Living Homeward as an Exile

The Christian faith speaks of grace and redemption at length, but being part of that true story means we recognize the ravages of what we have lost: the loss of Eden, the loss of unhindered communion with God. We see daily the distortion and absence of real love. And the loss is ongoing; as mortals, we know the devastation that comes inevitably with the ebb of time—places erased, bodies deteriorating, loved ones gone.

But the acknowledgment of this loss, I am learning, is a vital part of the hope we bear.

What has become of us? Where have our friends and family gone? Where are the trust and the enthusiasm that used to flow so easily from us? What has happened to this relationship—that old favorite spot—these intervening years?

There is a wondering underneath such questions when we are brave enough or broken enough to ask them. When we ask, “Where are they?” and “Where is the goodness that used to be?” we are also asking, “Which way is up?” “Where am I supposed to be now when I feel unable to move?” “How are we to go on?”

I have never been comfortable with pouring out my grief in this way, and at times I have been afraid that releasing certain reservoirs of hidden pain will drown me. Yet the lamenters of the Psalms, Christians throughout the ages, and Christ himself on Calvary were willing to voice their questions without an immediate resolution. They knew that to ask them in the presence of God meant something different from letting them dissipate into the air. Their willingness and their courage to be so vulnerable before the Father opens a way for us to acknowledge the absences we feel.

Ultimately, to gloss over the losses sustained in the fall of man and its reverberations would be to deny the cost of the rescue, the worth of our ransom, and the surpassing joy Christ saw that made him scorn the shame of the cross (Heb. 12:2 NIV). And it would cause us to miss entirely what is coming.

The pattern given over and over in Scripture, from God’s dealings with Job to Jesus’s promise to give his followers a hundredfold what they have left, is of gain outstripping loss. Only as I plumb the agony of separation can I fathom the magnitude of what lies ahead; only as I heft the weight of this day’s pain do I know how to fix my eyes on Christ and anticipate the deathless, tearless, painless glory of an eternal tomorrow.

Grief, heartache, and wrenching honesty have their place in the Christian life. If we open ourselves up to tears that scald our faces and carve aching hollows in the bottoms of our hearts, we do so in faith that God truly will wipe every tear from our eyes.