Enlarge your soul through grief and loss

Matthew 26:36-46 NIV
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done." When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

Sermon Notes

One day you will lose everything. I mean we are headed, each of us, to a moment when we will be like Job. We will have lost all of our relationships, all of our health, and all of our possessions and achievements and we will stand before God utterly naked having being stripped of everything. So all of life is one of going through loss. The challenge for all of us is to do it God’s way, biblically. And there is a biblical engagement of grief and loss. And again that’s the reason two-third’s of the Psalms are griefs or laments to God. And the Book of Jeremiah is filled with laments and griefs to God. Most of the Book of Job is him struggling with his grief and loss. Read Matthew 26:36-46 Jesus himself is struggling here in the garden at Gethsemane with the word “sorrowful” or depression, sadness. The Gospel of Mark uses a different Greek word that means “horror came over him”. And the Scripture also tells us he is “troubled”. He’s severely distressed. Luke uses the word, in “anguish.” Jesus says it very clearly to his disciples. He’s very public about it. In verse 38, he continues, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” He is broken. He is empty. He has got nothing to hold on to but God at this point. We need to listen to the interuption of grief: We need to learn to fall: When you go through grief and loss, praying is no longer a waste of time. It’s your lifeline. Because you’re falling. You have nowhere else to go. You’re off the cliff. You’re hanging onto God and you don’t know what he’s doing, but you know this, God is good and his love endures forever. And so you hang on and you fall. We shed our false selves when we fall.

My Copious Notes

The heading for today's sermon sounded a little off for some people, but for me it sounded about right. You see, my mother passed away 17 years and 3 days ago. Having the anniversary of my mothers passing so close to Mothers' Day doesn't make the day very pleasant for me and with the anniversary of Sue's parents' car accident being at the end of April, it's not a particularly happy day for her either, especially since her son doesn't contact her at all. As a result of all this I was somewhat distracted by my own thoughts of grief and loss and didn't take much in the way of notes.

In any case, I hope any mothers that read this have had a happy day and those that weren't able to share the day with their mothers have fond memories of past Mothers' Days.

May God bless you richly this week.

Richard.