Distracted From Joy

I am a bit distracted this week and so thought I’d share a few personal reflections that come from the source of my “distraction.” Some dear friends from our Spokane days lost their 17-year-old son to an accidental overdose last month. Anne and Jon are flying out on Friday to offer their support while Michael and I stay home. This, along with officiating memorial services in five of the last six months, has left me distracted by thoughts of life and death and the things we do to mark such milestones.

 

My first memorial service was in 1988 in Beverly, Massachusetts. It was for a woman I came to know during my Clinical Pastoral Education, training as a chaplain in the local hospital. Her family lived some distance away and her friends had preceded her in death, so I was the only one to regularly visit her. Day after day I would sit with her, talk to her, read for her and pray with her. After she died her daughter told me that she had asked that I officiate her graveside service. I felt so empty, so weak. What could I, a 27-year-old seminary student, have to say to people I never met about a friend I had just made?

 

That service was just the start. Since then I have said farewell to many friends. Saying farewell to friends through a memorial service is one thing they didn't teach in seminary. Now, don’t hear what I am not saying. My seminary prepared me to lead memorial services. I even wrote a detailed process-guide, outlining the steps I’d need to take when someone in the congregation died. While they prepared me to lead a memorial service, they did not prepare me for how I’d say farewell to a friend…again and again and again.

 

When last I checked, the same hard statistic still holds true: as long as Jesus delays His return, one out of every one person will die. The longer a pastor shepherds the same flock, the deeper the relationships become and the more painful the experience of saying farewell.

 

I don’t know how many memorial services I have officiated; I guess I’ve lost count. But I think saying farewell to so many friends over the years has developed in me a deeper appreciation for the gospels. During our most recent reading, I’ve noticed anew the number of times Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God and His passion to see this Kingdom become fully revealed.

 

Even though Jesus was laser-focused on making the journey to Jerusalem and the cross (Luke 9:51), there was one moment when He was “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). I don’t know about you, but when I am focused on something difficult I don’t usually exude joy. What was it that brought Him joy? How could He bubble over with enthusiasm even when He was faced with the certainty of suffering so terrible that He’d like to skip it if He could? What was it? It was the evidence that God’s Kingdom was indeed present and growing. It was this joy that allowed him to endure the cross and scorn its shame (Hebrews 12:2).

 

There is a lesson here for me. I could get pretty down on the number of farewells I’ve had to say. Sometimes I say farewell to a friend who has died. Other times, I say farewell to a dream I had or an ability that my body is no longer able to do. This fallen world offers us so many opportunities to say farewell to the people, things and abilities we cherish that we can easily become distracted from the work God is doing in and around us.  There are many reasons to feel the loss and it is good and necessary to grieve and process it. Yet we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). When I take my eyes off of my own circumstances and focus in on what God has done and is doing, suddenly there is reason for joy. Life in God’s Kingdom assures us that our loss is just temporary. It is for this reason that we fix our eyes on the eternal reality that cannot yet be seen (2 Corinthians 4:18).

 

In Luke 19:11, we will see how the people of Jesus’ day thought that God’s Kingdom was going to appear at once and so Jesus was trying to moderate their expectation and encourage patience in their waiting. As it was then, so it is today. God’s Kingdom is spreading, it is advancing, it is making a difference in the moments we all live right here and now. Do I see it, or have I become distracted by the many farewells of this life? If I see it, will I let this one truth alone release the joy to overflow my heart?

 

Perhaps it is this kingdom focus that led Paul to write, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you might overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).  Let it be so, even when you have to say another farewell.

 

Persevering in hope with you.

Rob