Easter Hope in Grief

Easter, of all holidays, should helps us grieve with hope. There is no resurrection without death.

I’ve always looked forward to the Easter season, marveling all over again at Jesus’ obedience and sacrificial love as we observe Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday.

Nature seems to match the anticipation as it springs to new life with blooming banks of azalea, wild dogwoods, and the beloved cross-shaped pine tree shoots that flock the trees like candles on a Christmas tree.

Navigating fresh grief through Christmas, New Years and the dreary days of winter was brutal. But the heaviness of grief seemed to ease as Easter approached.

Easter also became more meaningful in the wake of Dan’s death.

The Easter story holds powerful lessons for the grieving. Let’s look at seven ways to find Easter hope in grief.

Easter Hope in Grief

1. Easter holds hope because Jesus overcame death.

Hallelujah, right? When we love someone in heaven, Easter means we’ll see them again.

Jesus defeated death so that believers will never, not for a minute, taste death. We go from life to life—face-to-face with Christ. (John 14:19)

We will experience the sting of grieving those who go to heaven before us. But we’ll never experience the sting of death.

2. Easter holds hope because Jesus understands pain.

We have a Savior who understands pain and loss. Any suffering we experience this side of heaven Jesus also experienced.

Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. He anguished to the point of sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knows rejection, abandonment, sorrow, exhaustion, false accusation, betrayal, physical torture and humiliation.

Jesus was “despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.” (Isaiah 53:3, NLT)

If no one around you gets your grief, Jesus does. He understands human frailty and he is right now beside the Father interceding for us with compassionate mercy. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

3. Easter holds hope because God is never not at work.

The day between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday is called Silent Saturday. God is silent in scripture. On the surface, it looked like nothing was happening.

I can only imagine the disciples disillusionment and gut-wrenching grief as they forced themselves through each Sabbath task.

But God’s silence is not God’s indifference.

God is always at work. Maybe you’ve questioned where God is in your pain. Maybe you’ve wondered why he didn’t or hasn’t stepped in to relieve your suffering.

God’s silence isn’t abandonment or apathy. Though we may not yet see it, Easter reminds us that God is always at work. His goodness and love are for us even when we can’t see it.

4. Easter holds hope because of glory that awaits us.

Your pain will be redeemed. Scripture says our present suffering isn’t even “worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18, ESV)

As I meditated on this verse this week, I imagined a balance scale. What kind of redemption on one side would balance out the depth of grief on the other side? But Paul writes that trying to balance that scale is useless because the glory that awaits us is incomparable.

God doesn’t dismiss the very real pain and sorrow of suffering. But he does give us hope that it’s not for nothing. That he sees it. And that one day, we’ll be able to look back with perspective knowing that, as grueling as grief is, it pales in comparison to the glory in heaven.

5. Easter holds hope because Jesus gives us abundant life.

The thief came to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus overcame the enemy to bring us abundant life.

Really? ou may be thinking. Because this isn’t the abundant life I ordered. n abundant life doesn’t mean a pain-free life.

An abundant life means we have intimacy with God, peace in the storms, strength in our weakness, provision in our need, wisdom for our circumstances, guidance for the path and every spiritual gift and sustenance we need.

When life implodes in loss, taking with it our person, our dreams, and the future we had with them, we wonder if we’ll ever feel real joy again.

But Jesus’ promise of abundant life doesn’t start and stop. The abundant life may not look like the one we ordered, but we can be certain God has more for us than we could ever ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)

6. Easter holds hope because we now have the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension ushered in the ministry of the Holy Spirit for believers. I can imagine the disciples fear when, on the heels of rising from the grave, Jesus told them he was leaving them.

But Jesus said it was to their advantage that he go back to heaven. Only then would we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. (John 16:7)

The Holy Spirit is the Comforter. That comfort comes through his indwelling presence in the worst of circumstances.

“When you have walked through a period of honest grief, you experience God in a way you wouldn’t wish on anyone else—but in a way you never could have without the loss…God doesn’t immediately say, ‘This is going to be good,’ like people often do. He just sits there with you in it and the ministry of His presence is healing.”¹

7. Easter holds hope because God always gets the last word.

Nothing happens without first passing through the sovereign and loving hand of God.

The enemy thought his cunning put Jesus on the cross.
The Jewish authorities thought their plans put Jesus the cross.
The crowd thought their decision put Jesus on the cross.
The Roman government thought their power put Jesus on the cross.

But none of these had authority over Jesus. God was in full control and Jesus chose to lay down his life. Jesus had all authority to lay down his life and take it up again. (John 10:18).

If God was in control when all seemed lost that Good Friday, we can trust God’s in control when all seems lost for us as well.

Easter means ashes aren’t the end of our story.
And Easter holds hope because God always has the last word.

If it’s not good, Easter reminds us that God’s not done.

¹ Dr. Katherine Koonce, from When Your Family’s Lost a Loved One, David and Nancy Guthrie.