Counsel for the grieving can bring great stress to a pastor. Especially to the young pastor with little-to-no experience. Everyone is looking at you, expectingly, for just the right word. Feelings of inadequacy fill the mind as anxiety begins to affect the body.
Tapping into the experience of the church historical can help you find your footing. At one time, every potential pastor was young, and inexperienced. I recall an elderly, retired pastor in my congregation offer this advice to a dying man: “Focus on Christ. Look intently with your eyes of faith, then relax yourself in His arms, when He calls you.” So simple, yet so biblical, and so helpful (consider Stephen’s passing into the presence of Christ in Acts 7:54-60).
Equally helpful is to consider the pattern of the gospel as a blueprint for grief counseling: Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. Christ came to us in our suffering, suffered in our place, and provided a way out of our misery through the resurrection. A gospel pattern supports the most helpful counsel.
Here are some examples of this gospel paradigm from, a perhaps, surprising source. John Nelson Darby, founder and theologian of the Plymouth Brethren, gave counsel for grieving people well. Darby, like the Scottish Reformed Pastor William Still, left in letter-form counsel for the suffering. Here is some advice to grieving parents from his letters.
Incarnation: Identify with the grieving
Empathy lets the suffer know that you are a fellow sufferer. To a “Dear Sister,” Darby describes with realism the loss of a dear baby as the loss of part of oneself. To another grieving parent, he recognizes the “great gap” created by the loss.
“It is indeed a sore trial to see one who is a part of ourselves thus taken off at one blow, and unexpectedly.”
“I thank you, dear sister, for having given me these particulars. Not only did I love her very sincerely, but I also see in her so true a picture of the work of the Spirit in connection with her whole life. […] I feel that the death of your dear daughter will make a great gap in her family, for you and for all.”
“I never saw a family the same thing after the first death that it was before. There was a breach in the circle. What belonged to the whole body of affections and life of this world was touched, was found to be–mortal: it was struck in its very nature.”
“Assure dear M. how truly I sympathize with him. A father’s sorrow, though of another character, is not less deep than a mother’s.”
“Your dear daughter would have been the joy of any family where she might have been found; she is going to be the joy of that of Christ, for we are entitled to say this. It is a comfort for those who are still journeying here below.”
Crucifixion: Direct the grieving to Christ
Only allow yourself to be a bridge to Christ who suffered pain for our redemption, and is far greater to provide comfort in affliction.
“…even [Christ] entered into the sorrows of others […] for His sympathies were perfect, and blessed be God, are. He suffered for righteousness, and He suffered for sin. […] All this He felt as none else could feel. His sympathy is as perfect now, though no longer passing through the sorrows by which He gained the experience of it.”
“The Lord takes your dear babe to heaven (certainly he has no loss); what is the rest of God’s dealings in it with us–with one’s heart? He who has made a mother’s feelings knows what they are–knows what He has wounded, and knows why–has a purpose in it.”
“What I would earnestly recommend to you is, to profit of the moments when the impressions and present effect of [grief] is strong; to place yourself before God, and reap all the fruit of his dispensations and tender grace. It is a time when He searches and manifests His love to the heart at the same time.”
Resurrection: Provide Hope for the grieving
Depending on how a person is grieving, a word of hope may be timely counsel. Eventually, those in grief will desire to talk about the future. Even, to those who themselves are preparing to depart, focusing on Christ is a source of overwhelming comfort.
“But then Christ never makes a breach, except to come in and connect the soul and heart more with Himself; and it is worth all the sorrow that ever was, and more, to learn that the least atom more of His love and of Himself; and there is nothing like that, like Him; and it lasts.”
“Trust yourself to His love. I repeat, that He has completely overcome all that is between us and the pure light, as He has perfectly blotted out in us all that did not suit that light. How good He is! What grace! And you are going to be with Him! How blessed!”
“May you grow much by this–surely to a mother’s heart–painful occurrence.”
Reward of Pastoral Care
There is no sweeter experience than to guide Christ’s sheep through the valley of the shadow of death. While there is a glory to be enjoyed in proclamation of the Word to the whole flock, an even greater glory is had in the tenderness of Gethsemane. Do not let fear overtake you as a young pastor; rather, allow yourself to live the elements of the gospel with your sheep. Counsel the grieving.