When Grief Is Like Fear

C.S. Lewis once said, “No one ever told me that grief felt just like fear” and for a quite a while I wasn't sure exactly what he meant. I didn't quite understand how fear could be related to grief. I read everything about fear and grief I could get my hands on and what I found and realized is that grief and fear go hand in hand. Grief doesn't have to be over the death of a loved one, it can come from lost love in our life. It can come from feeling you are not loved because of the way someone you love treats you. It feels the same, in fact, you feel that you have seemingly lost everything, what else is there to fear? But that is only the beginning of our human fears.

The "What Ifs" Of Fear 

After I read what C.S. Lewis said I examined my own fears. They are like everyone elses fears. We face the fear of not being everything we think God and everyone we care about wants us to be, the fear of losing loved ones, the fear of being rejected, fear of everything changing-changes we feel we are not ready for, the fear of losing our job if divorce or death comes to tear our family apart because we are not fully on top of things...fear of losing friends-and we will! What if she/he moves on with their life, take steps forward, and we are left alone, grieving and stationary? There are many more fears that humanity faces, and grief adds to the pain of those fears. Today I want to focus on the fear of loss.

When we love deeply we wonder these things I have mentioned. We wonder if we'll ever see that person who once said they loved us, again? What would we say to them? What if I have to live a lifetime without seeing that person again? What if they or I pass from this life and there are still things undone-unsaid? What if I can’t make it through this pain? What if I'm being too selfish? What if I'm too focused on trying to heal that I'm missing out on being there for someone else? What if I'm not doing what God has called me to do in life? What if I am so insignificant in life that I don't matter that much to God? What if my faith is scarcer than I thought? What about all my failures to ALWAYS convey the love of Christ to them-am I always going to fail? What is the future going to look like without that person I love? What if I never heal from my grief? 

But God Said...

How many of us ever thought so deeply about the things of God that we would want to intimately know Him? Does God feel loneliness and grief? He is the Almighty the All in All, the I AM! When we think of God do we consider how we go to Him? Do we consider what we ask for when praying? As a one time seminary graduate I thought I had all the answers for just about anything anyone would care to bring up...I couldn't have been more wrong! I have studied the greats in theology of various denominations and I realized that the human condition was well thought out by God, but it does not mean we understand all of His ways. One thing we know that God does truly love us because He sent His Son, Jesus to do what we could never or would never do. If God had told us that in order to gain right standing with Him that we had to die slowly, horribly, on a cross would we have done it...not on your life! Because He loves us he also understands our real needs more than we even discern to be true. Why? Because He knows and lives in the past, the present, and the future! He knows our future. God has a "gods-eye-view" of the whole parade of our life. Jesus knows our pain, our temptations, and our suffering...how do I know that?

Hebrew 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin.

Hebrews 2:17 

Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

Hebrews 5:2 

He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.

John 11:35

Jesus wept

Luke 22:44

The night before Jesus Christ was crucified, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is in Luke’s Gospel where we see that His sweat was like drops of blood: “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Hematidrosis is a rare, but very real, medical condition where one’s sweat will contain blood. The sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels. These vessels can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture where the blood will then effuse into the sweat glands. Its cause—extreme anguish. In the other Gospel accounts, we see Jesus’ level of anguish: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38; cf. Mark 14:34).

I can envision the intense anguish and sorrow Jesus felt was certainly understandable. Being God himself, Christ knew “all that was going to happen to Him” (John 18:4). He knew in painstaking detail the events that were to follow soon after He was betrayed by one of His very own disciples. He knew He was about to undergo several trials where all of the witnesses against Him would lie. He knew that many who had hailed Him as the Messiah only days earlier would now be screaming for His crucifixion (Luke 23:23). He knew He would be flogged nearly to the point of death before they pounded the metal spikes into His flesh. He knew the prophetic words of Isaiah spoken seven centuries earlier that He would be beaten so badly that He would be “disfigured beyond that of any man” and “beyond human likeness” (Isaiah 52:14). Certainly, these things factored into His great anguish and sorrow, causing Him to sweat drops of blood. Yet there was more.

Crucifixion was considered to be the most painful and torturous method of execution ever devised and was used on the most despised and wicked people. In fact, so horrific was the pain that a word was designed to help explain it—excruciating, which literally means “from the cross.” From His arrest in the garden until the time our Lord stated, “It is finished” (John 19:30), Scripture records only one instance where Jesus “cried out in a loud voice” (Matthew 27:46). As our sinless Savior bore the weight of the world’s sins on His shoulders, His Father must have looked away, as His “eyes are too pure to look on evil” (Habakkuk1:13), causing the suffering Servant to cry out “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46). The spiritual pain of this feeling of abandonment no doubt greatly exceeded the intense physical pain the Lord endured on our behalf.

At the beginning of creation, human history began in a garden (Genesis 2:8), and when the first Adam sinned against God in this garden, death entered the world (Genesis 3:6). Thousands of years later, Jesus Christ, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), entered into another garden to accept the cup from His Father’s hand (Matthew 26:42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42), and death was about to be swallowed up in victory. Although God’s plan was designed before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4–5), we must never forget that its execution came at a great cost. Ultimately, then, we are the ones responsible for the blood that dripped from our Savior as He prayed in the garden. And we are the reason Jesus’ soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Indeed, these bloodied sweat drops came at a great cost; let us never forget that.

So you see my friend, Jesus suffered as we suffer through life but was without sin for the word of God says fear is sin, so now we should understand that we have this great Intercessor before the Father for our weaknesses. Do you hurt today? Call on Him! Do wonder if your life really matters? Call on Him! Do you hurt from loss? Call on Him! Do you doubt you will ever heal? Call on Him!

The Promise of a Compassionate High Priest-Jesus

Hebrews 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Another old hymn comes to mind: Jesus' love can reach the deepest woe!
If you would like the music to this hymn go here: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/677

ART THOU SUNK IN THE DEPTHS OF SORROW

1	Art thou sunk in depths of sorrow Where no arm can reach so low? There is One whose arms almighty Reach beyond thy deepest woe. God th’ Eternal is thy refuge, Let it still thy wild alarms; Underneath thy deepest sorrow,   Are the everlasting arms.
	Underneath thee, underneath thee, Are the everlasting arms, Everlasting, everlasting,   Are the everlasting arms.
2	Other arms grow faint and weary, These can never faint, nor fail; Others reach our mounts of blessing, These our lowest loneliest vale. O that all might know His friendship! O that all might see His charms! O that all might have beneath them   Jesus’ everlasting arms.
3	Underneath us, O how easy; We have not to mount on high, But to sink into His fulness, And in trustful weakness lie. And we find our humbling failures Save us from the strength that harms! We may fail, but underneath us   Are the everlasting arms.
4	Arms of Jesus! fold me closer, To Thy strong and loving breast, Till my spirit on Thy bosom Finds its everlasting rest; And when time’s last sands are sinking, Shield my heart from all alarms, Softly whispering, “Underneath thee,   Are the everlasting arms.”

See you next blog,

Ted