GLADNESS IN LOSS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“You heard Me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over Me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what My Father has commanded Me.”

“Come now; let us leave.”

John 14:28-31

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In the closing verses of John 14, we find Jesus telling His disciples something that must have seemed counterintuitive, at least by the world’s standards. For within these four verses, there is one central message Jesus conveys:

There is gladness in loss.

Huh?

Wait a minute Jesus. Are you saying that the death of someone should be a time of joy and not sorrow…a time of celebration instead of mourning?

That’s exactly what Jesus was getting at and He didn’t just send the message, He backed it up with reasoning, reasoning not based on opinion or hyperbole but rather truth…past, present, and future.

First, the past.

Jesus had told His disciples He would have to suffer and die. He told them on more than one occasion. He knew what was coming and why it was coming. And He knew fully that what was ahead was His purpose, the reason His Father gave Him live to begin with.

Further, the prophets had foretold not only Jesus’ coming but His suffering and dying as well. And so what was coming had been predicted and Jesus was fulfilling prophecy, something that could be received with joy as it completely validated the words that had been spoken, not words contrived by God’s messengers but rather given to them by God Himself. The connection between God the Father and His Son existed before Jesus was even conceived.

Next, there was the present.

Jesus would be dead within 24 hours from speaking these words to His disciples but death was not the end for Him. He wouldn’t go into the tomb and that was it. People wouldn’t always speak about Jesus in the past tense after His death. Rather, Jesus would come back to life, resurrected with power from God, just as He had told His disciples He would. And if this wasn’t enough reason to rejoice and be glad, Jesus gave His followers one more. For Jesus would be going to God, His Father and theirs, after His resurrection and when He did, His disciples would remember these words He was speaking within our passage today and believe.

Finally, there was the future.

For as Jesus was first resurrected and then allowed to ascend to sit at God’s right hand, He gained victory over Satan, who Jesus calls the “prince of this world” in our passage. Note that although Satan was coming, He had no hold on Jesus, no more than He does on anyone who has placed their hope in Him as Savior since He walked the earth. In the end translation, Satan, the prince of the world, was no match for Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and he has zero chance of defeating anyone who has placed their faith in Jesus, receiving the promise of eternal life only found in and through Him.

This good news of future victory through Jesus should lift up our hearts and spirits when we are left in the wake of loss. It’s something I have had to deal with personally for the past seven years on more than one occasion to include my father’s death in 2011.

I was one year from retiring after spending 28 and a half years in the United States Navy. My father had been one of my number one supporters over the course of my career and we had spoken about doing future things together following my retirement. I was looking forward paying tribute to him and my mother during my formal ceremony.

Then I received a call in the summer of 2010. My father had been found at the bottom of the stairs at a local business and after being taken to the hospital, it was determined he had suffered a stroke. The effects were devastating and my father never recovered fully, moving from the hospital to a rehab facility and finally home where he spent his final days.

I remember the funeral and how I felt such a sense of peace and happiness for my dad. Sure, I was going to miss him and I could have sat there and yearned for more time together but doing so would have almost been as if I was questioning God’s timing in calling His child home. I’ve come to realize that we can covet things in many ways, to include more time with the people we love, but there’s a reason that God commanded us not to covet. And so I chose not to wish for more than I had been given, and frankly, I should have only felt blessed that the Lord gave me as much time with my father as He did. I also was happy for my dad because he would no longer have to suffer the afflictions caused by the stroke. Departed from the world but at home with God, I knew that the Lord would make him a brand new man.

My father’s death would be followed by a three brothers-in-law within a 9 month period between 2014 and 2015, a brother-in-law’s wife in 2016, a niece in 2019, and a sister-in-law in 2020. All were Christians. All gatherings to pay tribute to their lives were celebrations, not funerals, as we shared gladness in the midst of loss.   

In today’s message, we find Jesus telling His disciples, both in the upper room and every disciple since, that there is joy to be found in death, and it was only made possible through the love of God as expressed through Jesus His Son, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world and thus remove the sting from death. In Christ, there are no “goodbyes”, just “see you laters” and friends, this is reason for all of us to feel ecstasy and jubilation as we give thanks to God and Jesus for the promise of salvation, the promise our departed loved ones have entered into.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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