Courtesy of Cedarville University

Grace Maxwell’s family was reunited on Jan. 28 at their Wichita church under sad circumstances — to mourn the loss of her grandfather, Charles Winter. The next day, the family was again struck by loss when the plane on which Maxwell was flying back to college collided with a helicopter as it prepared to land. 

“The Cedarville University community is mourning the loss of Grace Maxwell, a junior whose kindness, faith and passion for serving others touched countless lives,” a statement from the university read. “Her desire to serve extended beyond academics, as she sought to make a difference both through innovation and personal outreach.”

On Sunday, members of the Maxwell family’s church prayed on behalf of the grieving household, who were away visiting the crash site in Washington, D.C. Lead Pastor Josh Black shared a message rooted in the family’s Evangelical faith: that Maxwell’s loss wasn’t a tragedy, but something to find gladness in alongside the pain of her death.

“In light of that day, there is reason to praise,” Black said during his Sunday sermon. “There’s reason to be sad, but there’s even greater reason to be glad … It is appropriate (to grieve), but as believers, we do not grieve as those without hope. If we die in Christ, we, even now, will be present with the Lord, as Grace Maxwell is.”

Grace Maxwell

Born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, Maxwell was a devout member of the First Evangelical Free Church where her father, Dean, is an operations director. After graduating from high school, Maxwell enrolled at Cedarville University, an Evangelical college. According to a statement published by the university, the 20-year-old junior was studying mechanical engineering and was “deeply committed to using her skills to help others.”

“In addition to her engineering work, she was actively preparing to spend her spring break in London on a mission trip, sharing her love for Jesus Christ with others,” Cedarville University said in a statement. “Her desire to serve extended beyond academics, as she sought to make a difference both through innovation and personal outreach.”

Maxwell was one of 60 passengers and four crew members aboard Flight 5342, which flew out of Wichita on Jan. 29. Shortly before 9 p.m., the plane collided with a Black Hawk army helicopter carrying three military personnel above the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. There were no survivors.

Church’s support

In the aftermath of the collision, there has been an outpour of support from members of the First Evangelical Free Church. Lucas McGarity, a pastor with the church, said his wife, Christy, had received so many texts and phone calls from those who want to help the Maxwell family that the messages had to be compiled on an Excel spreadsheet.

“You have answered by the dozens,” McGarity said to the friends and family gathered at the service. 

It was fitting, McGarity said, that Psalm 30 — a chapter about David, the king of Israel, questioning the value of his death — would be read by Black at that day’s service. 

“(David was) remembering and praising God for his repeated care for him and the ways that God has delivered him from difficulty,” McGarity said. “… (Even in times of hardship) he calls people to sing praises to God and to give thanks and to extol the Lord.”

Black’s sermon centered around the Psalm chapter and saw a call for prayers for the family, asking the congregation and God to “be to them a rock of refuge, a shelter against the stormy blast when all they can see is darkness.”

Black said he met with Maxwell’s mother, Merav, on the Thursday after the crash. According to Black, “she poured out her heart” and told him a story about when she attended the funeral of a woman Maxwell’s age about two years ago. 

“And at this funeral, the thing that stood out to her is as she looked over across the room, she saw this girl’s daddy, his hands raised high, singing praise to God through a stream of tears down his face,” Black retold. “And in that moment, she wondered, ‘Could I do that?’ And so now she is wondering, still, ‘Can I do that?’”

 Black said by the end of his conversation with her, she thought she could.

‘But joy comes with the morning’

In Psalm 30:9, David questions the benefit that can come from his death — Black said he and the Maxwell family wondered this themselves.

“It’s certainly the question on our mind this morning as we think of Grace. What gain is there in all of it?” Black asked. “This woman was in the prime of her life. The loss is very clear, is it not? But the gain seems far from clear.”

But, drawing connections to how David was delivered to God through death, Black said the same of Maxwell.

 “The pain of death is nothing, my friends, compared to the glory of the resurrection,” Black said. “Our tears are temporary; God’s grace is eternal.”

Through the eyes of those connected to Christ, Black said there is an understanding that Maxwell’s death wasn’t a tragedy, at least not in the true sense of the word.

“This was not a tragedy for Grace Maxwell,” Black said. “Dare I say that her story is a comedy — not in the sense that we are made to laugh … but a comedy in the sense that this death, though tragic, is not the end of her story.

“A true tragedy has a tragic ending, but in a comedy, the tragic event in the middle of the story gives way to a surprising victory at the end. For Grace, her life on this Earth was tragically ended, but that’s not the end of her story. She will be raised in victory. There is a happy ending. The chapter has already been written by God himself, the God who raises the dead.”