Brackenhurst Baptist Church is no stranger to sorrow, including profound sorrow—the kind of sorrow experienced by our sister Kay Govender and her family this week.
Last Sunday (22 June) Kay’s husband and our brother in Christ, Mannie, died while on a family holiday in the Drakensburg. Mannie was a cancer survivor but, on God’s allotted day, the Lord took Mannie home. According to God’s word, it was precious in his sight (Psalm 116:15).
When a believer lives a long life, death is not a surprise though, of course, we sorrow over our temporal loss. Knowing that our loved one is with the Lord and that their resurrection day is assured sustains believing loved ones with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13), So it was when we heard the news of Mannie’s death. But then came Monday evening and the tragic news of the death of Kay’s son and granddaughter. Though we are grateful that Kevin and Emily professed faith in Jesus Christ, nevertheless words failed us as we process this horrific news, recognising the incalculable grief of Kay and her family.
When tragedy of this magnitude strikes, how do Christian make any sense of it? How are to respond? We know that, like Job, we are to worshipfully respond to God (Job 1:20–22) and we desire to meaningfully comfort our dear sister. But what biblical truths will help us in this?
Certainly, the truths of God’s loving character and wise sovereignty is a comfort. Passages like Psalm 23 remind us of our Shepherd’s presence and power. Romans 8:28–39 can help us to gain some clarity amid tear-blurred eyes as we are reminded of God’s loving and sovereign commitment to the ultimate well-being of his people. Biblical revelation about the resurrection, such as that in 1 Corinthians 15, provides assurance about the believer’s final glory. These are helpful truths to nourish and strengthen faith amid the crumbling walls of a sin-broken world. But one particular verse—Psalm 116:15—has helped me: “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”
The word “precious” translates a Hebrew word rich in meaning. It speaks of that which is valuable or costly. (Think of Mary anointing Jesus with a very precious—very costly—perfume [John 12:1–6]). But it also includes the idea of something that is “weighty,” that which is to be taken seriously. Putting this all together, we can conclude that the psalmist is saying that God is not indifferent to the death of any of his saints (i.e. one who belongs to him, one of his set-apart sheep). When a Christian dies, God pays very close attention, for it is a serious matter to him—a precious thing because, in a real sense, it is costly to him.
When a Christian dies, earth loses someone who can bring glory to God on earth as in heaven. Though the individual is in the immediate presence of the Lord—praising and worshipping the triune God—yet God’s earth is the poorer for the promotion. God’s harvest has lost a worker and his church on earth is minus a worshipper. This matters to God. It is a weighty thing. Earthly worshippers are valuable to God and so their death is costly.
The death of Mannie, Kevin, and Emily was also weighty to God because of his loving concern for those left behind. When God took the lives of these saints, he did not do so flippantly. He was not indifferent to the impact this would have on Kay and on the rest of her believing family. On the contrary, God cares for his people and therefore grieves when his people experience heartache in this broken world. He cares for his own (1 Peter 5:7).
Too often Christians confuse God’s loving, wise, and compassionate sovereignty with pagan and cold fatalism. Perish the thought! Psalm 116 is a praise, interestingly, for God’s deliverance from death (v. 8—“you have delivered my soul from death” and v. 16—“you have loosed my bonds”) and therefore the psalmist offers God thanksgiving (v. 17). It is because God (and his people) take death seriously that the psalmist acknowledges that God is not indifferent when death occurs. When God ends the life of a believer, it is a weighty determination—his ordained event to which he pays close attention. And this provides Christians with cause for submissive worship and substantial comfort.
When God took Mannie, Kevin, and Emily from this life, ushering them into his unmediated presence, he did so purposefully and hence their deaths are precious in his sight. For reasons that only he knows, the Lord impoverished earth in order to enrich heaven with his inheritance (Ephesians 1:18). This awareness enables us to say, “The LORD gave, the LORD has taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).
Such biblical conviction equips us to come alongside our grieving sister and her aching family to provide meaningful comfort. Rather than offering worldly sentimental platitudes, we are able to speak with biblical conviction that God cares for them, understands their grief, and is not indifferent about what they are going through.
Two thousand years ago, the perfect Saint, the set-apart-from-sin Son of God, was put to death on the cross by God the Father. Far from being indifferent to that cost, the Father initiated it, oversaw it, and was intimately involved in Jesus’ death. Why? So that when the believing beneficiaries of that death die, their death will also be precious in God’s sight. So it was this past week. Because by God’s grace, these three were not indifferent to the gospel of Christ in this life, God was not indifferent to their death. May it be so for each of us.
Doug