Does Faith Make A Difference In Bereavement?
Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago whether faith makes a difference when you are bereaved, when you lose someone you love. This, it seems to me, is one of those simple-seeming questions that don't have simple answers. On reflection, I'd say one answer is ‘no' ... and ‘yes'.
‘No' because I don't believe faith makes the terrible pain of loss go away, nor the ongoing wounds that recur in the days that follow. I don't believe faith is an anaesthetic that numbs us to reality, nor an opiate that helps us ignore it. If anything faith engages us more in the real world.
‘Yes' because in faith we do not walk the path alone. Spiritually (if you like) we trust in God's presence with us, even when we can't see it; and practically, as part of a faith community, we have the support that other people give, in God's name.
'Yes' again because we trust that God has a bigger picture - not just in the sense that 'God knows best', but also in the sense that there is more going on than we can see, that death doesn't have the last word in our situation, that God is still at work even when we can't see Him. 'Faith' means 'trust' and we trust that God is at work, no matter what. As the apostle Paul wrote long ago, in a letter to Christians in Rome, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
‘Yes' also because we trust that the loss is temporary, for a season, if you like - even if that season is wintry. I don't really mean the "S/he's not dead s/he's gone to be with Jesus" stuff that they tell kids, although I'll come back to that in a minute, but more a hope, a trust, that the separation will come to an end, that you will be together again, however tough it might be in the meantime. From my particular faith perspective as a Christian, this means that I trust that those who have died in Jesus will be raised from death like Jesus, and will live in a new Earth, a world of justice and of peace, where God Himself will wipe away every tear and where there will be "no more death or mourning or crying or pain", for those things will have passed away.
I can't avoid some 'ifs and buts' here. What about that 'died in Jesus' qualification? "My Dad never went to church in his life," or "my neighbour's son committed suicide," - surely God won't want them? It doesn't work like that! There are all sorts of good reasons for being part of a living faith community, but a guaranteed ticket to eternal life is not one of them. There are all sorts of horrible consequences to the act of devastating despair which is suicide, but it doesn't have to determine eternal life or death. For me, that comes down to a simple matter of trust: when all the garbage is stripped away, in their final microsecond of life, do they entrust that life to Jesus or do they carry on their own way. From the outside we cannot know how someone has chosen - life or death - all we can do is entrust their spirit to God. And maybe consider who we trust with our lives.
A final thought. If someone dies entrusting their life to Jesus, we are told in the Bible that their spirit goes to be with Jesus, until he returns and they are raised to new life. Also, when we pray, we are praying to God, communicating with Him, through Jesus. Sometimes when we mourn there is a sense of unfinished business, of things left unsaid. It strikes me that maybe, if we tell these things to Jesus, he will pass them on. Perhaps things don't have to remain unsaid.