Slideshow image

               The late gospel preacher Ross W. Dye wrote, “On June 13, 1961 my elder son, Stanley Ross Dye, suffered a fatal accident. One cannot experience these bitter disappointments without being changed by them.” Then he says, “I have been made increasingly aware of a deficiency in the church’s ministry of comfort” (Words of Comfort, Foreword).
            Brother Ross’s last statement is rather striking. Are we, as God’s people, deficient in our ministry of comfort? What happened, or didn’t happen in brother Ross’s case that caused him to say what he did?
            How far have we come, in this area, since the 1960’s? The only books I have on the subject of grief, from this period, are, A Grief Observed, by C. S. Lewis (1961), and, Words of Comfort, by Ross W. Dye (1962). That is not to say that other books were not available at that time. It’s just that I don’t have them. A quick index search of the Gospel Advocate for the word “grief,” comes up empty. We were not talking about it back then. It seems that the church that wears the name of Jesus is justly charged with being deficient in the ministry of comfort sixty years ago. It is long past time that we change that situation into something far more positive. Perhaps this class can help with that deficiency.
            Why do we need to study grief? We need to study it for the simple reason that God made us emotional creatures. When tragedy strikes our lives, our emotions are assaulted in ways that can be quite severe. Grief is serious business.
            We need to study grief because we all experience inevitable life changes that hurt. A toddler is diagnosed with diabetes. The parents have never dealt with this before. They now face life or death decisions with their child. A fourteen-year-old girl faces extensive surgery that promises to relieve extreme pain she has lived with for months. She faces several months in a wheelchair and getting around on a walker. A man, in his mid-40’s is on a ventilator and in a coma after a motorcycle wreck. He has no brain activity. His mother has to make the decision as to whether or not to turn off the ventilator. You are hit with a cancer diagnosis that alters your satisfaction that life goes not pretty much the same day after day. Suddenly, things are not the same. You experience grief. It helps to know that you will go through the stages of grief.                                    This will not be a class on psychology. It will not be another study of the problem of human suffering. It will not be a theological treatise on death. It will not be an effort to sensationalize human emotions, but neither are we in denial. It will be an effort to look into how God addresses the human condition in the area of grief and sorrow. It is interesting that Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). We grieve because we love, and we do not grieve without hope!
            Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but we find death and grief a difficult thing with which to deal. We can talk about immodest clothing and sex, tattoos and body piercings, homosexuality in private or public, abortion and the reversal of Roe v. Wade, but we dare not mention death. People experience grief within their own families but do not talk about it. Many grieving families refuse to talk out their grief, even within the family.
            These studies will touch a chord with many of us. They are intended to address the human condition in ways that I hope will be helpful. The human condition is the way we are made in God’s image. Whatever being made in God’s image might entail, emotions are a part of it. If that assessment is unsatisfactory, I have also built on the Scriptural mandate of Paul, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). What does it mean to “weep with those who weep”? The simple mechanics of weeping with those who weep is foreign to some of us. This class is intended to address that duty in all of its varied applications. If one would ignore this divine injunction as being meaningless, what else might they dismiss with the same credulous wave of the hand? It seems to me that some of us need to be taught how to “weep with those who weep.”
            This material was developed in the fall of 2020 when we were basically confined to our homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. Prompting this study in grief was the fact that a few precious members of the body at Mabelvale had been taken from us in death that year. Consequently, there were those of us who suddenly had become “acquainted with grief.” These classes were live streamed on the public Facebook page for the Mabelvale church of Christ. These lessons were well received at the time. The response was very encouraging.
            At the time I thought it would be good to put that material into book form and use it in the ministry of the Mabelvale church. That time is now. I have taken that material and developed this 10-lesson study for use in our All Comers Bible class. This 10-lesson format accommodates the short 10-week schedule for All Comers class in the fall session. Class will resume on Tuesday, September 13th at 10:00 AM. I hope that you can join of for All Comers Class this fall!