Sorrow With Hope

The nations around Israel mourned their dead with shaved heads and cut skin. God told his priests not to: “They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.”

God didn’t forbid grief. He forbade grief that looked like the grief of people without him. Even in death, his people were meant to be different.

Paul explains why. “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”

Christians still grieve. Jesus wept at a tomb. But we grieve differently, because we know how the story ends. If you are missing someone today who died in Christ, your tears are real, and so is your hope.