When some wounds never heal

We don’t realize how disorienting grief can be. In the aftermath of a dearly loved one’s death, you feel like you are living two worlds at once: one with that loved departed family member, and one without.

The death of a loved one is a blade that pierces beneath the armour, an arrow that lodges down in the soul. It brings a hurt we cannot defend, a pain we cannot forget, an injury which will never fully heal.

Though life goes on without noticing our loss — daily broadcasts continue, people shop at grocery stores, buses come and go — we are no longer the same. The ache will not finally leave, the groan, not silence, the limp not amend until we remove the tattered garments of this life. They are no longer with us.

Though life for us has not ended, it has changed. There is no real going back.

Death’s Prolonged Victims
Death often inflicts its greatest havoc upon its survivors; its primary victims do not yet lie in the grave. The dead are with Christ, healed. Our bleeding goes on.

We, not the departed, are left to wonder with the prophet, “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” (Jeremiah 15:18). Our grief refuses to be healed, as C.S. Lewis describes, after the death of his wife, in

Dying can be an ugly thing. But for many, the knife enters once and releases its victim. But for those left behind, the stab is repetitive. Death not only claims its victims but torments their loved ones. Where, if anywhere, shall we find rest?

Pierced with Mary
This heart-stabbing we feel is owned, not avoided, in the Scriptures.

For one, this blade was foretold to pierce Mary decades before its advent. As Mary marvelled at the prophecy given by Simeon concerning her newborn son — that he would be a light for the Gentiles and glory for Israel (Luke 2:29–32) — her wonder was interrupted by a prophesy concerning her as well:

Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:34–35)

A sword will pierce through your own soul also.

Jesus would be pierced, and Mary also. The blade entered later in the Gospels, “standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19:25).

She stood with her son and watched the horrible sight — she stood valiantly as the blade went in. Her beloved son, crucified upon a Roman tree in infamy and shame. The child to whom she spoke baby talk now groaned in unforgettable anguish. The child she swaddled, nursed, and held, now wrapped in death, nursed by anguish, and held up by nails which stapled his flesh to wood.

How far through did it run when she heard him gasp through suffocation one last time on her behalf, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26–27). In his dying breath, under the wrath of men and the wrath of God, he considered her well-being. Nails had pierced his hands and feet, and a spear now pierced his side, while a sword pierced her soul.

Where Can We Find Rest?
We know the soul-piercing effect of this blade when others have died as well. We see its sharpness pierce speech for seven days in the ash heap with Job and climb into the tears of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus.

And yet, while the death of our loved ones in the Lord constitutes a heavy blow, it is precious in the eyes of our Father. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15). And the reason for the preciousness is also foretold in the same verse as the piercing of soul. “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel” (Luke 2:34).

The anastasis, the resurrection of many. Death for God’s people is precious only because Mary’s son was appointed for their resurrection. He is the Resurrection and the Life. Death will not hide faces for long.

Life After the Sword
We may never return to life as it once was. That’s okay. But we must never let the old ache stop us from living.

Greg Morse