Our Beloved Dead

In the Gospel Reading, Jesus says that all those who see him and believe in him will have eternal life. There is some consolation in that thought. Our beloved dead live with the Lord forever.

But the problem is that, for us, our beloved dead are dead. They may be in a much better place; but we are still here, and they are not. We are like people who put their beloved friends on a train to a far-off place from which they will not return. We wave good-bye to them as the train leaves the station, and then turn to make our way back without them, to face all the ordinary sorrows and challenges of life on our own.

Even with the consolation of the thought that our beloved dead are with the Lord, having to finish our own journey without them can feel heartbreaking.

The disciples of Jesus felt this way and worse when Jesus died. We know, of course, that their grief and discouragement was turned into joy very fast, when they came to understand that he had come back to them from the dead.

Their beloved dead didn’t stay dead very long, did he?

And so it must have been a special shock to them to discover that although their beloved Lord was not dead, he was also returning to the Father. They had to lose him a second time when he ascended to the Father, didn’t they?

And yet what did Jesus say to them? Here are his last recorded words in the Gospel of Matthew:

How can he be both with them and also ascended to the Father?

The answer is that the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, lives inside every one of the Lord’s people. In being actually within them, the resurrected ascended Christ is indeed with his people always!

But then we need to remember that our beloved dead are with the Lord. If the Lord is with us always, then so are our beloved dead, who live with him. 

We do not have to finish our journey without our beloved dead then. They do not leave us any more than the Lord does.

Eleonore Stump