The promised son was born but the promised land had not yet been received. Surely if Abraham and Sarah had believed the first promise, they also believed the second. They dreamed together of inheriting the land, to settle, to see everything fulfilled. But Sarah died as they are both still sojourners and nomads, dwelling in tents, possessing nothing. Abraham has no land to call his own, and now Sarah, his wife, is dead. The Bible teaches us to face death, not to avoid it. Abraham shows three important ways to do this: he mourns (public ritual expressions of grief), he weeps (deeply personal grief), and he takes care of her grave (honoring the dead). Living successfully with death demands a community that helps us process the loss, the right to sorrow and lament, and to live on with the memory of those who died. In all of this we must relate the experience of death to God and to Jesus, through whose death we have the hope of eternal life!
