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and also the first part of Acts, just to be sure.

Here is the thing that has been driving my eager search:

While Jesus rebuked his disciples for their hardness of heart, for not believing those He'd sent with news of His return to life, He never rebuked the disciples for their grief over his death!!

I have heard Bible teachers scorn Jesus' followers for huddling together in grief and despair, as if they really should have known better. We, with the benefit of hindsight and the whole New Testament at our fingertips could easily roll our eyes at their response. "Seriously. He told them, over and over, what was going to happen! They should have just believed Him! Sheesh!"

We've gotten it so wrong! Having walked the harrowing halls of tragic loss this past year, I have a whole new view of the situation. I have grown a deep compassion for those shocked, traumatized, devastated disciples. Of course they were huddled together behind locked doors, shaking and grieving! Of course they felt abandoned and completely at-sea.

They did not have the benefit of hindsight or a fistful of explanatory New Testament Scriptures to enlighten them. They had just seen the one they loved the most tortured and torn to pieces and brutally killed. The mob that screamed for Jesus to be crucified could very well have been out for the blood of His followers as well. They must have been terrified! And absolutely heartbroken.

Then, in came Mary, shaking and stumbling over her words, insisting that she'd just seen Jesus and spoken to Him. They brushed aside her claims. I imagine that some of them may even have been angry at her. Under intense emotional strain, people often revert to less-developed versions of themselves. Trauma does not tend to bring out the best in people. Everything in their cultural background, and in her own personal, pre-Jesus history, told them she had no right to speak and should not be believed. They refused to believe her. A few, including Peter, at least went to check out her story. In fact, it says Peter ran to see for himself.

Later, when Jesus himself suddenly appeared among them, behind those closed, locked doors, did He shame them for their shock and grief? No. He rebuked them for not believing any of the messengers He'd sent to tell them of His resurrection.

Mark 16:14 "...he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen."

Each Gospel gives the account of Jesus' life, death and resurrection differently. Not that any is right and the others wrong. They were written by individuals who were more deeply impacted by one fact of their experiences or another, and told it from their own point of view.

-Matthew leaves out this first encounter, skipping to their final meeting on the mountain in Galilee.

-Mark says He rebuked their hardness of heart and unbelief.

-Luke tells how startled and frightened they were at his sudden appearance, how he questioned their troubled, doubtful hearts and then assured them of the truth of His identity and life.

-both Luke and John say that He greeted them with, "Peace be with you." John also tells what Luke did- that Jesus showed them the wounds of His crucifixion to assure them of his identity.

He never rebuked them for their traumatized far, and, so important to me just now,

He never rebuked them for their grief. <3 <3

In some circles, grief is shamed as weakness or a lack of faith. This is not biblical! The Bible does say, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 that we should not grieve as those who have no hope, but it never says that we should not grieve at all. The Bible does not urge this sort of forced, stoic, false "victory" over justified sadness. On the contrary, Jesus himself said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Matthew 5:4

There is no shame in grief. There is no agenda to hurry through it. Grief, in Jesus' agenda, was met with compassion and the promise of comfort.

In the same way, He meets us today in our grief, with tender love and bottomless compassion.

*Where to find those accounts:
Matthew chapter 28, Mark chapter 16, Luke chapter 24, John chapters 20 & 21
 *Soon, I hope to have my website finished, with a handy link for subscribing to my weekly emails. In the meantime, if you're interested in joining my mailing list, you can write me at kristiewrites@yahoo.com and I will gladly add you. My weekly notes are generally light-hearted, random musings, with occasional bits of deeper thought.

I can't write it yet...

People have asked me to share what are good things to say to those who are grieving, and what are things better left unsaid.

I've tried.

I've tried four times.

I have not posted any of it.

Why?

The hurt has still been too raw and ready, and it has taken me to a very angry place. I don't get angry over most of the things that were said to me. What stokes my fire the most is the memory of words that have hurt our children and made this already agonizing road even more painful. Mama bear. She has a hard time letting go of hurt to her cubs.

 What have I learned?

I will write about those things someday. First, though, it is essential that I walk the road of forgiveness over all of those clumsy, thoughtless, well-intended, damaging, hurtful words. I wrote about this in my most recent post. I have not posted anything since because I am living the journey right now.

I am doing the hard work, prayerfully, sometimes reluctantly, but committed to pressing on.

I will not be able to write in a healthy, hopeful, helpful way about the words that hurt until I have excavated the buried pain and resentment in my own heart and let it go.

For now, I'll continue to share the journey toward forgiveness.

And someday, when I can do it without fire shooting from my fingertips, I will write about the words that were spoken to us in our hardest days.