When someone we love and care about deeply passes away, we often use the expression “we lost someone”. This expression captures something about how we feel in the face of grief, that this person has been lost to us in a very real way. This expression also captures something about the unreality and feeling of being lost that can sometimes come when we feel the deep pain of a loved one’s death. We can feel like it’s all a dream or that somebody is pretending, and then we can feel deeply lost ourselves, bewildered - like something has been lost inside of us. This feeling is painful and marked by such deep sadness. 

Throughout this month of November, our church has remembered in a special way, all those who have died and set this time aside to pray for and remember our loved ones who are no longer with us. One of the Gospel readings used during November tells us that in the midst of having “lost” someone and feeling lost, Jesus says to us:

“It’s the will of the one who sent me that I should not lose anything of what he gave me.” (John 6:39)

What Jesus is saying is that he doesn’t lose anybody. That while we may experience that deep lostness through the death of those we have loved and who have loved us so much, Jesus walks with us more closely that we could imagine, experience or know. In these moments Jesus would say to us that he hasn’t “lost” our loved ones, that he takes very good care of the people that he loves, and that he also takes very good care of us. 

One of the most challenging parts of grief is that God can feel a million miles away, that He can feel so distant and removed that the comfort we might have found in Jesus isn’t there because we’re experiencing such deep grief and sadness. In this moment, Jesus would say that just as he doesn’t lose us, he also doesn’t lose a single tear that’s fallen from our cheeks, that he wipes them away. He’d want to comfort and console us whether it’s been a week, 6 months, or 12 months, or whether it’s been years, Jesus doesn’t dismiss any of that grief but he does want to console us in the midst of it, he does want to care for us and nurture us and comfort us in the midst of it.

And so, God has not lost our loved ones and he has not lost us, even as we experience the loss of someone. God calls us by name just as he has called home our loved ones into the embrace of the Father.