Winter’s End: the Gospel, Grief, and the Promise of Spring

Spring has arrived. It seems like it only took a couple of warm days to make the buds on the cherry tree in our garden pop open. They are lovely and pink, and the bees are having the best time flitting from flower to flower—perhaps their first “meal” after waking from their winter nap. After a couple of gloriously sunny, warm spring days, we snapped back to reality with cold, windy overcast days. Dare I say it will rain in a few days, or that we will even have another frost? This time of year also carries our family through Birthday Season and Lent, and Easter is now on our doorstep. Easter, the holiday Jesus-followers celebrate and remember Jesus’ sacrifice of love for us.

The season of Lent and Easter feels like the awkward dance between winter and spring. Flowers such as snowdrops and daffodils are in bloom, and the days have more sunlight. We got a little tease from spring at the beginning of March when temperatures got up to 16°C one weekend. Yet winter’s icy grip carries the reminder that it isn’t spring yet. Winter still brings us snow and frost during the transition. The transition reminds us, though, that God still moves. In C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children stumble into the world of Narnia, where it is always winter and never Christmas. As time passed, though, they saw the snow melting. The White Witch’s cruel power over Narnia weakened as winter turned into spring, and the children heard that “Aslan is on the move.” The news filled them with awe and wonder.

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Gospel of Jesus Christ also fills us with awe and wonder. It’s a similar awe and wonder to what Lucy, Peter and Susan felt in the home of the Beavers the first time they heard of Aslan. The Gospel is a familiar story to Christians. I’ve heard the story since I was a small child in a crib. I heard the story in my grandmother’s Sunday School class. Every year, I recall Jesus’ sacrifice on Good Friday, his death, and the joyous resurrection on Easter Sunday. This is the Good News, the Gospel—Jesus conquered death for our sins. We now don’t have to suffer in eternity but get to spend it with Him!

If you’ve experienced a deep loss, the story of the Gospel feels both heavy and freeing at the same time. It feels like that awkward dance between winter and spring. Feeling the weight of loss, you find comfort in Jesus’ sacrifice. On this side of eternity, you will still feel brokenness and frailty profoundly because of this deep loss. It’s a feeling our family knows too well. It was a few years ago that we were facing Lent and Easter in the face of our loss of our son. Titus’ death adds an extra dimension to Jesus’ sacrifice. We now have this awkward dance between winter and spring. We still feel our loss profoundly, but we also begin seeing how God is moving and have the confident hope that we will see our son with our Saviour in eternity one day. Without that hope, our grief leaves us in despair.

The season of winter is hard. It’s cold, dark and grey. Cold air freezes everything, and most living things lie dormant, giving the impression of death. In the middle of winter, there really isn’t anything to look forward to. Then, with spring’s arrival, the world starts to wake up. In the same way, Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection brings us back to life. For now, the winter is past; the rain has ended and gone away. The blossoms appear in the countryside. The time of singing has come.*

God is on the move, and yes, we shall have spring again. Jesus told us these things so that in Him we may have peace. We will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! He has conquered the world.* The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!*

Several years ago, we sent Titus off to surgery on his liver in Leeds. It was tough seeing him go to the operating theatre yet again. I was in tears. Our kind nurse, Donna, reminded me it wasn’t goodbye forever; just goodbye for now. That was a comfort. Several weeks later, we said goodbye to Titus as we buried him. The thing is—in light of eternity, that goodbye wasn’t forever. It’s just goodbye for now. Winter, no matter how long, is still temporary. Spring, and life, is coming. We only need to wait in expectation (often on our knees in prayer or raising our hands in worship) for God to move.

As a Jesus-follower, understanding eternal life is a lifelong pursuit. It gives me hope as I reflect on the losses I’ve experienced over the years. I miss Titus deeply, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. Knowing he’s with our Heavenly Father is comforting. Leon and I can say with King David that we will go to him, he will never return to us.* Knowing Christ died and rose to life so we can have eternal life is a comfort. It helps me keep breathing when grief tries to steal my joy.

We live in a broken world. We see sin and the consequences of sin every day. Death is the ultimate consequence of sin. All the pain, hurt, and trauma we experience happens because we live in a broken world. It’s not fair that we have to walk through such heartache and hardship. Grief is painful, and life is hard. It’s a consequence of living in a broken world. However, because Jesus died for us and rose again, we have the hope of Heaven. Compared to the eternal glory we’ll share with Jesus, our suffering will feel insignificant.

“They say of temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it, not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.’” —C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce