Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. [John 14:1-3 (NLT)]
The next day would have been Sally’s wedding anniversary but, because it marked the six-month anniversary of her husband’s death, there would be no celebration. Instead of flowers, dinner, and romance, there would be tears. That morning, Sally called her step-mother, Sue, to share her dread of the following day. When telling us this, Sue admitted to being at a loss for words of consolation. A woman of faith and an ordained pastor, Sue’s difficulty in finding comforting words was because her step-daughter is Jewish. When Sue married Sally’s Jewish father, she respected her new family’s faith just as they respected hers. They knew her beliefs and what she did for a living and Sue gladly answers their questions. Nevertheless, she chooses her words carefully when speaking of the Lord and neither evangelizes nor condemns. Although her words that morning were as reassuring as they could be without speaking of Jesus, Sue knew they were nowhere near as comforting as they could have been.
In the Hebrew Bible, Sheol is mentioned as the place of the dead and the idea of a resurrection appears in Daniel and Isaiah. The Talmud contains references to heaven (Gan Eden), hell (Gehinnom), and the World to Come. Unfortunately, the who, when, what, how, and where details are missing and Judaism is ambiguous (and often contradictory) about what actually happens when one dies. Sue said she listened carefully during her son-in-law’s funeral and interment for words of comfort but heard none. After reading the Jewish funeral prayer El Maleh Rachamin and their Mourner’s Kaddish, I had to agree.
Had Sally been a believer, Sue might have told her daughter-in-law that she was not alone in distress and reminded her of the time Jesus walked on water and stilled the storm. We have a God who knows when we’re in trouble, is willing to walk on water to reach us, and will bring us peace in the middle of the tempest! Sue would have told Sally how much God loves her—so much so that He gave His one and only son so that all who believe would not perish but have eternal life. She would have comforted her with the story of Lazarus and Jesus’ words to Martha that He was the resurrection and the life and that anyone who believed in Him would live even after dying. Then again, maybe the widow would have found Revelation’s promise that He will wipe every tear and there will be no more tears, mourning, or death comforting. Sadly, those words are of little cheer to one who refuses to believe.
No words can take away the sorrow of a young woman suddenly losing her beloved husband, the father of her three small children, but there is much in our faith that can ease that pain. No Christian is left to face sorrow alone; we have a Savior, a Comforter, and the reassuring and powerful promises of Scripture. Thank you, Jesus.
Death to the Christian is the funeral of all his sorrows and evils and the resurrection of all his joys. [James H. Aughey]
I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. [John 14:27 (NLT)]
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This proverb about iron sharpening iron reminds me of Sunday dinners when I was a girl. After the roast beef was placed in front of my father, he picked up the carving knife and a steel rod. With dramatic flair, he would run the knife back and forth against the steel before carving the meat. For the perfect slice of beef, he used iron to “sharpen” iron.
“I’m so busy!” If there’s even a remote possibility that we might be asked to do something we’d rather avoid, we can cut off the request at the pass by starting the conversation with those words. It’s the perfect out. On the other hand, when said to us, we can’t argue with it.
Having witnessed Jesus’ God-like power over nature when He walked on water, the disciples recognized Him as “the Son of God!” [Mat 14:32] Recognizing Jesus’ divinity, however, did not mean they understood He was the Messiah. While Jesus’ power to heal, multiply food, still storms, and walk on water implied a godlike nature, most 1st century Jews didn’t expect the Messiah to be divine. Expecting a righteous judge and a great political and military leader coming from the lineage of David, they assumed he would be a human being. So, when Jesus asked His disciples who people thought He was, they said John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or another one of the prophets—godly men who performed miracles, spoke of judgment, and called the people to return to covenant faithfulness.
When writing about forgiveness these last few days, I wondered why we find it so difficult to forgive. Perhaps it’s because, in our troubled hearts, we want to even the score before doing so. Wanting to retaliate in some way, bitterness and resentment grow and eat at us until we can extract our pound of flesh.
When Moravian missionaries first arrived in the Arctic, they found no single word in the Inuktitut language for forgiveness. That doesn’t mean the Inuit people didn’t let go of past wrongs, just that they didn’t have a single world for doing so. Since forgiveness is an essential concept in Christianity, the missionaries wanted a single word that captured the kind of forgiveness found in Psalm 103. Using Inuktitut words, they came up issumagijoujungnainermik meaning “not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” This 24-letter multi-syllable word beautifully describes the God who will “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” [Micah 7:19], who vows to “forgive their iniquity, and…remember their sin no more,” [Jeremiah 31:34], and who promises to blot out our transgressions and not remember our sins.[Isaiah 43:25]
Devotions of the Heart 