There is not a family on earth that is immune from death.
Death visits alike the homes of the poor and the palaces of the noble. It is no respecter of persons.
But happily the Christian circle stands in a position of positive triumph in the presence of death. We have been at scores of funerals where triumph was much more in evidence than sorrow. Death is OUR’S (see 1 Cor. 3:22). What an absolute reversal of things! Death is no longer an enemy, but a friend. The death of our Lord has changed everything for the believer.
And yet, for the believer death is often dreaded. It is true that an aged saint, whose physical powers have waned, whose tether has been shortened more and more, wishes and longs and prays for the moment when the Lord will give release from a body of weakness, weariness, and disabilities. But when a parent dies, or a wife, or a husband, or a child, the snapping of the earthly link is a sore and great trial.
How we behave in such circumstances depends largely on our true and real link with the Lord. If we are self-centred, we shall certainly fail in our behaviour. We have known many a sorrowing one triumphing in their bereavement as they received the sorrow from the hand of the Lord, and as they dwelt on the happiness and bliss of their departed Christian relative. Others again have behaved in a way that reflects on God’s goodness by excessive grief that rendered them unfit for the very duties of life.
In every circumstance of life we find instructions and help in the Scriptures. If we turn to Bible incidents, we shall see how saints of God behaved in bereavement We may get comfort and help thereby in our own sorrows, for who is there without sorrow?
There is one case in Scripture where a mother gave her life for her child. There is a fine lesson to be learned from this case. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, died in giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. The father was sorely bereaved, for Rachel was his deeply loved wife. In her anguish when departing she named the child, Ben-oni (the child of my sorrow). Did Jacob accept this name, which would have reminded him for the rest of his life of the tragic circumstance of his wife’s death, the most terrible for any devoted husband? No, he named the child, Benjamin (the son of my right hand). He got comfort out of this precious legacy given to him by the Lord.
Is this not an illustration of something far higher? Was not our Lord Mary’s Ben-Oni? Could any mother have more poignant sorrow than she had when He hung on the cross of shame? Was there any earthly sorrow of any mother’s like to her’s? Yet at His birth the angel said to her, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women” (Luke 1:28). Her sorrow was well born, a wonderful privilege did she but realise that our Lord was but Benjamin to God, the Son of His right hand. What a field of thought this opens out. The woman in all the world, who had more joy out of her Son, and more sorrow was Mary. Her’s was a unique case. But how sanctified was her grief when we think of the blessing the unparalleled sorrows of our Lord brought to men, and how He glorified God in the carrying out of His holy will.
How good it is to realise that pain may be a higher honour than aught beside that God can give. At any rate God makes no mistakes, if sorrow comes the knowledge of this keeps the heart in peace.
King David is a striking case of behaviour in bereavement. The nameless child of Bathsheba was taken from the earth in the government of God upon the father for his sin. David sought by fasting and earnest prayer that the child might live. The elders of his house sought to raise him from the ground where he had prostrated himself, but he refused to be raised up, or to eat bread. His anguish was sore. He felt he had brought this judgment upon the child.
On the seventh day of the child’s sore sickness, the little life flickered out. David’s servants were afraid to tell the anguished parent the truth. If he sorrowed so while life was there, what would he do when hope was gone? David noticed the servants whispering to each other, and asked, Is the child dead? They said, He is dead. How then did David behave in his sore sorrow?
His conduct was beautiful. He arose from the earth, washed himself, changed his raiment, and came into the house of the Lord and WORSHIPPED. There was no giving way to unmanly grief. Grief there was, and sore grief, and God would not chide him for this. But in his touch with God he triumphed. He WORSHIPPED.
Are we tried in sore bereavement? If we worship, give God the glory, accept the trial at His hand, we shall be immensely helped to bear the trial.
We sometimes look rather pityingly on Old Testament saints as those having little light. True our privileges as to truth and light, our access to the Word of God in its completeness, are far greater than any Old Testament saint ever had. But here is a lesson we New Testament saints might well ponder over and profit. Moreover David comforted himself with the thought. “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” We part but not forever. We part but for a very little while.
We come now to another case. Often the woman of Shunem, described as “a great woman”, had given a meal to Elisha, the prophet of God, as he passed her home. The knowledge and friendship this brought about occasioned the building of a little chamber on the wall of her house where the prophet could repose for the night. Wishing to be grateful for her kindness, one day he called her into his presence and said, “Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care, what is to be done for thee? Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host?” (2 Kings 4:13). She answered, “I dwell among my own people.” Elisha said to his servant Gehazi. “What then is to be done for her?” He replied, “Verily she has no child, and her husband is old.” Then Elisha called her into his presence and said, “About this season, according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son.” And so it fell out.
We can imagine what a joy this was to the childless woman. His parents watched the babe grow up to sturdy youth. One day he was with the reapers in the field. He complained of his head. He was carried to his mother. He lay on her lap till noon and died.
What a tragedy! For a mother with deep affection for a son, given to her under such sacred circumstances, this was indeed a staggering blow.
She laid the child on the bed of the man of God, got her ass saddled, and accompanied by her servant rode quickly to Mount Carmel where Elisha was. The prophet saw her coming and told Gehazi to go forward and enquire “Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?” She answered, “It is well.” Her anguish was so great that Elisha marked it before he spoke to her, and yet this was her answer. We all know the story of how the child was raised to life again, but the point we wish to emphasise is her remarkable answer as to the child, “It is well.”
We sorrow not for our departed friends as those that have no hope. If we think as the Word of God instructs us, there is ever more cause for rejoicing than sorrowing when a loved one, who is the Lord’s or a child, not grown to years of responsibility is taken. We know that our loved ones are happier than ever on earth, and happier and safer than we could make them. It must be so for they are with the Lord. It is well with them.
We come now to the case of Job. What a stripping was his. One day, a messenger came to him with the alarming news that the Sabeans had fallen upon his servants, had put all to the sword, save the messenger, who alone escaped, and taken away five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she asses. Before the messenger had time to finish his doleful tale, another messenger came with the alarming news that the fire of God had fallen from heaven and burnt up sheep, seven thousand in number, and the servants in charge of them, the messenger being the only one who had escaped. While the second messenger was telling his tragic story, another messenger arrived telling Job that the Chaldeans had arrived in three bands and had taken his three thousand camels, slaying all his servants, only one escaping to tell the tale. It would be no wonder if under three such bewildering and lightning strokes of ill fortune his mind should reel under the awful shock.
But worse was to come. His seven sons and three daughters were feasting in their eldest brother’s house when a great wind from the wilderness smote the four corners of the house. In its collapse it killed the seven sons and three daughters. Was there ever a more tragic story? Can we realise the feeling of Job at the time? All his vast wealth gone, but worse, far worse than all beside, his whole family swept away in one fell stroke in one short day.
What did Job do? His conduct was perfect. We read. “Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and WORSHIPPED.” Could it be so? It was. What a rebuke to some, who would blame God for the blow that has fallen.
A man with such a touch with God as that, with no copy of the Scriptures as we have, with no knowledge of Christ, for He was still to come, but in touch with God, is an object lesson of a very powerful kind to each one of us. Listen to his words, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.” Sublime words uttered in the presence of such awful devastation.
The remembrance of these cases of behaviour in bereavement may be a help to us all when the dark days of sorrow and trial come. We pray that it may be so.
But let us turn from these cases of behaviour in bereavement, and see how our blessed Lord on His side acted in such circumstances. We refer to the sickness to death of Lazarus. Read the narrative in John 11. It is remarkable for it tells us that the Lord is the Chief Actor throughout, as He ever is. We read. “Jesus heard (v. 4). “Jesus loved” (v. 5). “Jesus answered” (v. 9). “Jesus spake” (v. 13). “Jesus came” (v. 17). “JESUS WEPT” (v. 35).
This last sentence, the shortest verse in the Bible, but pregnant with such wondrous meaning, a verse that has been of the greatest comfort to unnumbered of God’s sorrowing people, we would emphasise. We read that Jesus loved, and if He loved He sympathised, not mere lip sympathy, but with divine feelings, that showed themselves through tears. The Lord is just the same today in the glory. True, there are no tears shed in heaven, but the sympathising heart is just the same.
Moreover His word of power brought Lazarus from the dead, back to the embraces of the sorrowing sisters. The same word of power will one day, and that we believe soon, very soon, bring from the dead our loved ones, who have died in faith, and then we shall be ushered into a scene where there is no parting, no tears and no death. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!! HALLELUJAH!!!
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” HALLELUJAH! (1 Cor. 15:26).
“And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things NEW” (Rev. 21:5). HALLELUJAH!