Grieving with Hope
Hope is not the opposite of tears. Hope is what keeps tears from becoming the whole language of the future. “…that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Christian hope is not optimism. Optimism is a weather forecast of the personality. Hope is a promise with a name attached. We are born again to “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). If the tomb still held Him, Paul says we would be of all people most to be pitied. What happens to those who die in Christ. They are “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). That intermediate rest is real comfort. It is not the end of the story. The great hope is resurrection: “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Jesus is the firstfruits. His glorified, scarred, recognizable body is the pattern (Philippians 3:20–21). Love is not wasting itself on a person who has been deleted. Reunion will be in a redeemed creation, in bodies that ca...