I know people mean well. They are just trying to be supportive and helpful. But most of the bromides dispensed like candy corn when someone is grieving are about as helpful as buttons on a dishrag. And after four decades of pastoral ministry I have heard them all. Here’s a sampling:

“God needed another angel in heaven.” (Really? God needed another tenor in the heavenly choir?)

“He/She is in a better place.” (Is that right? What’s so bad about this place—with me?)

“Everything happens for a reason.” (Oh yeah? Does that reason have to include breaking my heart?)

Because most people feel uncomfortable around someone else’s grief they fall back on these shibboleths as a way of holding the other person’s pain at arm’s length. Is that what the Psalmist is doing when he says, in Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones”? Calling death “precious” when there will forever be an empty chair at the supper table strikes me as downright callous. The verse is quoted at millions of funerals every year as if it should make a grieving person happy.

It doesn’t.

When I got the news about my friend Jeff Iverson, the first word I thought of was not “precious.” Words like “tragic,” “wrong,” and “unfair” fell from my lips. Until they moved away Jeff and his family were active in the church I served in Elgin, IL. His wife, Beth, was the lone female voice in a folk group in which I sang called the Fox River Trio. Poor Jeff was the lone male spouse in our entourage. But we all enjoyed each other’s company, laughed a lot, and had a lot of fun together. When Jeff died quite unexpectedly on November 2nd he left behind a loving wife, two wonderful daughters, a grandson who was the apple of his eye, numerous friends and co-workers—all of whom suddenly had a collective hole in their hearts.

Beth asked me to say a few words at Jeff’s memorial service. Most people assume we preachers struggle with a sermon for someone we did not know, but the opposite is true. The people we know well make for really tough funeral services. How do you say something healing when your own heart is breaking?

But I was honored to be asked. And for some reason that verse from Psalm 116 kept coming back to me, as if taunting me, daring me to dive into the deep end of some really bad theology. I looked up that word “precious.” In popular English, of course, it connotes something loved or adored. But the Hebrew word has a different meaning. It speaks of something expensive, rare, even costly. It’s a word that says the thing in question—in this case a human being—is not anything to be ambivalent about. It is nothing to be taken lightly. Psalm 116:15 says the death of God’s faithful ones is costly to God. It is not an event God takes lightly.

And then it dawned on me. This verse is no insensitive platitude designed to make light of my grief. If Jeff’s death is costly to God as well as to me then God inhabits the same emotions I’m feeling. As I weep, so does God. As I feel my heart breaking, God’s heart is breaking too. As I am angry about a life ended far too soon, God is also angry. As I sputter “This isn’t fair,” God answers, “You’ve got that right.” When Jesus cried at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, I have a picture of a God who is crying with me.

So guess what biblical text I used at Jeff’s memorial service? Oh sure, I also spoke about the Christian hope of life eternal, but Psalm 116:15 seemed to encapsulate everything I was feeling that night without succumbing to the temptation of despair. I pray it did the same for his family and friends too.

In his book The Tug of Home Charles Poole wrote, “In the entire history of the world there has never been a hello that wasn’t carrying a goodbye in its back pocket.” All of life’s hellos will inevitably give way to goodbyes. But Poole goes on to say, “The joy of a hello that matters is worth the pain of a goodbye that hurts.” It’s costly to love someone. God knew that when we were created in the divine image. Yet, God chooses to love us anyway because “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.”

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