By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

It can seem like no matter where we look, there is pain. The media exposes us to the widespread, unfathomable pain of war and starvation in Yemen. On social media we learn the names of the victims of unspeakable massacres—a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed eleven, including two Holocaust survivors; another shooting at a minibus in Egypt full of pilgrims returning from a monastery visit that left seven dead and many more injured—all due to prejudice and hatred.

And in our own lives, there is the pain that is less obvious but nonetheless real, and deep: the premature death of a sibling, the deteriorating health of an aging parent, the heartbreak of a broken relationship or marriage, the struggle of a parent trying to reach a troubled child.

Friday night as my heart felt heavy over the massacre in Egypt and my husband was livestreaming the funeral for the martyrs, I read Matthew 14 aloud to my children. I admittedly skipped over the part about Herod serving John the Baptist’s head on a platter, but I became aware for the first time that the whole chapter is really about Christ’s reaction to John’s death.

John the Baptist, after all, was Christ’s forerunner and his cousin. He was the last prophet who would announce Christ’s coming, and among the first to recognize Him for Who He is (Luke 1:41). John is the one who recognized Christ as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). John was the one to baptize Him while declaring that it is Christ who should baptize him (Matthew 3:14). John was there when the Holy Spirit would descend upon Jesus and God the Father would say “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

In Matthew 14:12-13, John’s disciples took away his body to bury it, “and went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself.” Perhaps He wanted to mourn John’s death privately. Perhaps He was angry at the unjust and arbitrary way John was executed: Herod makes a foolhardy promise his stepdaughter, and his wife, angry with John’s speaking truth to power, uses it to exact revenge. The “greatest born of women” died without justice. Jesus must have gone to grieve. It was a foreboding of His own death.

However, Matthew 14 goes on to describe how the people hear where Jesus was and followed after Him. And rather than turning them away so he could be alone, “He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.” Multitudes gathered around him—over five thousand. He feeds them with five loaves and two fish and they are all satisfied. Only then does he send the disciples and the crowds away. This time the Gospel tells us, “He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.”

Those of us who believe He is the Son of God, with the same divinity as His Father, must wonder what that prayer was like. What does the Son of God ask of His Father?

In this relationship of love, perhaps He wasn’t asking at all. Perhaps He was taking comfort, resting in Him. Whatever it was, after a long day of grieving the death of His cousin, healing many sick, and feeding over five thousand people, He went towards God the Father, not away.

In all of this, Christ gives us a model when we are experiencing the pain of loss: Become a healing presence, bring people together, and take refuge in God through prayer.

Become a healing presence. Most of us won’t be able to heal sickness miraculously the way Christ could, but we do have the power to heal in other ways. Our grief (especially our collective grief over larger scale tragedies) can cause us to lose our inner peace, cause us to be angry and even to be vengeful. We can allow it to do so, or we can turn it around and allow it to be a source of healing for others. How can we turn around the pain? The most important way is through empathy. When we experience pain, we know what it is like for others to experience that same pain, and we can help them heal because we know where they are. That’s one of the reasons Christians believe Christ became incarnate – to go through life like us, with all its pains and difficulties. We can use our empathy to heal by offering a listening ear and showing kindness. We can ask God for peace and pray that it catches on. After learning of the massacre in Minya, my husband led the youth meeting at church that evening. He asked all the youth to handwrite letters of condolences and encouragement to the families affected by the attack, and then he scanned the letters and sent them to Bishop Makarius of Minya. The bishop was himself encouraged by them and promised to share them. Even from across the ocean, we can be a healing presence.

Bring people together. It is so easy to turn our grief inward and seek isolation, and there are certainly times for that. But too much time in isolation can lead us to anger and self-pity. Pain can also lead to division, especially if it was caused by division. As a Copt, it would be easy for me to develop anger towards all Muslims for the heinous acts of a few, dividing instead of uniting. Sometimes that pain can be inflicted and cause division within communities. Herod, after all, was a Jew in a land occupied by the Romans, and he unjustly executed a fellow Jew. How many of us are struggling today because of divisions within churches and other religious communities? Christ’s model in Matthew 14 is grief turned outward in love. Christ saw the multitudes that followed him and chose to feed them when they were hungry, rather than send them away. He chose to bring people together and keep Himself surrounded and united with those He loved. The shooter at the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre targeted it because of its affiliation with the global organization HIAS for refugees. Within a week of the massacre, people from around the country donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to HIAS (including me). The hate that drove the shooting gave way to giving and love for the refugees they helped. No donation can bring back 11 souls, but it can certainly save other lives, especially those fleeing their homes in desperation. In times of pain we need each other and we need to give to each other.

Pray. We cannot turn back time. We will never know why. But we have in God a place of comfort. We can take refuge in Him. We can cry to Him. We can be reminded and even experience His love for us despite the pan that surrounds us. If it is hard to do so alone, we can turn to each other and together turn towards Him. One priest pointed out that we are called as a community to remember. The entire Divine Liturgy is remembrance: we remember creation, the fall, Christ’s incarnation, suffering, death and resurrection, we remember God’s plan for salvation, we remember the saints who came before us—including the most recent martyrs. This past Sunday, when we remembered the names of the seven Copts in Minya who were killed for their faith on Friday many of us wept. All I could picture in my mind was the photos of yet another line of coffins in front of the altar, and the photo of a young boy who watched his whole family killed in front of him leaning onto one of those coffins in tears. From so far away, there is nothing more I can do for that little boy except pray, offer condolences, and if possible, financial support for him.

It seems impossible to turn from this pain and be a healing presence, bring people together, and pray. But Christ did that, and when He went back to the disciples in the boat he sent them off into, He went to them walking on water. And lest we say He walked on water because He is the Son of God, Peter, his disciple, walked on water too. With God’s love the impossible is possible. We can let the waves of grief engulf us, or have faith that we too can walk on water instead.

This article is part of a series. It is the result of three Christian authors who turned to one another for comfort after yet another massacre targeting Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the divisions they witnessed on social media following these horrific events. To read the rest of the articles, please visit “Brand Ambassadors” by Mireille Mishriky and “How to Give Your Priest Feedback” by Laura Michael.

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