I hear about Tim Keller’s death, and I get this feeling. I’m not sure how to describe it. It lurks at the bottom of my stomach; it’s murky, and even uncomfortable. This emotion has been a companion before. Some more time passes and I come to register the feeling: sorrow. I make an effort to avoid it. Somehow, it doesn’t feel right. Strange to have such a strong emotional reaction—I wonder, why?
My mind keeps drawing me back to that murky place. Subconsciously, it knows there is something to be dealt with. Something unprocessed and raw. Pensive, I dig a bit deeper, and then it dawns: I feel sorrow because I am grieving. And yet, it doesn’t feel right to grieve for someone I have never met.
There it is: permission. Deep down, maybe I don’t believe I have permission to grieve for a person I have never met. It is not a type of grief we think about much. And yet, I think permission is the right word. It’s hard to pinpoint who exactly should be granting this permission, but we feel very much like we need someone to tell us it’s ok, legitimate. I wonder if there are others that are feeling this way too? Perhaps there are others who feel a depth of sorrow for a man we never physically encountered? Our Facebook feeds seem to think so.
My feed is awash with a generation of mourners. It tells me that we “have lost a giant.” Words like this are strewn across online platforms: “I didn’t know him but I loved him, he taught me so much about Jesus”; or “I’m a mess today, and I didn’t see it coming. As an eternal optimist, I relied on folks like Tim Keller to show me hope when even I couldn’t find it.”
We Didn’t Know Him, but We Knew Him
So many of this generation of Christians didn’t know Keller personally, and yet they knew him. They, like me, knew him through his books, hearing his preaching on podcasts or at conventions, and the testimony of what we knew of his life. We know the sound of his voice; we have come to live alongside it, in the car, on our daily walks, or in our heads as we read one of his books. So yes, we didn’t know him in an embodied sense, let alone in any kind of intimate way, as a friend, colleague or family member. But in certain genuine ways that were meaningful to us, we knew him!
He has been a spiritual father and friend, colleague and teacher. The apostle Paul says it like this: “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2). Keller was one of those faithful entrusted men. We feel as though we know him because he has been a great teacher of the gospel. And the gospel speaks to our hearts. And that which speaks to our hearts, echoes throughout our lives.
Keller himself said it well: “A good sermon is not like a club that beats upon the will but like a sword that cuts to the heart.” He has been “cutting to our hearts” with the gospel for decades. And so it’s right that we grieve. To try to avoid our sorrow would be a denial: a denial of the magnitude of God’s gift that he gave to us in Keller, through whom he launched the gospel into our lives. So yes, as with any other grief, we have permission. By all means: grieve.
We Grieve Because We Have Lost
The pain of grief is uncomfortable. Our bodies experience a type of withdrawal. We are without that which we had before. No wonder it hurts. No wonder our human response is to avoid. Humans naturally run towards whatever makes them feel at ease.
There is nothing easy about loss. We all walk the path of grief at different speeds. For example, today I thought about playing the Gospel in Life podcast (as I often have in the past), but I felt like my body didn’t want to go there just yet. “Too soon,” I thought.
And you know what? That’s ok. I know that I will play it again, but for the time being it’s on pause. I am so thankful though, that when that pause button is lifted, Keller’s voice will continue to disciple me. What an enormous gift from God.
We Grieve Because We Wait
I’ve heard it said that if you are waiting, you are grieving. In a strange way, there is a kind of loss involved in anticipating something that is not yet here. But it is an invisible kind of grief, there is little tangible evidence of it, you can’t see or hold it—in many cases you never have. Yet, as Christians, we are all waiting. Waiting to be called home. Even creation waits with longing (Rom 8:19).
The journey of waiting is difficult for Christians because we were made to love the Creator and to be in his perfect creation, dwelling with him face to face. We yearn for that union, and so, waiting, is a tough gig.
We Grieve Because We Long for the New Creation
Tim Keller has gone home. We haven’t yet. I suspect there is a part of us that is jealous, that wants to be where he is, that yearns for the new heavens and the new earth. After all, Keller spent his life proclaiming the joyous hope of the gospel: “In a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now.” We want what Tim has now. And that is a very good thing.
So dear brothers and sisters, go ahead and grieve. We knew Keller because he walked alongside us in our Christian lives. He was a guide and teacher in our journey with Jesus, the King we long to be with. And I can hear his voice in my head saying, “Sister, if you are longing for Jesus, then good—my job here is done.”
See you on the other side, Tim.
