“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.” (Psalm 30:11) Life has an ebb and flow to it. The tide of joy goes out and the tears come in, and the tide of joy comes in and the tears go out. One of the complexities of life is that underneath our joy there is always a sense of sorrow. Also underneath our sorrow there is always a buoy of joy. What is this complexity that we call life?
Even in the beauty of child birth, mothers experience both ends to this spectrum. Joy for the birth of her child and tears of sorrow for the world they will grow up in. Even if a person lives to be a hundred, there seems to be a short distance between the joy of the cradle and the tears of the grave.
One of the greatest dangers we witness among popular televangelists is the attempt to rid believers of a biblical view of suffering. I was drawn to the gospel because of its realness—it speaks of the world as it really is and does not ask any of us to bury our heads in the sand and adopt the “ostrich complex.” We are not following cleverly devised fables or fantasy. As believers, we have answers and can face the world as it really is.
The ancient Greeks told a story about two philosophers. One would come out his front door every morning and cry aloud for the pain and sorrow he observed in the world. The other would come out his front door every morning and burst out in laughter for the comedy he saw in life. Each philosopher saw a part of reality, and together they saw the whole of life. Show me a Christian who is always sorrowful and I’ll show you a believer who fails to see the beauty and joy of salvation. On the other hand, show me a believer who is always giddy with joy and I’ll show you a person who is incapable of ministering to a family that just lost a loved one.
As Christians, we do not have to choose. We embrace both sides of life. We can identify with those who are suffering because we see and feel the pain of this world. And we can rejoice with those celebrating the joys of life because we have been filled with the joy of the Lord and have eternal hope in Christ.
We are not robots! Humans can program a computer to tell a funny story, but the computer will never get the joke; it will never laugh with emotion. And the crocodile may have tears, but he is not sad. The call to follow Christ is a call to realness. We don’t escape sorrow, and we don’t abandon jubilation. Instead, Jesus walks us through the realness of the valleys and the mountains of life. We experience…tears and joy!
