{"id":5341,"date":"2025-10-10T04:46:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/?p=4283"},"modified":"2025-10-10T04:46:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:46:36","slug":"our-shepherds-response-to-unspeakable-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/2025\/10\/10\/our-shepherds-response-to-unspeakable-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Shepherd’s Response to Unspeakable Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

All our hearts are heavy with the news from last weekend of Jacob, Amy, Evie, and Gigi losing their son and brother Conrad Jack Wayne Smith.<\/p>\n

We know everyone grieves differently, and that this is ok and part of how our Maker made us. We know we have a dozen ways we want to show our love for the Smith family – hugs, meals, conversations, financial help, gifts, acts of service, etc. But sometimes it’s hard to know what to do when we’re grieving. Sometimes it’s hard to know what is the best next step to take.<\/p>\n

That’s why in all circumstances, grief included, it’s especially wonderful that we have a God that has revealed Himself to us! Yes He’s a God who is high above us, but He’s also Immanuel – God with us (Matthew 1:23). Though we weren’t living when the Lord Jesus was walking the earth, our Father by His Spirit has preserved for us the Old Testament that points to Christ and the New Testament that grandly presents Him.<\/p>\n

So one thing that is always the right thing to do in our grief is to gaze at our Savior. The Father’s plan, by His Spirit’s work, was always to leave us a record of His resplendence, an eternal witness of the wonder of full deity dwelling bodily. Perhaps one of those aspects of our Savior that we don’t consider as often is what Isaiah describes of Him, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” (Isaiah 53:3)<\/em>.<\/strong> Did you catch that part in the middle there, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”<\/em><\/strong>? As we prayerfully lift up our dear Pastor, Amy, and their girls in their great sorrow, and seek to bear their burdens with them, let’s look to our Savior and Shepherd in one of those moments of great grief and sorrow.<\/p>\n

One such excruciating moment for Jesus was the unspeakable death of John the Baptist. Jesus thought so much of John He once said, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist…”<\/em><\/strong> (Matthew 11:11a). He had leaped for joy while in his mother’s womb upon first encountering Jesus’ unborn life. He had baptized Jesus and humbly prepared the way so that others would see and recognize Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was a cousin to Jesus, and a faithful evangelist of His. He was bold, calling all people, from all backgrounds, to repent of sin – even Herod. And in Mark 6, we see the wickedness of well-timed pressure and the fear of man overtake Herod. In a moment, Jesus’ faithful friend and family member, His bold evangelist, is brutally beheaded (Mark 6:25-29). It seems Jesus is without His closest followers when He receives the news, because when His disciples return from their first missionary assignment, Jesus already knows the information. Here is His response.<\/p>\n

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  1. He leads others away from the noise to rest with His Father.<\/strong> Jesus says to His disciples, indeed He says to us in our grief, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while,”<\/em><\/strong> (Mark 6:31). What was going on in that moment? Mark tells us the reason Jesus said this was, “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat,”<\/em><\/strong> (Mark 6:32). So Jesus leads them, and Himself, to a place away from the hustle and bustle of people and towards a place of rest. There are lots of ways we can busy ourselves, especially mindlessly these days, with phones and entertainment, and activities. But Jesus calls them together, not just individually, to go to a desolate place to rest. This isn’t less than being out in God’s creation, but it’s more than that, as we’ll see in a moment. It’s together, with close loved ones, going to a place to rest with our Father.<\/li>\n
  2. He compassionately ministers through His pain.<\/strong> On the way, the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (2 Peter 2:25) stepped out of the boat in the desolate place, only to be met by crowds who had run on foot to meet Him from surrounding towns (Mark 6:33). Imagine Jesus, in one of the most painful points of His earthly life, seeing the crowds thronging to Him after He’s just left the busyness and crowds at home. How does He respond? “When He went ashore He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd,”<\/strong><\/em> (Mark 6:34a). The Shepherd sees the sheep, loves the sheep, and feeds the sheep. He immediately, “began to teach them many things,”<\/strong> (Mark 6:34b). In the original and true “What About Bob” moment, through His pain He overflows with love for the people. He doesn’t take justified “me time”; He doesn’t practice self-care. He ministers to their souls and to their stomachs, intentionally and miraculously making the meal and feeding the flock. He shows He’s the bread from heaven and the Shepherd who leads His people beside still waters (Psalm 23:2b; Mark 6:34) and lays them down in green pastures (Psalm 23:2a; Mark 6:39). He brings His followers into His ministry directing them to feed them and to find out what, providentially, they already have to offer. The people are fed, the disciples grow, and the Shepherd has shown His love by pouring Himself out in His pain. As we grieve, we must remember our grief is not our own. It is mysteriously, yet lovingly directed for us by our gracious Shepherd who will strengthen us to minister through our pain for others. We are comforted in our affliction to comfort and encourage others in theirs with the comfort we’ve received from the Comforter (2 Corinthians 2:3-7).<\/li>\n
  3. He doesn’t seek man’s purposes, He cherishes His Father’s presence.<\/strong> We see in John’s Gospel that the people at this point are ready to make Jesus their King for their own purposes (John 6:15). Jesus doesn’t desire their plans, however, and withdraws again, this time solo up the mountain. We know from Mark’s account that He went to the mountain to pray. Here, at last, is the opportunity to refill and renew Himself again in His Father’s presence and plans. He takes full opportunity, relishing the time, spending at minimum 6 hours on the mountain (Mark 6:45-48). Consider this: in this moment of great temptation, while He’s grieving, exhausted, and pulled in praise towards the people’s path, His love and joy in His Father win out. He cherishes the Father’s presence and plan over the people’s praise and purposes. When the Lord loves us and calls us into trials; when in the midst of them He calls us away from the noise and distraction; when He propels us to minister to others through our pain – we must remember He is our first love and joy. Our Lord Jesus is our good and chief Shepherd who laid down His life for us to unite us in His eternal life, that leads us into and through suffering to know and enjoy Him more. Lean into His love, our Father’s comfort, our Spirit’s peace as you grieve. Don’t let distractions distract you from truly grieving and getting away to rest. And in His almighty power and compassion, reach out to Jacob and Amy and the girls with a meal, a card, a hug when you see them, and all the prayers you can pour out. Our Good Shepherd has them, and us, and in the fullest way, little Conrad, in His everlasting arms!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    All our hearts are heavy with the news from last weekend of Jacob, Amy, Evie, and Gigi losing their son and brother Conrad Jack Wayne Smith. We know everyone grieves…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}