Articles
Gratitude and Death
This year, on the morning of Thanksgiving, I received a text message informing me that my grandfather, Jack Farrington, had passed away.
It was a sobering piece of news to receive, mere hours before I went to have dinner with Jenna’s side of the family. I didn’t say much on the subject throughout the day (largely because I did not want to burden others with the felt need to cheer me up). But I did think quite a bit about what death could mean in the context of a day that is largely devoted to giving thanks. The apostle Paul wrote, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks” (1 Thess 5:16-18). But what does it mean to give thanks in everything? Do we give thanks even in those situations where we grieve? Do we show gratitude to God even in those contexts when those we love are taken from us?
Here are some things I thought of to be thankful for:
-
I am thankful that his suffering is at an end
Nobody wants their loved ones to die. But nobody wants them to suffer either. How many people have we known who struggled with terminal illness, only to be miserable and frustrated for years and years? Sometimes in the Scriptures, the Lord grants death to people to shield them from further harm. The Lord allowed Jeroboam’s son to die because good was found in him (1 Kgs 14:13), so that he might not see the coming calamity on the king’s house. The writer of Ecclesiastes congratulated the dead as more fortunate than the living since they did not have to deal with suffering any longer (Eccl 4:1-2). Isaiah describes death as a rest in which the righteous is “taken away from evil” (Isa 57:1-2). In the same way, I know that whatever frustration and difficulty my grandfather must have felt in his failing years is finally over for him. He has rest.
-
I am thankful that God established the work of his hands
It is a little-known fact that Moses actually wrote one of the Psalms in our Bible. The Psalm is a reflection on the mortality of man and the fact that so few of us have any real impact in the 70 or 80 years we are alive on this earth. Like the passing of the flowers and the grass, so is the passing of human flesh. However the prayer of Moses ends with this request:
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands. (Psa 90:17)
My grandfather loved the Lord. He was not a preacher, teacher or public speaker. But he was a servant of God. As a young father of four children, he purposed in his heart that they would know the Lord. His wife (my grandmother) did not want anything to do with Christianity at first, but he took a stand for what was right and insisted on bringing them to the worship assemblies every week. His children grew up knowing the Lord. (One of them in his zeal later converted my grandmother to Christ!) Had he not stood for the truth those many years ago, my mother may not have been the woman she was, and I may not be the man I am now. Other men have monuments and buildings constructed in their honor. But the work of my grandfather’s hands, established and confirmed by God, is a legacy of multi-generational faithfulness. The impact of his actions still affects me, my sisters, and our children to this day, in ways that I doubt he could have ever dreamed.
-
I am thankful that death is not the end
If this life were all there is to this life, then I would have true reason to grieve. “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:19). The rest of the world is described as those who grieve because they “have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13), but we have a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet 1:3). The truth is that because Jesus is raised from the dead, we know that we too will be raised by his power some day. It is natural for Christians to feel grief at the loss of a loved one, but being in Christ contextualizes our grief. The deaths of those around us, and the inevitable death of even our own bodies should remind us of the truth that we were not built to last forever in this world. God has prepared a better country for us where we can live eternally.
“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess 5:15-18).
