Grief in the Gospels

• What we can learn about grief from 4 gospel stories, plus some experiences from my own life and therapeutic training.
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In ths sermon on "Grief in the Gospels", we start by responding to the questions "What counts as grief?", "When is grief good or bad?", and "How should we respond to grief?" based on his experience and training as a therapist, showing how we should not put grief in a box and should be willing to respond to grief in imperfect ways rather than not respond at all.
Next, we see Jesus respond to the grief of Martha and Mary in the death of their brother, Lazarus, showing that Jesus knows each of us and knows what we need.
After this, we see Jesus experience anticipatory grief in the garden of Gethsemane as he acknowledges the agonizing difficulty of what he would face on the cross, yet still chooses to follow God's will.
Then, we see Judas experience disenfranchised grief in his betrayal of Jesus and show just how deadly grief can be when experienced without Jesus.
Finally, we see Peter bring the pain of denying Jesus to Jesus, and experience restoration as a result. Likewise, we can each bring our pain to Jesus, with the assurance that he knows us, knows what we need, and loves to give us that.