Solidarity and Grief
“When Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him… They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”
Job 2:11-13
There was a rather significant moment in my home country a couple of weeks ago. HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, died and his ceremonial funeral took place at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. Like other British funerals in the pandemic, just 30 people could attend the Royal Family’s service. Many had to watch from far away, even if they would have attended in pre-COVID times. His family scaled back the service to a fraction of what Prince Philip himself originally planned.
Two images from the day strike me.[1] The first is a well-publicized photograph of the Queen sitting alone in the chapel mourning the loss of her husband of 73 years. Pandemic restrictions meant she sat far from others in her family. The image reflects the experience of so many this year: being alone and uncomforted in the face of grief.
However, that was never God’s purpose for us. He did not make us to bear our grief alone or to leave others the same way. Job’s comforters, although they failed in the long term, started out as a model of how to comfort friends in their hour of need and heartache. The weight of grief and suffering made Job barely recognizable to them. They went to him anyway, and mourned and cried with him in his grief. They sat as Job’s silent companions, bearing witness to his heartache, reminding him that he was not alone.
The second image from the funeral depicts the Grenadier Guardsmen bearing Prince Philip’s coffin. If you look closely at this image, you can see the pallbearers are arm-in-arm as they carry the Prince Philip’s lead-lined, oak coffin. Likewise, the weight of grief can be very heavy, but carried arm-in-arm with others, the burden eases.
You and I are Easter people who celebrate new life in Christ. While we find new life in the place of death and grief, it begins with the work of God—not by us willing it into existence. Knowing it is God who raises the dead and brings hope, we are freed to “weep with those who weep” and “rejoice with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15), as Paul instructs. For we know the miracle of hope is the work of God, leaving us to love in solidarity.
