What Do You Believe about Death?

When I was eighteen, the car I was a passenger in swerved to avoid rear-ending another vehicle. Two other vehicles—a car and a truck—hit us. Devastatingly, an elderly woman in the other car had a heart attack at the scene and died. In an attempt to comfort my friend, who had been driving and was at fault, I said to her as we left the hospital, “God must have had a reason for her to die now.” My friend looked at me and replied, “I don’t want to know that God.”

New to the faith and so young, I didn’t realize at the time what I know now—my words not only didn’t comfort my friend, they made her pain worse.

How many platitudes have you heard people utter in the face of death?

• “God must have needed her in heaven.”
• “Everything happens for a reason.”
• “All things work together for good.”
• “He’s in a better place.”

The list is long. How many followers of Jesus say these things? When we’re uncomfortable or uncertain, awkward words tumble out. If platitudes are the best we’ve got, though, what do we have to say in the face of tragedy? Personal tragedy, like the loss of a loved one, or a national tragedy, like Uvalde?

Do we tell those parents:

• God had a plan?
• It happened for a reason?
• Be glad they were children, so at least they’re in heaven?

Words such as these reveal that we haven’t really thought through what we believe about death. We need to think through what we really believe, both so that we don’t inflict harm and so that we can offer hope to the grieving. If we believe in the resurrection, we have better things to say than platitudes.

Speaking of resurrection, one place I look for what I believe about death is John 11:

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. (John 11:33-34, 38-9 NLT)

Jesus’s dear friend Lazarus has died, and Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha (also dear friends of Jesus), weep and cry out in grief. What is Jesus’s reaction to their pain? He’s angry.

Did you expect that? Why would Jesus be angry at grief? He’s not. Jesus is angry at death. He knows death was never God’s plan. He knows this pain wasn’t supposed to occur. It hurts him to see his friends suffering because of this terrible result of disorder entering the world. He is angry, not at his friends, as some suppose, but at the intruder called death that stalks us all.

This comforts me. Jesus’s compassion on us in our grief—his deep anger that the humans he loves grieve at all—tells me that we have a God who hurts when we do. We have a Lord who weeps with us.

When we cry out, asking where God is in our pain, the answer remains the same for us as it was for Mary and Martha. He is right here, next to us, weeping and crying out and raging against sin and all its ramifications. There is nothing—not even death itself (Rom. 8:38)—that can separate us from the love of the God who sits with us in our pain.

This is, I believe, the only thing we can say with conviction and love when horror beyond belief strikes. When children die in mass shootings, nurses and doctors witness deaths by the dozens, or refugees speak of the atrocities they experienced in leaving their homes, only a God who weeps with us can also comfort us. Only a God who hates death as much as we do can give us the courage to scream at it. Only a resurrected God who first felt abandoned can offer the hope to go forward.

And what of the platitudes that people repeat all too often? (Note: It’s OK if you’ve spoken platitudes. As I said, I did it myself. We all have probably done so, because we’re all uncomfortable with grief and death.)

• God needed her in heaven? God needs nothing. God is infinite and omnipotent. God doesn’t arrange deaths like a cosmic hit man because he suddenly feels the need for your grandma’s presence. We’re always present with God.
• Everything happens for a reason? This is simply untrue. People in grief aren’t a project for God’s experimentation. God doesn’t cause tragedy for some elusive reason. It happens because we live in a tragically messed up world with consequences for human choices that we can’t control.
• All things work together for good? This is true, but it’s unhelpful for people in immediate pain. It’s false, however, if we imply that God intends terrible things to happen in order for good to come out of them. God working through pain is not the same as God creating pain. Romans 8:28 is truth to work through with someone much, much later in the process of overcoming personal tragedy.
• He’s in a better place? Also true but This statement can make people feel guilty for their sadness—as if they have no right to wish the person was still alive. We know heaven is better, but the person in pain isn’t there. She’s still here, in a troubled, difficult world.

Paul promises, “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us” (2 Cor. 1:4 NLT).  We can leave behind the platitudes when we think through what we believe about death, in anticipation of this promise.

Jill Richardson is a writer, speaker, pastor, mom of three, and author of five books. She likes to travel, grow flowers, read Tolkien, and research her next project. She believes in Jesus, grace, restoration, kindness, justice, and dark chocolate. Her passion is partnering with the next generation of faith. Jill blogs at jillmrichardson.com.

Photograph © K. Mitch Hodge, used with permission