Grief
Grief is the experience of loss and mourning described throughout Scripture as torn clothes, weeping, ashes, and the absence of comfort. The Bible does not treat grief as weakness: the psalms of lament, the book of Lamentations, and Jesus' own weeping at Lazarus's tomb name it as part of the life of faith. Every biblical response to grief holds sorrow and hope together without collapsing one into the other.
Key verses (11)
- Psalms 23:4Through the valley — God with me
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with...”
- Psalms 30:5Weeping endures a night, joy cometh in morning
“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy ...”
- Psalms 34:18The LORD is nigh unto them of a broken heart
“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
- Isaiah 53:3Messiah acquainted with grief
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it we...”
- Lamentations 3:22His compassions fail not
“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.”
- Lamentations 3:23New every morning
“They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
- Matthew 5:4Blessed are they that mourn
“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
- John 11:35Jesus wept — God weeps with the grieving
“Jesus wept.”
- 2 Corinthians 1:3God of all comfort
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all ...”
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13Sorrow not as those without hope
“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow ...”
- Revelation 21:4God shall wipe away all tears
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,...”
Relevant characters (4)
Job
Bereaved of ten children (Job 1:18-20)
David
Wept for Absalom (2 Samuel 18:33) and in the Psalms of lament
Jeremiah
Wrote Lamentations over the fall of Jerusalem
Mary Magdalene
Wept at the empty tomb (John 20:11)
Further reading
- Nicholas Wolterstorff — Lament for a Son, Eerdmans (1987)
- C. S. Lewis — A Grief Observed, Faber & Faber (1961)
- Jerry Sittser — A Grace Disguised, Zondervan (1996)
Pastoral commentary
[founder: write here]