Thoughts on grief & death

In my current article in the United Methodist Reporter, I reflect on the reality of grief and death in our lives.

In my years as a pastor, I've heard lots of things said during times of profound grief that are meant to be comforting. But all too often, these reflect views that are really at odds with the way we're called to think about death as Christians.

The remarkable thing to me about the way the Scriptures help us to think about death is that it is not simply a matter of our souls escaping our bodies at death and going to live in an immaterial heaven forever. Instead, the New Testament view of death is one that is fundamentally connected to Jesus Christ's own death - and more than that, with his resurrection as well.

We should not be fatalistic about death, nor should we have a "thin" understanding of it that depicts death as a tragically necessary process that gets us to heaven. And while pain, death, and grief will raise questions in our minds about why such things happen in a world created by a good and loving God, the Scriptures and the Christian tradition have much to offer in this area that will help us, if we'll only engage with them.

Personally, I think there are a couple of things we should always put at the center of our thinking and reflecting on death and grief. The first is that these are things that must be done in the church, where we are called to be a true community rather than a collection of isolated individuals.

And the second thing is that we are a people who have been given a great hope - a hope so great, in fact, that the gift of it gives us the ability to wait for God's final unfolding of the new creation with patience. It is the twin themes of hope and patience that I try to address in more detail in my current column.