What does the Bible say about bereavement?

You will admit that it must be blessed for the Lord to have His redeemed people at home, and that it must be blessed for them to be there with Him, for as in the new earth there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, and all tears will be wiped from all eyes, so must it be now in the presence of the Lord. You have no doubt as to all this, but what of yourself? You have sorrow and tears enough, you have been left lonely and desolate; and what a desolator death is! You hear the words of your friends, and they are sympathetic words, and are spoken for your consolation, but how cold the warmest of them seem to be. You feel that they do not understand what this means to you. There is a certain comfort in their words but they do not go far enough. There is a depth within you that they cannot reach, and your sorrow lies in that unreachable depth; there is a secret chamber within your heart that the most intimate of your friends cannot enter, and it is in that very chamber that this sorrow of yours has taken up its abode. Can there be any blessedness for you? Yes, for the Lord Himself has said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And He will make good His own word, even to you. Your sorrow has made more room for Him in your life than ever there has been before; it has made you feel your need of Him as you never felt it before. He has never been far away from you. He is at your side now. He is waiting for you to admit Him into that secret chamber where your grief holds its sway. He would enter there that He might fill it with His own peace, the peace of His presence. He is the great Comforter, and He is this because He fully understands. Nobody else does. Your heart knows its own bitterness, and there are times when your best friends seem complete strangers to you, so little do they understand you and enter into your feelings, but it is not so with Him. He knows you through and through, He understands, and because He understands and knows all you are passing through, He can sympathize.

Think of broken-hearted Mary. She brought her sorrow to the feet of the Lord as He waited for her outside the town of Bethany. "If Thou hadst been here," she cried, "my brother had not died." Then she looked up into His face through her tears, and lo, JESUS WEPT. Was not she at that moment most blessedly comforted? She had known that He loved her before, but she had never known that He loved her like that. His tears were more eloquent than words, and she found that His sympathy was greater than her sorrow. He did not speak to her, but He kept close by her side, and you may be sure that it was true of her, then and there, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

Our God is the God of encouragement; and He would not have His people cast down through ignorance of the way that He takes in the effectuation of the counsels of His love. He says. “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” (1 Thess. 4). He would have His saints in the full light of His purposes of grace, and adds “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”

The Spirit of God soon made all plain by means of the Apostle. "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." Do not misunderstand these words. Saints are not forbidden to sorrow. By no means. God would not have His children stoical. He would have us feel the circumstances of the way, but would not have us swallowed up by them, as others. "The Hope" comes into the Christian's sorrow. It sweetens the most bitter cup and brightens the darkest hour. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him." This is wonderful! The sleeping saint, instead of being a loser, is only the more like his Lord. And what God did for Christ He will do for all who are His. He raised Him out of the cold tomb and placed Him in glory; He will do the very same at the appointed hour for all His beloved sleeping ones. "Through Jesus" is more correct in 1 Thess. 4:14. "In Jesus" has no real meaning, not being a Scriptural phrase at all. "In Christ" expresses our standing before God in Him risen, as Rom. 8 shows; "in Jesus" is nowhere found that I am aware of. "Through Jesus" is very sweet here, and stills every rising murmur. When a loved one is called hence it is no mere accident or circumstance; it is the act of Jesus. "He does all things well."

If, however, in these scenes we see shining examples of the faith of God's elect in the presence of death, we also learn that faith does not set aside natural affection. Thus we read, "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her" (v. 2). Full well faith knows that our loved ones that die in the Lord will rise again, and that for them death is gain, but nonetheless we rightly mourn and feel their loss. Our sure and certain hope of resurrection tells us indeed, as the apostle reminds us, that our sorrow is not the sorrow of those who have no hope. But there is no word to say we are not to sorrow. None could know the power of resurrection like the One who is Himself the resurrection and the life, and yet He wept at the grave of Lazarus.

Are tears discreditable to a Christian mourner? Is it wrong for believers to weep at the loss of loved ones? Never, if we, like Mary, weep at the feet of Jesus. Our Lord has an understanding heart. He knows the depths of our grief better than our dearest friends. Seeing our tears, He comes to us. And His very presence brings a greater relief than our tears.

If bereaved of those we love in Christ there is the sorrow as having lost their affections and companionship, but “we sorrow not as others which have no hope.” The death of Christ has made all the difference to our sorrow, for we know the loved one is with Christ, which is far better, and His death has given us the hope of soon seeing our loved ones in Christ again, at His coming. Besides, we have the knowledge of Christ’s love in our sorrow, and the sympathy of Him who wept with Mary and Martha; and His companionship in the trial brings its own sweetness and gain.

And why has that incident been given to us in the Gospel that unfolds for us the glory of the Son of God? For your sake. What He was for Mary, He is for you. You may realize that He who is the mighty God feels for you, that He enters into your grief, that He knows the aching in your stricken heart, and the silence in your bereaved home, and not only the silence of it but the shadow that has crept into every room of it, and that knowing all He desires to fill up your heart with His own comfort. He will not remove the sorrow as He did in Mary's case, but He will give you something greater than it — His own friendship and sympathy. He offers you the full knowledge of a love that death itself cannot spoil — His own love. He can make that love so real to you that you will discover that you can do without everybody and everything but Himself. Yes, neither father, mother, sister, brother, friend, husband, wife, houses, lands, are indispensable to us, they have their place in our natural lives, and their place is a God-given blessed place while it lasts, but He is our life and will be our life for ever; He is our joy unspeakable and full of glory: Without them we may live, but without Him we cannot.

The Lord has seen good to lay His hand, dear brother, heavily upon you, but it is all in love. He would bring you close to Himself, and make this world more of a passage, and a wilderness; and such it is, for a saint who has a place in the Father's house. "This is not your rest," says a prophet, "because it is polluted." What an honour! God has sanctified us to Himself, and cannot have us rest where He cannot; but the promise is left us of entering into His: but we need to be weaned from this world, to have our hearts there. He is working this with you. I have always felt that the first break in the family is more than all others. Our children are a kind of continued life to us, we live on in them. But when death first strikes a family, we find death has come in and has power where life was. It tells the tale that all here is smitten. But Christ has come in where death was, and given a life beyond it all. He calls us in gracious and tender love to live in that. He knows how to comfort - knows what death is far better than we do, because He is the resurrection and the life - has wept over it and suffered it; He will comfort you and Mrs. - with a comfort which, if it feels for death, death cannot touch. Assure also - and all how much I feel the stroke that has fallen upon you. I trust it may be for deep blessing to them. Peace be with you.

I did not intend, dear sister, to say so much to you, being on a journey in a village in Canada, but I would not and could not receive the news of the departure of your husband without expressing how I participate in your mourning and loss. For him it is joy and peace, for you and your children it is separation from that which is most dear, but to find solitude with God. But God is sufficient for everything, and when sin brought in death, trial and mourning, the Conqueror of death and of the enemy afterwards entered, become man to participate in all and to give us a hope, which has made a gain of death itself - a perfectly certain hope, a love from which nothing can separate us.

We may feel how dependent we have been on a human presence and an earthly voice — but God, even our God, shall bless us and give us to feel that the "everlasting arms" are around us, and that "in His presence there is fulness of joy." Waves of sorrow and a sense of loss may beat upon our hearts in almost overwhelming power, but He still treads the waters of affliction, and beneath His feet the storm is stayed, and furious winds of trouble and raging waves of fear all sink to rest when He says "Peace, be still." He comes in the watches of the night, and we hear Him say "It is I, be not afraid." We sorrow, but "not as others that have no hope," for the foundation of our hope is in Him Who has said, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The future we can and must leave with Him.