| When Lorelle and I first wrote this grief devotional, | | | | rest of the road around Eden barred with the usual |
| Mourning Glory, the world of grief, as well as the | | | | signs,- "no entrance," "forbidden," "all mankind stay |
| world at large, seemed much smaller. We had not | | | | out forever or until further notice." |
| been through 9/11, the war in Iraq or Afghanistan the | | | | So for 40 books of the Old Testament and 28 of |
| tsunami in Asia or Hurricane Katrina. Mourning was | | | | the new we get life as we know it, in all its messy, |
| that small, black blob within us, the ashes in the | | | | nasty, sullied, blood-stained agonizing truth; that life is |
| fireplace, the personal despair, the internal | | | | difficult and sometimes nigh to impossible; that Adam |
| hopelessness about our own lives. Indeed grief is | | | | and Eve's ejection from the Garden was not the |
| always that, but now it has metamorphosed, | | | | spiritual death of mankind, it was the beginning of a |
| mutated like bird flu to a dense, viscous, | | | | struggle so real it pales most so called realistic novels. |
| bloody-colored, smelly fog which overhangs the world | | | | A cursory review of the plot reveals blood and guts, |
| with its impermeability to light and love. I am tempted | | | | sex and violence, death anddevastation stories to |
| to say that it has become a grief without comfort, a | | | | rival any of a Clive Cussler page turner. We have |
| dark with only shapes and shadows, Plato's phantoms | | | | murder, Cain and Abel; Flood, Noah and the Ark; cities |
| and shadows on the wall, and sometimes an iniquitous | | | | wiped out, Sodom and Gomorrah; the killing of |
| night of both unrelieved terror and mourning. | | | | children and entire civil populations, Jericho; exile to |
| For the family of a dead soldier; or an Afghan or Iraqi | | | | the Wilderness and Babylon; Herod's killing of two |
| or their children slain by the forces of evil; for the | | | | year olds when Jesus was that age; the oppressive |
| people who have lost their homes, all their money | | | | occupation of Israel by the Romans; and the |
| and possessions in Katrina or Rita, the idea of a | | | | excruciating death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus. |
| good, righteous and loving God must be nearly | | | | So we are back to the question, "Why, Lord, why?" |
| impossible to comprehend much less to embrace. | | | | Can we actually become closer to God after our |
| There is sorrow, so deep that many, as I do, must | | | | eviction from Eden? Can we be molded into people |
| ask, | | | | who not only survive but spiritually surmount, |
| "Why, Lord, why?" | | | | conquer and prevail whatever our earthly |
| I don't know the answer to this. I have heard that | | | | circumstances? So many Biblical examples exist. Out |
| we are in the last days, and I can buy that; I have | | | | of the dread wilderness journey a stuttering |
| heard that God's judgment and righteousness is | | | | murderer and a wayward nation transformed into |
| abroad in all the lands, and I can buy that; I have | | | | Moses, the leader and prophet, and a nation who |
| heard that mankind's spiritually diseased condition | | | | taught us the meaning and depth of worship; from a |
| must beaddressed, and I can buy that; I have heard | | | | young upstart in the wilderness and a jaded harlotof |
| that God will not abridge man's free will, whether | | | | Jericho came Joshua, a seasoned general and man of |
| suicidal or homicidal binge by individuals or nations, and | | | | God and Rahab, the alien whore transformed into a |
| I can buy that; I have heard that Satan is raging | | | | woman of God; out of the exile to Babylon came |
| because his time is short, and that our Lord Jesus' | | | | Daniel, the prophet, and Nehemiah, the leader |
| time is at hand, and I can certainly buy that. I can | | | | returned from exile, who rebuilt the city of Jerusalem |
| accept at least part of all these construals. | | | | and restored the worship of God; last and foremost |
| What I cannot accept and never will is that death | | | | our God, our Logos, Jesus, without whose atoning |
| and destruction, a culture of hate, lovelessness and | | | | and excruciating death we, all of humanity, would |
| lawlessness are not only the Godly outcome but the | | | | have no hope at all of reconciliation with |
| ultimate spiritual purpose of our triune God. It flies in | | | | God, the Father. |
| the face, like a bat out of hell, of every aspect, of | | | | I am not saying let us welcome death and |
| every attribute, of every fiber of the being and | | | | destruction whether by man or natural disaster. I am |
| character of my God, my Lord and Savior, Jesus | | | | not saying that we should not mourn. But the very |
| Christ. | | | | hostile truth is that life is demanding and often |
| We know that an all-powerful, God, a God who is | | | | unsparing, at best, and frequently unbearable at |
| the alpha and omega of the universe, who is the | | | | worst. God may not test us beyond our limits, but |
| creator and creator of the destroyer did one of two | | | | we are certainly sometimes at the edge of the |
| things. He either orchestrated every disaster from 9 | | | | abyss hanging on by our fingernails. So what is the |
| 11 to Katrina, or he permitted the calamitous, | | | | comfort for our mourning here in the Zion of our |
| catastrophic event to occur. Those are the only two | | | | hearts? For an answer I came across, not a joyful |
| choices as I see it. Or is there a third option? | | | | passage, but a meaningful one for the circumstances. |
| Is there a way of seeing the world's disasters which | | | | It is contended that Solomon, in his debauched and |
| indeed begins to comprehend a God who is love and | | | | extreme eld, penned the pessimism of Ecclesiastes. |
| who wants to share his kingdom, heavenly and | | | | Perhaps that's why he could say something about |
| earthly, with his beloved, all of mankind? If I look to | | | | mourning that resonates with me as a closing |
| God's Holy Word, the Bible, and to the Garden of | | | | commentary, and I hope with you. |
| Eden, I see an idyllic existence where man walked | | | | It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go |
| and talked in complete and joyous intimacy with God, | | | | to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of |
| where our destiny with our king was sealed in an | | | | every man; the living should take this to heart. |
| ideal of spiritual excellence, perfection and beauty | | | | Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is |
| with never a pin prick of pain to trouble our utopia. | | | | good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the |
| Ok, how long did this idyllic romp last? Well maybe | | | | house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the |
| two, three weeks tops, and then there's the rest of | | | | house of pleasure. It is better to heed a wise man's |
| the | | | | rebuke than to listen to the song of fools. Like the |
| Bible. When Adam and Eve were ousted from Eden, | | | | crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter |
| that was the end, the living end, the dead end, the | | | | of fools. This too is meaningless. |