Loss

One of the great themes and guarantees of life in this world is that we will all experience loss.

In many ways this has been a week of loss for me. I don't want to go into detail on the World Wide Web, but suffice it to say that around every corner (it seemed) this week I was faced with the reality that the securities we count on in life are eventually stripped away. In my own life, in the life of the people I get to sit with in their sorrow at church, and in our world that is filled with tragedy and heartbreak on a daily basis, there is little question that nothing physical we count on a humans is permanent in this life. At any moment, the rug can be pulled out from under us, and we will face a new reality in the absence.

Now, my pastoral and Christian tendency is to right away proclaim the happy truth of the Gospel to myself and to others, which is that because of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are never alone. We always have hope, even in the presence of great earthly loss -- so never fear.

This is absolutely true, and is the foundation of Christian hope.

But I wonder if sometimes in my desire to get out of my pain or to solve others pain, I jump to that proclamation too early. What I mean by that is in our desire to ease pain, I think we tend to turn truth into platitude, and in turn prescribe ibuprofin for our aching souls rather than offering the transformative elixer of the Spirit of God. We say, "Don't worry, God is with you," as if this one remark can make all the pains go away.

But it can't. And frankly, I think that is by the design of God.

For in the end, loss is always tied to longing. We long for things to be the way they used to be. For that relationship to be back the way it was, for our financial situation to be safe again, for our job to be the way it was before the new boss came on, for our health to return. We ache because we long for what we had, or, we have caught a glimpse of the way things could be, and it hurts when it is doesn't last. We feel alone.

And yet, while we don't want to live in the ache of loss forever (and don't have to per the Good News of our Christian faith), I believe there is something redemptive in our experience of loss. For the longing that comes from loss grounds us down into the ache of all of humanity. It grounds us in the ache that Jesus himself felt as he cried out, "My God My God why have you forsaken me?" To feel loss, and to long for redemption is to feel what Jesus felt. It is also to feel what the world feels -- a world that lives in poverty of body and spirit, and longs for a way out.

And ultimately, after I've spend a little time there, it grounds me in a longing to go home to God's embrace once again. Our lives of faith are gracefully (and painfully) tied to our lives and emotions. This is an amazing gift that God offers us. It behooves us not to run away from it, but to stay there a little while and fully drink in the absence. If we want to experience the fullness of the Presence, we need to take a sip of the absence as well.

I've been listening to Andrew Peterson's new album The Far Country lately, which is outstanding. The theme of the album is heaven, and the title song speaks to this truth of loss and longing.

If you are in a similar place of loss this week, I pray that you may trust in the effectiveness of the slow Elixer of God's Holy Spirit. But in the meantime, while it is taking effect, explore the pain of loss and see what you find there. You might be surprised.

Here are the lyrics to that song. Blessings.

Father Abraham
Do you remember when
You were called to a land
And didn’t know the way

‘Cause we are wandering
In a foreign land
We are children of the Promise of the faith

And I long to find it
Can you feel it, too?
That the sun that’s shining
Is a shadow of the truth

This is a far country, a far country
Not my home

In the dark of the night
I can feel the shadows all around me
Cold shadows in the corners of my heart
But the heart of the fight
Is not in the flesh but in the spirit
And the spirit’s got me shaking in the dark

And I long to go there
I can feel the truth
I can hear the promise
Of the angels of the moon

This is a far country, a far country
Not my home

I can see in the strip malls and the phone calls
The flaming swords of Eden
In the fast cash and the news flash
And the horn blast of war
In the sin-fraught cities of the dying and the dead
Like steel-wrought graveyards where the wicked never rest
To the high and lonely mountain in the groaning wilderness
We ache for what is lost
As we wait for the holy God

Of Father Abraham
I was made to go there
Out of this far country
To my home, to my home