What Does The Bible Say About Grief?
Video Timeline
WELCOME
0:00 - Welcome with Matt & Dan
TALK with Anna Kettle
06:42 - What Does The Bible Say About Grief?
08:13 - Everyone Grieves
10:02 - Grief Can Raise Some Big Questions
11:54 - Grief Wasn't Part Of God's Original Plan
13:49 - God Promises To Comfort Us
16:49 - Grieving With Hope
18:47 - Grief Can Be Transformative
WORSHIP
23:54 - How Deep The Father's Love with lyrics
CONVERSATION STREET with Matt & Dan
27:30 - Conversation Street
CLOSING WORSHIP
1:00:05 - I Will Exalt with lyrics
Podcast:
What does the Bible say about Grief?
— Anna Kettle
I wanted to start just by saying that if you're grieving, whether that's a recent loss or the loss of someone in the past, I'm so sorry. Losing someone we love is always really hard. I hope that this talk offers you some small encouragement at this difficult time. I also want to acknowledge that I'm no stranger to grief myself. In fact, it's something that I've been through quite a lot over the last few years, particularly as I've walked through several recurrent miscarriages. In one year, I lost two babies within the space of fewer than six months. So, for me and my husband, grief is quite a familiar experience. Although I certainly don't have all the answers, it's a subject that is close to my heart, and something that I've had to wrestle with a lot in the last few years. So that's where I'm coming from.
I'll talk a bit more about my experience as we work through this, but I wanted to pick out six things that have been really helpful to me in thinking about these big subjects of death, grief, and how we find hope amid the grieving process. It's a big topic. I certainly won't do it full justice today. Hopefully, though, it will give you some key pointers that you can take away and start to think about.
Everyone Grieves
The first point I wanted to look at is that everyone grieves. Culturally, we don't always like to think about or talk about death very much. We certainly don't like to think or talk about the fact that we might die or that loved ones might die. That's probably understandable to a certain degree, but it also means that when it happens, we're not always well prepared for it. Certainly, that was my experience before my miscarriages. I didn't have the emotional tools or ability to know how to process my grief well. I found that a lot of people around me either didn't know what to say, so they just didn't say anything, or they didn't know how to deal with it so they just avoided me for a season.
This is why it's important to talk about grief because everyone grieves. Grief is sadly an unavoidable part of being human. It's something that's guaranteed to come to all of us at some stage in life. Ephesians 9:2 in the Bible puts it like this. Everyone will die someday. Death comes to godly and sinful people alike. It comes to good and bad people alike. Since everyone eventually dies, it means we'll all face grief in life. Even if you're not grieving right now, it's worth taking some time to think about the subject. Not only will you have to deal with it at some point, but there'll also be people around you right now who are grieving, whether that's neighbors, work colleagues, friends, or family. It's really helpful to be able to understand how to talk to them about it and to know how to support them best.
Grief Can Raise Some Big Questions
The second point I want to make is, grief can raise some really big questions. When we lose someone, it tends to bring up a lot of pain and pain raises a lot of questions about big spiritual matters. Questions like, who is God? What's the point of life? Why did God let this happen? Why me? Why them? Why now? Why does God allow suffering? Why didn't he intervene and heal someone? How can I believe God loves me when he allows me to feel so much pain? Honestly, these are big questions, and I don't have fully formed answers for all of them. I wish I did because they're all questions that I've asked in my seasons of grief. But I don't, because I'm not God. What I do know is that it's not wrong to have these questions. It is totally normal and understandable to have questions about why things happen.
Even Jesus himself when he walked on this earth as a human being questioned God in the face of his own death. You can read about this in the Gospel of Matthew 27:46. The very last words that Jesus utters on the cross before he dies when he's facing death, is this,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
I find that an incredible thought that even the divine would question the divine in the face of death and grief. Therefore, I find that incredibly reassuring that it must be okay for us to have questions about our pain and suffering too.
Grief Wasn't Part Of God's Original Plan
The third point I want to make is that grief wasn't God's plan for us. I think this is one of the reasons why we find grief so difficult to deal with as human beings. Death was never actually meant to be part of God's plan for us. It wasn't his original design for us as human beings to have to deal with it. Death and grief were not something he wanted us to experience or to have to deal with at all. In fact, this is something that we learn right at the beginning of the Bible in the very first book of Genesis. Right at the beginning of the story of mankind.
In chapter 3, we're told about Adam and Eve, who were the very first human beings that ever walked the earth, and they were made to live eternally in relationship with God to never die. It says they walked and talked with him in the garden. This garden was called Eden. It's basically like this paradise where there's no pain, no sickness, no fear, no sadness, no conflict, and no war or death. Sounds amazing. And it was, but then they mess things up. They disobeyed God by eating from this one tree that he told them not to touch or eat from less they die.
My main point is that death wasn't God's original design for us. That's why we struggle to deal with it. It's really easy to feel angry and to have questions and to blame God particularly when we're hurting because somebody's died. But the truth is that it wasn't God's plan for us, and knowing this and remembering this, I found goes some way at least to answer some of the spiritual questions that grief brings up.
God Promises To Comfort Us
The next point I wanted to make was that God promises to comfort us in our grief. In fact, the Bible tells us over and over again, that God never abandons us. He doesn't just leave us to deal with it on our own. He draws close to us. He cares about our grief, and he wants to be involved. He doesn't just leave us to mourn, but he promises to comfort us and to draw near to us as we go through that. An example is in Psalm 24:18, it says this,
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves all those who are crushed in spirit. ”
Likewise, in Psalm 56:8 it says,
“You keep a track of all my sorrows, you’ve collected all my tears in a bottle. ”
That is such a beautiful picture of how intimately God cares about our sadness and our heartbreak that when we are crying, he would collect every tear. Perhaps the most reassuring verse that I've come across is in John 11:35, which is one of the Gospel accounts of Jesus's life. It's actually the shortest verse in the whole Bible. And it says this,
“Jesus wept.”
Just two words. It's written about the death of his close friend, Lazarus. I think that story is such a great reminder that in Jesus, we have a saviour who doesn't just sympathise with our pain from afar, but he fully understands because he's been there too. He's walked in the same shoes as us. He knows what it is to lose people he loves as well. Perhaps though, the most outrageous claim in the Bible about God's comfort to us in our grief, found in Matthew 5:4 which is another one of the Gospel accounts of Jesus's life, is this,
“Blessed are those who mourn or grieve for they will be comforted. ”
I don't know about you, but I find this an incredibly mind-bending idea that people who grieve are blessed because when you're in the middle of grief it really doesn't feel like a blessing. I've wrestled with this idea for a long time. I think this is maybe where I land. It's that the blessing probably isn't in the grief or the loss itself, but rather the invitation that grief can present, which is to experience God's comfort and perfect peace in a much deeper, fuller, more rich way than we've ever needed to know before. I'm sure it goes without saying that, I would never have chosen recurrent miscarriage to be a part of my story. If I could do the last few years of life again, and erase it, I would choose that every time. At the same time, I also know that if I never walked through that kind of grief or loss, there'd be parts of God's character that I wouldn't have experienced.
Grieving With Hope
This brings me to my next point, which is that it's possible to grieve with hope. Grieving is a really hard process and I don't make light of it. It's hard, it's tough, and it takes a long time to get through. Yet, as a Christian, it's possible to go through all those emotions like anger, and sadness, and confusion and shock, and denial, but also to know this underlining sense of God's love and peace, even in the midst of those darkest moments. That hope comes from knowing that death is not the end. This is really the crux of the Christian faith.
In John 3:16 which is probably the most well known verse that there is in the whole Bible says this,
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. ”
Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, it says,
“we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like those who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died, and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. ”
Of course, as a Christian, it's still so sad to lose someone. It's a really painful thing and there's no way to bypass that grief. We'll still miss that person being with us here and now. At the same time, the comfort and joy that we can take as believers in Jesus are that we can look forward to knowing that we'll see that person again someday in eternity.
Grief Can Be Transformative
The final point I want to make about grief is that it can be transforming. It is not something that any of us get any choice or control over. We don't choose how or when we die or when people around us die. We don't really get to choose how we feel about it either. But I do think that what we do with it is a choice.
I've spoken to many others who are grieving over the last few years who've experienced similar things to me around loss and miscarriage. It's clear to me that loss is something that imprints deeply on the human soul and leaves us forever changed, for better or for worse. To coin a popular phrase, we can either get bitter or we can get better in our pain. There's a Bible verse in one of Paul's letters which says,
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God.”
So this verse doesn't just say that God comforts us in our grief, which is part of the equation that we've already unpacked. But more than that, it says it's like a double blessing. We don't just have the comfort for ourselves, but we can also extend that to others who are hurting too. That's certainly been my experience of going through the grieving process. I've experienced God's comfort in really hard times, but I've also discovered deep empathy for others who are hurting too, for other grieving mums for example. So much so that last year, I helped set up a miscarriage network with a few friends to help support other women facing a similar thing. Now that's not something I would have done before going through it myself. I wouldn't have been an empathetic person who would have got alongside grieving mums otherwise.
So definitely grief can be transformative, but that's the part that is our choice. It's only if we take our pain to our Lord God and allow Him to heal us instead of allowing our pain to make us bitter, angry, and to push us away from Him.
So here's the question that I want to finish on. Will we allow God to enter into our pain and our sadness, and will we trust Him with all of those broken pieces of our heart, and allow him to take them and to create something new from it?
That's the question and that's the choice.
I'll finish with a short prayer for us.
A prayer for those who are grieving
Holy Spirit, I pray for all those who are grieving right now. Whether the loss was recent or a long time ago, I pray that you would bring your comfort where people are hurting, healing, where everything seems broken, peace, where there are questions that are raging, and hope where it feels like there's only despair. Lord, your Word promises that you are the God who draws near to the brokenhearted so I pray that you would grant us the courage to draw near to you even in our pain. In doing so, would we experience you drawing near to us too. Amen.
CONVERSATION STREET
With: Matt Edmundson & Dan Orange.
What is Conversation Street?
Conversation Street is part of our live stream, where the hosts (in this case, Matt & Dan) chat through Anna’s talk and answer questions that were sent in through the live stream. To watch the conversation now, click here.
Matt: The thing to remember for me, is that Anna's talk comes from a place of having to deal with it and having to face the grieving process much more than maybe many of us have had to face in the past. I don't know how to put it any other way than to say it was super inspiring that somebody who has gone through the pain that she has, and the loss that she and Andy have, to still come out with those six things at the end of it is incredible. I also appreciated her real softness of heart and humility. So thank you for doing that Anna.
Dan, what stood out to you in the talk?
Dan: What struck me was her vulnerability. To convey what she'd been through herself and to show us what she's learned from it, how it has changed her life, that she's been able to help people through it, that if she went back in time, she wouldn't want to do it again, but she can do those things because she's been there. That was what struck me.
Matt: Having been through loss, having gone through loss with people by their side, one of the things that we have as Christians is this concept of hope. The end is not the end. There is more to life than just a few years on Earth. So I guess one of my questions to you is,
How Would You Define Hope?
Dan: For me, it always comes to the verse that says, we have a hope that is steadfast and certain. Outside God's word, outside of Christianity, we can think of hope as a wish. It's not a wish; our hope in Jesus Christ is steadfast, it's not going anywhere. Because of that, we can trust in Him. I've not experienced grief in an immediate sense, but I've experienced it through my wife, and through friends. I don't know how you get through these things without the knowledge of that.
Relief In The Mourning Process
Matt: Jeff wrote in the comments here, "I recently lost my Gran, who had declining health, along with grief, there was a strange sense of relief. Is that compatible with the Bible's view on how life is viewed as sacred? That's a really interesting question because with certain people who've suffered long term illness, there's a comfort in knowing that there's no more pain, right? With that, there can be a sense of guilt. I don't know if you've got any thoughts on this, Dan?
Dan: Not really, no. I read that and I thought, yeah, it's one of those horrible situations where we're losing someone but do so in knowing that their pain has gone.
Matt: Yeah, there's a verse that says,
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints”. (Psalm 116:15)
So when there is a passing of one of God's people, it is precious in the eyes of God. I think part of the answer for me comes down to how we perceive death and what that means because death isn't the end. The New Testament, a lot of time talks about the death of Christians. It uses the word sleep - they have fallen asleep. It's like, the ultimate sleep, if that makes sense. At some point, they're going to wake up from that, and there's this really interesting twist in terms of how God views death as a form of sleep. So I would say that, yes, life is sacred, but precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His servant. I think God sees it, God feels it. As Christians, we believe that when we get to heaven, there will be no more pain. Anna touched on this. There is no more death, there is no more pain, there is no more sorrow, there are no more tears.
My uncle passed away with cancer, and I had to do his funeral. I took his funeral, and I'd never done the funeral of a family beore. It was beautiful, but at the same time, it was new, it was a bit unusual. What do you say? How do you bring hope in that situation? I remember thinking, you know what, he died of an illness, he passed away, he was in pain, but there is now heaven where there is no more pain. Life carries on and it is eternal. I can find joy in that, and rejoice that my uncle is now pain-free. I still think that is celebrating the sacredness of life. That's how I would answer that question, Jeff. So I hope that's helpful.
What Did Jesus Say About Those Who Mourn?
Matt: Anna touched on this in Matthew 5:4. What did you think of Anna's comment about this whole idea of being blessed when you mourn?
Dan: Yeah. There's a verse that I came across this morning from the Message translation. If anyone's new to Christianity, I recommend that you get the Message translation of the Bible. It's not a literal translation, but it paraphrases things and make things very easy to understand, and brings them across very well. The man that translated it wrote this,
“If your heart is broken, you'll find God right there. If you're kicked in the gut, he'll help you catch your breath.” (Psalm 34:18)
I think that comes some way to summing that up. He's that comforter. He helps you catch your breath. He is there to put his arms around you. He's there to say, I am God. Be blessed. I don't know how that blessing works, but I know He's a loving God that is a Father, and we can trust Him.
Matt: Yeah, it's a wonderful verse, and a wonderful version of that verse too. I think for me, it comes down to how you interpret the word blessing. In our culture, blessing is fit, well, and wealthy. It's that's, God's blessed me because I've got the beautiful wife, or God's blessed me because I've got a new car and maybe that's true, but blessing is a much deeper concept and idea than that. That's quite surface level.
I love how Anna talked about in mourning, there is a comfort from God that you can get. In that comfort, there is a blessing from God. It's not fit, well and wealthy, but it is still a blessing and I think that challenges a lot of notions that we have around blessing.
Why Does God Allow Suffering?
Matt: The root of all grief is this pain and suffering, so why does God allow that? This is probably one of the deep theological questions that we get asked an awful lot in our Christian journeys, would you agree?
Dan: Yeah, I think one of the points that Anna mentioned was that grief can be transformational, but that change is often hard. Grief is more than hard. It's gut-wrenching, but it is transformation. It is something that Anna's said she's been able to help others through. One of my best friends, I started working with 30 years ago, lost both his parents and it was horrendous, but he was such a comfort to Lisa, my wife, when her dad died because he'd been through it and he was able to share. He was able to say, I've been through this. Would he want to go through it again? No. But because of that, it was something that he'd been able to help others through.
Matt: Yeah, I think what's interesting, is that it was hard for him, but through it, he's been able to help others. That's Anna's story. It's been hard for her but through it she has been able to help others. Even with a belief in Christ, grief is still a complex thing, and it's still tough.
Dan: It's still a loss. It's getting to grips with things that you did, people you spoke to, people you can't anymore. It's a yeah. It's a part that's gone.
Matt: Anna talk about how pain raises lots of questions. You know, why God? Why suffering? Why have you allowed this to happen? And you know, what? I haven't got all the answers. I wish I did. Like, Anna, I wish I had the answers.
There are a couple of things I do know though. It was never God's original plan, which, Anna touched on, and two God enters into our suffering with us, which is the most extraordinary truth of the gospel. There is pain and there is suffering, and Jesus gets right into the middle of it. Through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, He gets involved in the suffering of humanity. He suffers, and takes upon Himself our pains, our griefs, and our sorrows. I find that is one of the most comforting things about the Christian faith is that God of the universe steps down and gets involved in the suffering of humanity. He doesn't say you will never experience loss, but that in the middle of it all, He is with you.
Dan: In Isaiah, it says that Jesus was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. The Message translation says, "He knew pain firsthand". Anna talked about what Jesus said on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" So, God and Jesus had been one throughout eternity. Then, they were separate. I mean, that is loss. That is separation. He experienced extreme loss for us. He can say, I've been there. I know what you're going through because I've experienced that separation.
Matt: Yeah. Now let me just reiterate this point. If you are in the grieving process, and you are struggling, I just want to echo what Anna said, and what Dan said, we're very sorry for your loss. It's not great. But there is hope in the midst of that. There is encouragement and if you'd like anyone to pray for you, then please do reach out to us via the website or via our WhatsApp number. We would love to pray for you in whatever way that we can help.
Sadaf has written here, grief is a continuous process that is sometimes very raw, and other times more muted. It's very up and down.
How Does Your Relationship With Jesus Help You Transform More Into His Likeness, As Your Grief Ebbs And Flows?
How does that work do you think?
Dan: Yeah, if there was just one answer, we would say it, but there isn't is there? There are trigger points that bring grief, just like a sucker punch, right? Then there are times when it feels more manageable. Like Anna said, as long as we don't let that be something that makes us bitter, then we can allow God to help us in that pain.
Matt: Yeah. In a few weeks time, we're going to do a talk called What does the Bible say about cancer? It's an interview that I do with a beautiful lady called, Annie. With cancer, there's a lot of grieving in some respects to be done, not necessarily because of the loss of life, but maybe the loss of a way of life.
One of the things about Annie, about having known her for years, and I'd say the same about Anna, having known Anna for a little while, what you can come away with from their story is grief, loss and tragedy hits everyone, the Christian and the non-Christian alike. What you can't do is stop that. What you can do is respond. What you can do is decide how you're going to come out of it, how you're going to work through it.
So, to come back to Sadaf's question about becoming more Christ-like, I find both Anna and Annie's story, so inspiring, because they go through all this horrendous stuff, but they come out through the other end as the most beautiful and incredible and humble people wanting and willing to help others, full of the love of God and demonstrating the love of Christ. I don't know about you Dan, but the people that have gone through tragedy and come through it with just a real gentle heart, for me are the most inspiring people.
Dan: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's what struck me about Anna's talk, that God's beauty and glory has shone through her as He has brought her through that experience.
Matt: I also think that God might help you to bring a difference to other people. You mentioned your mates who have experienced loss in the family. Let's talk about this from the other side.
What Is The Best Way To Help Someone Who Is Grieving?
Matt: What do you say to people who are grieving? I appreciate that's a super practical quesion, but what do we do? How do we help people do you think?
Dan: I think the main thing that I know, and I know very little, is that we're there for them. Whether it is, "do you want us to bring some food round?", or whether it's just calling them up, checking on them, seeing how they're doing, see if they want to talk to you, shout at you, cry with you. I think it's about being with people. That's what I've gathered and learned.
Matt: That's a very good point, Dan. Just being with people. Don't feel like you have to have all the answers. I've put my arm around a lot of people, and just sat there and not said a thing because sometimes you can't say anything. Just being with people, and loving on people, and praying for people, and allowing the questions. Christians can get a little bit uncomfortable when we ask the complex questions like, why does God allow this? Why did God not intervene? Why has God not answered this prayer?
Actually, one of the things that Anna touched on was these questions are good, and they are okay and you've got to get them out. You might not get all the answers you're looking for, but it's okay to ask them. Don't try to answer them with smart-ass answers. That's not why they're asking the question. Just sitting there with people and loving on people as they're going through it is important.
Dan: I think the Psalms often show us that David and some of the other Psalm writers weren't scared of just saying, God, what? Why have you done this? Why is this going on? They just shout it out. Don't hold those questions. Don't hold them back.
Matt: Don't be afraid to talk to them about their grief. Don't pretend like it's not there.
Dan: Yeah, I'm very good at that.
Matt: Talk about the football, or whatever.
Dan: What's on Netflix?
Matt: Yeah. Don't get me wrong, there is a time to change the topic, but don't be afraid to talk to them about it.
What's Claire put here? I'm not sure if anyone else here is from another non-English speaking culture, but what I would say is that I find it so much easier to agree with people and support people through grief when I am speaking in Arabic rather than English. Arabic has words and phrases that are full of meaning and love and faith amid grief that I find really difficult to express in English.
Dan: Yeah, so being British, the whole stiff upper lip thing, our grief can be very closed, and we don't want to show it to anyone. We might see, especially in Middle Eastern countries, the screaming and the wailing, but people know that there's grief going on, don't they? As a way to express what's happening.
I went to the funeral of an amazing Jamaican man probably about 10 years ago now. Beautiful, beautiful man, and at the funeral as they put the the coffin in the grave, all the sons, helped to put the soil on the coffin. It was a to express, to do something. Because we're British, we don't like to do those kind of things, and being able to do something like, I could see was very helpful to express that grief.
Matt: I'd have been in bits watching that.
Dan: Yeah. And his daughters were singing. It was pretty powerful.
Matt: I bet it was, goodness me.
I remember taking a funeral in Uruguay. I travelled 36 hours, and met a friend of mine there. We literally dropped our suitcases off at his house and then went and took this funeral. I was tired and jet-lagged. But there I am, standing in the blazing heat taking this funeral of someone who I'd never met. What I do remember is the way they express their loss and their sadness I had never seen before.
I was reminded of that story where Jesus goes to a guy's house, called Jairus. He's one of the local leaders and well known in the community. His daughter has died and Jesus goes to the house. We get caught up about how Jesus goes to the house and raises this girl from the dead. And rightly so. But, sandwiched between that verse, where Jesus raises her from the dead, there is a house full of people who are weeping and wailing. That's what the Bible tells us. There are mourners there who are letting all of this anguish out.
I think Claire's point here about how both the English culture and the English language being very limited is very valid. I wonder if that's why the English find it so hard to grieve because we find it hard to express it, or to understand it, or to speak about it. Maybe we should just go and learn some Arabic? I don't know. It's a really interesting point, Claire. So thank you for sharing.
More Bible Verses About Grief
Philippians 4:6-8 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Psalm 73:26 - My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
John 14:-1-4 - Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.
Matthew 11:28 - Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Revelation 21:4 - He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Romans 8:18 - For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
2 Timothy 4:7-8 - I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Psalm 46:1 - God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Isaiah 57:1-2 - The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.
More from this series
