You know the passages in scripture, the ones where Jesus goes to a funeral? There are several recorded in the Gospel's, but two came to mind today. The one where he raises the widow's son (Luke 7:11-16) and the one where he raises Jarius' daughter (Luke 8:49-54) For some reason, perhaps how they were told to me in Sunday School as a child or maybe they were portrayed this way on film, I always think of great grief and wailing when I think on these accounts. Of course, Luke's account says, speaking of Jesus and the widow, "his heart went out to her and He said "Don't cry." Even if it didn't we can imagine that a widow who just lost her son would most certainly be crying! I imagine those following the burial procession were audibly grieving too. In Luke 8:52 it says "meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her (Jarius' daughter) 'Stop wailing' Jesus said."
Today, I saw first hand, for the first time, what that heart wrenching sorrow looks like. I was not prepared for it, although I should have been. The man who passed, He is a believer. He is home and in the presence of his Savior, King, Father. He fought a short but fierce battle with cancer and rather than bring partial healing to his flesh, God, in His wisdom and mercy, healed him wholly and took his spirit home. His wife, a dear friend of ours - Brileigh's "nana" - along with their two sons and daughter in law are also believers. However, many of their extended family is not. I should have expected what I experienced for a few reasons. First, we are living in a culture so similar to the one Jesus lived in, and they way they view death and carry out a funeral procession has not changed much. Second, I knew there were not many believers in the family. Finally, he was only 56. His mother is still living, so many friends and family still alive, and while he had cancer, many hoped for remission, recovery and many more years of life for their brother. We hoped the same. Just yesterday, our friend talked about how tired she has become because she has to wake up in the middle of the night to give her husband injections, and she stays awake late to care for him. She didn't mind, she wasn't complaining, she was just talking about sleep patterns as it pertained to our language lesson yesterday. She would say he is so very sick, she really didn't expect him to live much longer, but she prayed always for his healing and held out hope. I was not expecting to hear later that day that he died. Even when death is impending, its moment is all too sudden...
We arrive, and I see the white tent outside her house, the sight of which makes it feel very real. I see those tents so often and pray for those effected by the death represented, but today it was effecting someone I hold dear. As I walk to the front of her house, door opened, the first thing I notice are all the shoes, a big long pile of them. The house is not big, but many women are crammed inside. I step in, looking down, I can hear the sorrow, tears, cries, wailing, a woman crying out the name of the deceased, crying out the name of her son. My friend stands and walks toward us as we take off our shoes, she hugs Cathy, a believer who experienced the loss of her first husband earlier in life. Cathy holds her tight as our friend cries, and I know she is praying for her. I pray for her. I start to look around the room and realize our brother is lying in the middle of the living room floor, in a box, covered with a cloth, surrounded by women with sorrowful faces and covered heads. The two bedrooms off the living room are also full of women with tears in their eyes. I hug my friend, kiss her check and tell her we love her, and she wipes tears from her eyes as she pulls the blanket back from my sleeping daughter, snuggled in my arms, and kisses her check. She sighs. Brileigh brings her joy. I look forward to that in the days ahead. She turns and hugs another friend who came in with us, a strong sister who whispers a prayer in her ears and again, I look at the scene before me. I pray that the sorrow these women (the men were all outside, in the white tent awaiting the body to be carried out. They would then follow the body to the burial site and the women would stay behind) are feeling and expressing would be replaced with the hope I know my friend feels.
While she felt and expressed deep grief over the lose of her husband, her life partner, or as they say here her "yol yadash" -which means road companion- she has hope. It's the hope Paul speaks about in 1 Thessalonians 4, that we will all be with Jesus one day. Death is not the end, Jesus has overcome the grave. For those of us who believe on Him there is great hope for this life in that this life is not the end.
I pray that somehow, God will use the death of His child to bring many more children into His family.
I continue to pray for this dear brother's family, those he left behind, those who grieve for him. It was a very new experience for me, seeing the way his muslim mother grieved. It was heartbreaking. But there was hope in the midst. His eldest son told Brian "yes, I am sad. My father is gone, but he is not suffering here any more. He is in a better place, he is with the Father and we do not have to be sorry about that."
Brileigh with her "nana" who is only a year older than Brileigh's grandma's.
That puts her loss in perspective for me.
