August 2025-You’ll Never Walk Alone
Approximately 150,000 people die each day worldwide. Death really is all around us. And yet every now and again there is a death that grips the world. That proved to be the case with former Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota who died in a sudden car crash at the age of 28 along with his younger brother.
A talented footballer. A family man. An infectious personality. A role model. Here was a young man with his whole life ahead of him taken in his prime. Everything about his death was tragic. There was a moving tribute from Jota’s Portuguese teammate Christian Ronaldo who summed up the feelings of many when he simply tweeted ‘it doesn’t make sense.’
So how do we go about making sense of tragic deaths like this?
Trent Alexander Arnold, Jota’s former team mate at Liverpool now playing for Real Madrid, said in a recent post match interview that Jota “was there with me”.[1] It’s just what we say in moment like this isn’t it. They are up there looking down. They are dancing with the angels. I’m not sure, deep down, that we really believe that that’s true do we? It’s certainly short lived comfort at best.
However, Jesus offers us something better.
In John’s gospel we read about this woman called Martha who tragically lost her brother Lazarus. Upon encountering her in her grief Jesus makes the most outstanding claim. ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (John 11:25). The one who weeps at the graveside of Lazarus is also the one who summons him back to life from the dead.
Our world is full of leaders who have lots of power but no love for people. It’s also filled with people who have lots of love but have no power. Jesus is both perfect power and perfect love. This is the lens through which Jesus invites Martha, and all who would hear his invitation in the generations to come, to see the world.
What does that mean? Well, if we put on our resurrection and the life spectacles, it means we can do two things in tragic moments.
We can plumb the depths of grief.
In the opening chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 & 2 God creates a very good world. As a result of Adam & Eve’s cosmic rebellion they are banished from the Garden of Eden. God is totally just in doing so. He would be compromising on his holiness if he didn’t. From that moment on in the Bible story death is the great intruder - the last enemy (1 Cor. 15:25-26). The problem, that even creeps into Christian circles, is that we quickly jump to the celebration of life. That’s right and proper as we remember lives well lived for the glory of Christ. However, in Jesus’ tears at Lazarus tomb, we find divine permission to plumb the depths of grief. The God of all comfort(2 Cor.1:1-3) will draw near to us in our distress. This is not how it was meant to be. The Bible gives us a worldview whereby we can name every death a tragedy.
We can embrace the heights of hope.
Jesus summoned Lazarus from the tomb. Just as in the beginning God was breathing the animating breath of life into human beings. Of course what Jesus did to Lazarus was a poignant foreshadowing of how he himself would walk out the tomb after his own death. Except, unlike Lazarus, Jesus would never taste death again. Jesus is, as he lives at the right hand of the Father interceding for his people in bodily form, our living hope. He has died in our place for our sin. He has redeemed us for himself. The Father has sealed us with the promised Holy Spirit. The hope of the gospel is that, united to him, because Jesus lives we too live. The hope of the Christian believer is not based on cultural niceties. It’s grounded in history and based on an empty cross and grave.
An atheistic worldview offers neither a grid for processing grief nor any solid ground for eternal hope. No wonder people so often resort to cliches. The Christian gospel, however, invites the believer to both grief and hope. We can weep together. We can set our hopes as high as the New Testament does. One day our King will return and usher in the New Creation where the former things, including death, will be a distant memory. Until then he is with us by his Spirit. Truly, with Christ, we’ll never walk alone.
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[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cdxlrvl616eo
