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In the recent Avatar: the Last Airbender show, there is a scene where Iroh, heir to the throne of the Fire Nation, the greatest and most terrible power in the world, is at a funeral for his son, Lu Ten, who has just died in battle. Many people, including Iroh’s own brother, future Fire Lord Ozai, tell Iroh what a great warrior his son was and the honor of his sacrifice to the Fire Nation. Iroh looks like he is in a daze, not fully listening or comprehending anything that is going on. Iroh’s nephew, Zuko, comes up and gives similar platitudes before walking away.
Then Zuko turns back. He tells Iroh how much Lu Ten meant to him and helped him with his training. He then sits down and spends the rest of the funeral with his uncle.
Years later, Zuko is given an impossible task by his father the Fire Lord. He’s told not to come back until he succeeds, essentially banishing him from the Fire Nation. One of the first people to come onboard Zuko’s ship is Uncle Iroh, who clearly has not forgotten what Zuko did for him at Lu Ten’s funeral. He is looking to repay kindness with kindness.
All of us know how hard grief is. Many of us know how hard it is to hear the wrong thing. Hopefully many too know the power he hearing something loving and encouraging during our grief. For this reason the service I hear the most gratitude for is the Rite of Burial, especially when it is done right by the Prayer Book.
Today is a hard day. It is the day when we remember our Lord’s death. It is the day we remember that we are the cause of His death.
It is tempting to try and skip ahead. It is tempting to give platitudes, the same as Iroh heard even from his own brother. It can be tempting not to want to deal with this death.
Yet it is healthy to work through our grief. It is even more healthy today when our grief can spawn repentance, the very thing Jesus calls us to do. More to the point, Jesus died so that we can truly repent.
Thankfully in our grief, we have someone there with us, just as Iroh had Zuko. It is in times like this we have the presence of God in the form of the Holy Spirit. It is times like this when we have a Holy Comforter, another name given for the Holy Spirit in the Gospel according to John, as we heard just last night.
If you are feeling great emotions today, live into that. Sit with that grief. Let it form and shape you. Remember too that you have the Holy Comforter sitting with you, helping you move through the grief so that you will be stronger, gentler, and kinder when you make it through to the other side.