Resurrection from Grief
SCRIPTURE TEXT: Acts 9:36-43
Rev. Monte Marshall
We continue today in the Easter season and we’re still telling resurrection stories. It’s a time for celebrating all the ways in which resurrection is possible in our lives, moving us from despair to hope, from darkness to light, from death to life.
This morning we’re telling stories about what it’s like to be resurrected from grief. Let’s pray: God of the empty tomb, roll away the stones that prevent us from beholding your glory. Unlock our capacity for resurrection. Accept our intentions to live in your liberating love and empower us with your grace. We open the doors of our lives to your healing, inspiring and sustaining Spirit, as we pray in the name of the One who is our threshold to new life. Amen.
This past Monday afternoon, I was listening to the program Fresh Air with Terry Gross on our local public radio station. The guest being interviewed was noted author, Charles Bock. As it turned out, Charles was telling a resurrection story.
In 2009, Bock’s wife of four years, Diana Colbert, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. It was devastating news. This cancer of the blood, if left untreated, could quickly be fatal. Charles and Diana also had a five-month-old daughter named Lily.
Following the diagnosis, life became extraordinarily difficult. Diana underwent several rounds of chemotherapy and two bone marrow transplants. She clung tenaciously to life. She found moments of joy and peace, especially with Lily. In fact, as one journalist notes, there are a series of photographs showing Diana “sleeping, bald and emaciated, with Lily nestled by her side. Both mother and daughter look completely content, soothed to sleep by each other’s presence.”1
Charles, on the other hand, was struggling. Diana wrote in her diary: “Charles is often miserable. I am not.”2
In the spring of 2011, Diana’s cancer went into remission, but she remained frail. The cancer returned later that year. Diana died in 2011, three days before Lily’s third birthday. Diana was 41 years old.3
In the interview, Charles acknowledged how difficult Diana’s death had been for him: “After Diana passed,” he said, “I did not believe for one second that I would remarry or that I would be in love again. Diana, in fact, left me a note saying ‘Don’t let the darkness swallow you.’ She felt that I should mourn but that I should live.” And I didn’t believe that I would have love as part of my future.”4
Diana knew the danger of grief: “Don’t let the darkness swallow you.” But Charles was in the darkness: “I didn’t believe that I would have love as part of my future.” In a sense, Charles was dying. Oh sure, his brain was functioning. His heart was beating. He drew one breath after another. He was living, but he was dying emotionally and spiritually on the inside as he imagined a life without love. He was in danger of giving up on life and hope. He was in danger of giving up on resurrection!
I suppose the same thing could be said of the grieving widows in this morning’s resurrection story from the book of Acts. The narrative is set in Joppa. A female disciple of Jesus is dead from an illness. Her name in Aramaic is Tabitha, and in Greek, Dorcas. She is known as a woman “who never tired of doing kind things or giving to charity.”
Before Tabitha’s body is buried, Peter is summoned from Lydda. He makes the short trip to Joppa. He goes to the upstairs room where the body is being prepared. He finds the women weeping in their grief. They show him the garments that Tabitha has made for them in the past. Tears are shed because the widows don’t see a way back to life for their friend and benefactor.
But notice this: Peter doesn’t join them in their grief. Instead, he sets to work bringing life out of death. He sends the women out of the room. He kneels and prays. He then turns to the body and says, “Tabitha, stand up.” And Tabitha comes back to life. The once-grieving people are invited back into the room to now see her alive. They stop their weeping and apparently, start telling this resurrection story to others. The word spreads and according to Luke, “many come to believe in Jesus Christ.”
Now speaking personally, I don’t find much meaning in taking a literal view of Peter’s resuscitation of a corpse. In fact, Dr. John Holbert calls this aspect of the narrative “an event so far out of time and space that it beggars any hint of human reality.”5
But what I do find compelling about this story is what Dr. Holbert calls “the representation of the power of resurrection in the world.” He writes: “Wherever the power of death is overcome by the power of resurrected life, we see again the power of God alive in God’s world.” He then concludes: “A life lived in God is a life where death can have no final sway, though death is all too real for all of us. That is the living power of resurrection, that reality that binds together all who believe in hope.”6
So when we find ourselves in the grip of grief, Luke’s story urges us to believe in God’s work of resurrection, and to hold fast to life and hope so that we are not “swallowed up by the darkness.” Then, by the grace of God, we will have our own resurrection stories to tell.
By the way, this is how Charles Bock’s resurrection story ends: In the deepest part of his grief, Charles held on to life by caring for his young daughter. He told Terry Gross: “If I did not have our daughter to take care of, I’m sure I would have been in an ally somewhere, or at the bottom of a bottle, or in some dark corner of the soul.”7
Charles also held on to life because of friends, and even strangers, who were much like Peter to him. They called him back to life by offering their love and support. They held fundraisers to help cover insurance payments and medical bills. They brought food and took care of Lily. Charles says that their witness to life and love “changed my understanding of people.”8
Eventually, Charles Bock came back to life! It’s as if Peter said to him: “Charles, it’s time now. Stand up! Live again!”
When the time was right and he was willing, Charles even found love again. He met a woman named Leslie. Even though he had thought that it would never happen, Charles and Leslie are now married, and Lily has started calling Leslie, “Mommy.”9
So this is the good news: Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia! No matter how grief-stricken we may feel, God has plans for us—plans for light and life! Can our lives be turned around? Can we find new life when everything feels lifeless? Can light shine in what feels like an empty tomb? The answer is YES, YES, YES! Then our stories—then each story—can be a resurrection story. Thanks be to God. Amen.