Here But Not Yet

A brief homily on grief for Bon Secours Hospice

It’s hard to say where grief begins.

It is hard to say where grief begins.

It is even harder to say where grief ends.

It has been said that grief is all the love we never had the opportunity to express.

Do you hear that? Grief is love and love is grief. They are two sides of the same coin.

Today we are gathered here to share in our grief and to share in our love.

My name is Tripp Hudgins and I am a chaplain with the hospice service. And, like you, I have lost people dear to me. Today’s reflection is a reflection on my own grief, my own love, during the holidays and a message to all of us: There is no place where we can go where the light of God’s love does not shine…even in the deep darkness of grief.

Joy lives concealed in grief. - Rumi

In many Christian traditions, including my own, today marks the beginning of the season called Advent. It is the prelude to Christmas. It is a season of waiting, of anticipation…of longing for a sense of hope in a time of despair. It is about the “here but not yet” nature of God and God’s promises.

Advent is about the coming of the Child whom Christians call Jesus,

and it is about the Fruition of God’s loving Will for all creation,

the restoration of all that has fallen.

It is a time of completion,

the repair of all that is broken.

My Jewish friends call this “tikkun olam,” the repair of the world, the holy work that God’s People are called to participate in. This holy work includes holding one another’s grief.

A commonly read Psalm for the Advent season is Psalm 13. It begins…

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I bear pain[a] in my soul

and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

This is the heart of Advent. It is not only a time of light and parties and your favorite holiday beverage. It is also a time of reflection, of recognition of God’s presence amid all that might lay us low and how that is never the end of the story. Rumi said, “Joy lives concealed in grief.”

The Psalmist concludes…

5 But I trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

6 I will sing to the Lord

because he has dealt bountifully with me.

…or as we have just heard, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Or, again, Rumi, offered: “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.”

In just a moment, we’ll hear the hymn setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Christmas Bells.” The lyrics are in your bulletin. Longfellow wrote this in 1863 in response to America’s Civil War. He was drowning in despair. But in that despair, he still understood that peace on earth, good will to all people is the end of the story. Though we do not always see it or feel it, we can have hope because it is true.

The grief, like the love, will never go away, but the singing will return. The music will return. The joy will return. What makes the holidays so very special is not their pristine painlessness. Rather, it is their joyfulness alongside the pain.