Wrung out

It's been a heavy day.

It happens sometimes. Even for pastors- experienced and wise men of God. Spiritual giants even.

Not much hope for me then!

Today I had to conduct a funeral of a baby who was born with severe problems. The parents had known there were problems but had been reassured that they would likely be fixed by surgery immediately after birth.

Instead they had a baby who was unable to live without help. A baby who should have died in the womb (the first of many miracles was that this little girl survived).

So I walked into a family coping with a baby who died at the age of 8 days.

One pair of grandparents are people of faith, people who have been in our church for a number of years and hear the voice of God. The other grandparents and the parents are, well, not so sure about God.

It was to be a short graveside service.

I've never started a sermon before with these words: "Sometimes life just sucks."

I cried my way through most of the rest of the sermon, but I hope that the people there can take on the thought that this poor baby's life had meaning and that there is hope if we put our trust in God. Psalm 23 speaks of God walking with us through "the valley of the shadow of death."

A lot of people cried. Some of them, including one of the funeral directors, were touching the pain of their own tragedies of babies who died as long ago as 30 years.

In the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead it says (John 11:33) Jesus saw his friends and other people in the community weeping for their friend and "he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled." The word translated "troubled" means moved with grief. The phrase "moved in spirit" really means angry.

Jesus not only had a feeling of compassion for the grief of this death, but he was angry with all the sin in the world and the devil for causing such misery.

Today I feel the same way.

One day soon we will see what the world should be like. Those of us who are followers of Jesus will share in a new heaven and a new earth where there is no suffering, no pain, no tears, no death. A place where according to Revelation there isn't even any darkness because the light of God is always there.

In the meantime we struggle to express the hope that we have, and to help others who can't see the light because of the deep darkness.