Sermon for June 6th (The Loss of a Dream)

In the movie What Dreams May Come, a family is torn apart through three tragic accidents. First, a couples’ two children, a teenage boy and a young girl, are killed in a car accident. Then, the husband, a doctor, is also killed when he is hit by a car. Finally, the woman commits suicide. The movie begins when this man and woman found each other and realized that they were “soul mates” as the show calls it. Their lives seemed perfect, like a dream. But then suddenly, they lost their dream and it all came tumbling down.

The movie continues in heaven where the husband awaits his wife. However, he finds out that she is somewhere else. He decides to go after her and bring her back with him to heaven. But, when he gets to where she is, he realizes that the depth of her despair is so immense that she cannot leave . . . in fact, she will not. She has lost all her hope and all her dreams. She lost her children, she lost her husband . . . she lost all that was dear to her in her life. She can’t imagine that she could know joy again. And so her husband must make a decision. If he stays, he will lose his mind as well and enter into everlasting despair with her or, he can go back to heaven, but without her. He decides to stay.

The ending of the movie is a surprise when we see both the husband and the wife together again in this so called heaven. The husband asks his wife what happened because he had decided to stay with her in that miserable place forever. She explains that everything changed when she realized that he would join her there. When she realized that he would give up everything to be with her in her despair. She said the difference came when he was willing to share the pain with her forever.

In a marriage, there are times of great struggle, but none might be as great as losing our hopes and dreams, especially when those hopes and dreams are wrapped up in a child. Sometimes it happens in an instant, when a child’s life is put out through a freak accident that nobody sees coming. At other times, a child dies because of a lingering disease, much too soon, before they ever really grow up. There is a deep sense of loss when a child dies through miscarriage and the nursery lies waiting but empty. And there is a sense of emptiness when hopes for a child are frustrated through impotency or infertility. This morning, I want to talk about two things: first, how can husbands and wives love one another best when struggling through a loss of this kind and how can we support marriages that are dealing with these losses. Second, what can God do for us when we are struggling with the loss of a child.

In the movie, the woman explained that she could only find her way out of despair was when her husband decided to join her there. In a marriage or in any close relationship, there can be times when one partner feels a loss much more strongly than the other and it can feel like a very solitary place to be. You want to be able to “just get on with life”, but depression keeps setting in. Everybody else is moving on but you just cannot. If the one closest to you, the one who you believe should be hurting as much as you, seems to be able to survive, it can make you not only feel worse but, in a way, it can cause you to want to stay in the despair even longer just so you won’t forget—almost like if you moved on it would be as if the loss wasn’t important or wasn’t real after all.

Ironically, however, while the one who is depressed appears, in the eyes of society, to be weak and struggling, it is often those who seem to be “getting on with life” who are really suffering. If you have experienced the loss of a child, it takes a great deal of courage to “give up to the pain” and risk losing one’s self with your partner, but taking this risk can create a stronger bond even in the midst of the greatest despair. Then, instead of one of you pulling the other “out”, you can lift one another up. Sometimes, for the sake of a relationship, we have to be willing to “lose ourselves” in order to gain the one we care for the most. Jesus put it this way when talking about our relationship with God, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Sharing the pain of a loss applies just as much to those who are on the outside looking in. When you see a couple struggling after a miscarriage, after the death of a child, or when you know a couple is fighting through infertility, it is important not to try and “fix” things by talking about how everything will be better eventually; instead, giving people the freedom to feel sad with someone can be the greatest gift of all.

Do you know the story of Job who lost his entire family and all his property, even his health? In that story, he had three friends “who came and sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” If the story had ended there, they would have probably been seen in a much better light; instead, they started giving their opinions and, today, we criticize their answers. Why? Because there is really no good answer to why bad things happen to beautiful babies, or why children die, or why wonderful would-be mothers cannot seem to get pregnant. Sometimes the best response we can give to death is to share our grief together with others.

On internship, I was asked by a older couple about their little girl who died when she was two. They came to me, so many years later, because she had died but was not baptized. They not only lost their child, but they lived in fear of having somehow not given her the chance at eternal life. It is in the midst of this kind of loss where we find out what God can do for us in our struggles.

In two of the texts for today, a child has died and, by the power of God, they are both brought back to life. Of course, you might ask: why some and not others? Or, as Mary and Martha both cried out to Jesus when their brother Lazarus died, “If you had been here Lord, he would not have died!” Where is God when a child dies!? How could he allow it to happen at all!? The truth is hard to hear: God was right there when it happened, holding your child in his loving arms. He is right there through every infertility treatment. He has never let you go. That’s the truth, but it’s not easy to understand.

However, because we know that God is right there, there is also the possibility of hope. A spark of light in the darkness of over forty years of guilt for a couple thinking back to why they hadn’t taken the time to bless their child with God’s promise of eternal life. If God is right there, when a child dies, when dreams are dashed, when hopes are lost, he also has the power to give life where none of us dared to believe life could exist. Jesus says, “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We trust the lives of our little babies into the merciful hands of a Savior who is mighty to save even in the midst of things we have done or left undone.

We are called to join with those who are struggling and hurting in their marriages from loss, but Jesus Christ already knows what it is like to join in that suffering. He died on the cross for you so that he might know your pain and sorrow during the loss of a child, the loss of a dream and the loss of hope. He did not promise us a life free of suffering, but that one day our suffering would turn to joy in eternal life. If you have come today never having heard this great promise, I encourage you to talk with me or with someone else here this morning about building upon the relationship Jesus already has begun with you. Perhaps you have never been baptized and don’t know what all the fuss is about. You may have experienced the loss of your dreams alone. Through faith in Jesus and the promise of baptism, you will receive both a community and a Savior. When death comes, you don’t want to look at what you have done or left undone; hearing God’s promise gives you something, or rather, someone to believe in.

Finally, if your heart hangs heavy from the loss of a child or the loss of a dream, I encourage you to rest in the arms of God who weeps with you and has joined you in your sorrow. He will not let you go and he never has. Through all the storms of life, he has never left your side. You may trust your life, your marriage, your family and your children to his love and in his power to save. One day, after the pain of this life is over, you will see the glory of a God who has never lost a sheep in his fold and, I pray, that when that time comes, you may find yourself able to praise him again knowing that, though there is much loss in this life, there is also a sure and certain hope for resurrection because of Jesus Christ. God’s only son died on a cross, but because He lives again, we can hope in His love and His power to save. Amen.