To those who are not celebrating the new year.

During the morning service last Sunday at my home church Jubilee Community Church in St. Louis, I heard cries coming from the foyer.  A dear woman and faithful Christian – Ms. Carol – had just been told that her son Andre had been killed.

Death is strange.  It leaves a raw wound for those who knew the one who died.  It leaves a nausea and anger even in those who did not know the victim personally.  Death causes a particularly visceral reaction when involving the lives of the young.  It feels even more unnatural and unfair.  A life cut short.

To the young who died this year: you are missed.  To the parents, particularly the mothers, who outlived their children: my heart aches for you.

A few on my mind:

• Andre Harris, son of Carol.  Andre, we’ve never met, but your mom is simply beautiful.  She exudes Jesus’ love.  You are missed.
• Sherrell Smith, son of Valerie.  Sherrell, I loved watching you grow up.  You always had a ready smile and kind disposition.  Your Jubilee family is so proud of you.  You are missed.
• Troy Lee, son of Diane.  Troy, I’ll always remember playing “mafia” in youth group, acting in church plays, how you always greeted me with hug and hello.  I was shaking when I heard the news of your car accident.  You are so loved: your sister, your cousins, your church family.  You are missed. 
• David Alan Gregory, son of Kaite.  David, I never met you, but your parents loved you dearly.  For nine months, they created room in their hearts and lives to welcome you.  While visiting your parents in Lima, Peru, I saw your bedroom; it expectantly awaited your arrival with books to read to you, adorable clothes to dress you, and so much love in every nook.  You came only for a day.  You are missed. 
• The twenty children of Sandy Hook, beloved sons and daughters of many parents.  Dear children, you remind me to treasure the children that I know.  You were simultaneously innocents who are curious about the world and trust others with welcoming smiles while also being deviants who pinch their siblings and bully one another.  In all your beauties and imperfections, you are loved and sorely missed.
• The five hundred murdered in Chicago this year, beloved sons and daughters of many parents.  Dear victims, my heart breaks for you.  Although all of these premature deaths can be attributed to the abasement of humanity and evil of sin, yours perhaps hits me the hardest.  The historical sins of racism and economic injustice that create concentrated poverty and isolated desperation are paired with the continued societal sins of apathy and fear.  Your death pains me the most because no one seemed to care.  In your infancy, you learned not to trust.  In your childhood, you fought to survive.  Forgive us.  We failed, continue to fail, and will fail to love.  You are beautiful and broken.  You are missed. 

There's a grief that can't be spoken,

There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables,
now my friends are dead and gone.

- Les Miserables

I could write a whole book on this.  Pain.  Untimely death.  Grief.  I could also write a whole book on the incarnation: Christ fully entering our pain, knowing a grief greater than we could endure, and finally ripping the fear out of death.

But now is not the time or place for that book.

Instead, a few concluding thoughts...

For those in mourning: may the richness of Scripture fill your being.  Psalms, Lamentation, and Isaiah have been particularly meaningful to me (Psalm 9-13, 31; Lamentation 3-5; Isaiah 42, 59-61).

Death is not absolute.  When reading C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters this past fall, I was shocked by the following perspective on time and life on earth:

[For those unfamiliar with The Screwtape Letters, each chapter is written as a letter from a more experienced devil to his apprentice.  Hence, “the Enemy” is referring to God.]

“How valuable time is to us may be gauged by the fact that the Enemy allows us so little of it.  The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth.  It is obvious that to Him human birth is importantly chiefly as the qualification for human death, and death solely as the gate to that other kind of life.  We are allowed to work on a selected minority of the race, for what humans call a ‘normal life’ is the exception.  Apparently He wants some – but only a very few – of the human animals with which He is peopling Heaven to have had the experience of resisting us through an earthly life of sixty or seventy years.  Well, there is our opportunity.  The smaller it is, the better we must use it.  Whatever you do, keep your [human] patient as safe as you possibly can.”

May we reorient ourselves toward Christ moment by moment, living more fully in freedom on this earth, while eagerly awaiting the second coming of Christ (or our own death, whichever comes first – although the second coming will free all creation!) and the glory of finally dropping the heavy chains of sin, being fully present with the One who makes us collapse into a trembling heap, overcome with His Other-ness, sheer holiness, while simultaneously being moved to ridiculous dancing and singing at this One’s pure love and goodness.*

Come, Lord Jesus.

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*Pardon the run-on sentence.  Got too excited.