House of Mourning: Wisdom, Grief, and Hope

Some days on the calendar are hit different. How many of you have noticed that? You you you get to a season a year or a calendar time, and you're like, why does my body just why what am I remembering? What is this and grief often does that. How many of you watched that where it's like, wow. That holiday is different now. That that that birthday, that that, oh, we what what does going to the beach feel bad? Oh, that's right. Because my dad used to take us to the beach. You know, those kind of things where, like, there's there's a scene, there's a scenario, something's deep, it's missing. [00:00:06] (31 seconds)  #SeasonsHitDifferent

What matters? What doesn't matter? And then what it means to trust Jesus in the storm. Like, what does that even look like? Quite the test. Right? So Kohelet, our our main voice in Ecclesiastes, that's his name. It's it's Hebrew, Kohelet. He's the guy who convenes and draws the crew together and says, got something to tell you about what I've learned. He has the audacity to say that the house of mourning is somehow better for us than the house of feasting. [00:03:11] (34 seconds)  #WisdomInMourning

It really just becomes just trinkets and baubles and and and ornaments on a on something that is is decaying. So, like, what is this like? So if we face it though, grief and the processes that happen in our bodies when we when we are grieving can become a strange if scary schoolhouse. The the the because it's teaching you something about, like, what's real. And and if anything, today can be a reality check, not just in the dark stuff, but also in in how Jesus wants to walk through us in in these things of this schoolhouse. [00:04:47] (44 seconds)  #GriefAsSchool

And so we're living in a mystery. Man may not find out anything that will be after him. You're not you're not insured to know what's beyond the grave, especially from Kohelet's perspective. For him, the grave is just it. That's just where it all ends. Now, we would understand that he believes in a god who never ends. And and in the Old Testament, we have the idea that we will be in in his care. But when we think about the bleakness of the grave and we look beyond it, it's very mysterious. [00:08:33] (32 seconds)  #MysteryOfTheGrave

What's her middle name? Where did she grow up? Oh oh, I remember her friends when she was growing up. Right? No. It it start it starts to stretch and then pretty soon, okay. That was my life and that was the time I had and it sobers you up a little bit. Sobers you up. That's okay. We're not all happy clappy Christians in the room. We can actually deal with some of this and be like, yeah, that's tough. That really stinks. The things that some of you experienced this last week, I was there for some of them, that really stinks, you know? I mean, it just it's very, very default. [00:09:21] (33 seconds)  #GriefSobersUs

Prosperity and adversity land on our doorstep from a god that we can't control. We just don't. We don't control it. If you're trying to game the system and try to move the variable of god out of your life, realize he's the constant. I mean, just you're not gonna you're not gonna do any anything that says, okay, well, okay. With god not paying attention and with god, you know, god aside, here's what I'm gonna do with my life. That just doesn't work. We need to factor it all in and he is the constant. [00:09:55] (40 seconds)  #GodIsTheConstant

Thanks for the pep talk. But if you're still breathing, right, there's hope. The the author of Hebrews would say, hey. As long as it's still called today, encourage one another. Go after it. You're alive. This is good. You don't have to you don't have to give up right now. But but we do need to you do need to think of the numbering of our days, and think about what is what does it look like to live fully and wisely, right now? And this isn't an excuse to give up. [00:13:09] (29 seconds)  #NumberYourDays

No excuses to give up. It's hard. Right. And so Jesus is with you. Well, who who could teach us the words of God and the way of God and who could teach us how to walk with God? Who could teach us to be faithful to God while Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faithfulness, of our allegiance and so, so we pursue him. Alright. So this is not a this is not just sad, sad, sad. But this is my premise and you can raise your hand and shout back if if you if you're not ready to hear it, but I think that death has something to teach us. [00:13:37] (36 seconds)  #DeathHasLessons