An Honest Look at Death and Mourning

A year ago this past March my father passed from this world into the next. I had hoped the day would come and go without giving it much thought, but it had been haunting me for a month prior. Each day I thought about what I was doing last year at this time and how I might have acted differently if I'd known that in a few weeks I would lose my dad. This type of thinking isn't too healthy because it eventually leads to a life of regret. I don't want to live like that but I do want to grow through this experience.

When I was eighteen I boarded a Greyhound Bus for a two and a half day trip to upstate New York. It was just after midnight as I boarded the bus and my dad followed me on to make sure I got situated and as he hugged me he said, "This is the beginning of a new life for you." I wouldn't realize until a few years later how true those words were. Then again last March 27th I began a new part of life...life without my father. This past year has been perhaps one the most challenging and rewarding years of my life as a husband, a father, a brother, a son and as a friend. But through it all I don't know if I can truly say I fully understand what it means to mourn as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Many times I have thought about how Jesus responded when confronted with death, and you know what, he wasn't fond of it. Both times he raised the person from the dead. Death and mourning is not one of those life experiences one really looks forward to going through but it is bound to happen sooner or later. This tension place of the here/not fully here Kingdom of God just really sucks some times, but we must eventually remember that there is still hope.

This past weekend at church the worship band played the song Blessed Be Your Name, coincidentally that song was also sung at my father's funeral. The truth contained within this song is one of those things where it's a lot easier said than done. But if we're going to survive this time it must be done.

and blessed be Your name
when the sun's shining down on me
when the world's all as it should be
blessed be Your name

and blessed be Your name
on the road marked with suffering
though there's pain in the offering
blessed be Your name
(Newsboys: Blessed Be Your Name)

I'm still very much experiencing the loss of my father, when I have a question about my car or something needs fixed around the house or when I look at my baby son who will never get to know his grandaddy. I don't cringe as often when these waves of mourning hit but rather allow it to break over me knowing that love and hope remain.

The following is what I said at my father's funeral. I think about this often, not because I admire my writing, but because never before have I been challenged to really live out my beliefs as I have this past year.

I read I Corinthians 13 (The Message)

It wasn't until Monday night, after having almost a full day to process the passing of my father, that verses 9 and 10 of this chapter really jumped out at me. Let me read just those two verses again:

9. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. 10. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

Many times we as Christians feel like we have to have definitive answers concerning every aspect of our faith leaving no room for mystery, but there is mystery and we should embrace it. Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of our faith is love, the complete and perfect love of Jesus Christ. Our present understanding of love has been warped by both society and the Church.

Throughout scripture love is the constant theme: it was in love that Adam and Eve were created, it was love that gave mankind a second chance through Noah, it was because of love that our Creator was born of flesh and it was love that ultimately drove Jesus to the cross.

My father loved his God and he loved people. Some of my strongest memories of my dad were the times I would see him cry. I didn't know it at the time but those moments had a profound impact on my life in teaching me that it's ok to weep. My father may not have always expressed his love with words and while he lived here on this earth his love certainly wasn't perfect or complete. However, we can rejoice because now not only is his body complete, not only is his sickness completely gone but he now knows the complete perfect love of our Savior and my father's love is now perfect and complete. His incompletes have been canceled out by the perfect love of Christ.

Love is not a simple concept, in fact it may be perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of our faith. Think about it, it's much easier to hate those that hate you, it's much easier to despise those that have a different ideology than yourself, it's much easier to declare war against that that would wish to harm you. Christ made it extremely clear that there is always a third way and that third way is the way of love. When asked to break down all of the Old Testament law into the greatest commandment Christ responded with, "Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscles and intelligence - and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself."

There's the chorus of a song that sums up just how difficult love is:

'Cause love is different that you'd think.
It's never in a song or on a TV screen
And love is harder than a word
Said at the right time and everything's alright
Love is different than you think
(Caedmon's Call: Love is Different)

Until we are face to face with our Savior we will never know the complete, perfect love that Christ spoke about, but it is imperative that we do our best to live it as best as we can until that time comes.

13. But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the the best of the three is love.