The Joyful Kind of Sadness

A long time ago, in a frontier town, one of the residents captured a beautiful, majestic bald eagle. He put the eagle in chains and displayed it in the window of his store to attract the attention of potential customers. His eagle became a star attraction in the area as people came considerable distances to view the great creature. And, of course, the man’s business flourished. One day, a trapper made his once a year trip into town to exchange furs for food, ammunition, and other supplies to take back into the woods. He saw the eagle confined to the window and promptly announced that he wanted to purchase the bird from the store owner. He asked, “How much?”
The storekeeper didn’t really want to sell the eagle, so he quoted the ridiculously high price of eight hundred dollars. It was the trapper’s total year’s income. Without blinking, the trapper agreed and paid the price. Immediately, he took the eagle to the edge of town, removed the chains, and set the magnificent creature free. The eagle soared up into the sky, dipped its wings a couple of times as if in salute, and then flew off to the high mountains. When asked why he did that, the old trapper simply replied, “That eagle was not meant to be chained. God made it to soar in freedom.” That is Jesus’ intent in teaching the beatitudes. The children of God were not meant to be chained down by oppression of any kind. Especially the religious kind the Scribes and Pharisees were teaching. To be in the Kingdom of Heaven means happiness, freedom, joy, comfort and peace. It means that we will soar like eagles, tap our toes to the music of the kingdom and dance like children on a playground. Being a child of God calls for “Congratulations!” Congratulations, you poor in spirit, you’ve got the kingdom of heaven.

Congratulations, you mourners, you’ve got comfort. Comfort? Comfort! And that’s a promise. The world says, “Enjoy!” Christ says, “Grieve!” This is a sharp denial of the world’s standards. Yet Jesus knew full well that grief in itself is not blessed. Its effect can be seen on any face of sorrow: it disfigures and slays. Certainly it is not happy. Since it is not grieving for grieving’s sake that brings happiness, then what kind of mourning brings this kind of congratulatory tone on Jesus’ lips?

Comfort comes to those who accept their own sorrow with resolve to learn, and to make the sorrow a gift. Our instinct is to rebel against pain, or try to evade it, or to forget it in work or pleasure. But some people bare their body to the spear. They surmise that the spear may be tipped with life instead of poison. They cannot conceive that life is given only for their comfort. Darkness may reveal stars and worlds upon worlds. It should be remembered that the only people who wither up and die from sorrow are those who make that choice. Because of Christ, we can decide to confront that grief, deal with the pain, adjust to the loss, and then reinvest energy in new relationships and opportunities. And, ultimately, soar like eagles in newfound freedom. As hard as it is for some to believe, the process of losing and sorrow can lead to growth and healing.

Poet Robert Browning captures this thought precisely in his poem, “Along the Road”:

I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chattered all the way,
But left me home none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!

Jesus does not delete the road of sorrow. He does promise that the road will lead from hurting to healing, from pain to peace, from mourning to comfort. Comfort comes to those who voluntarily share their neighbor’s pain. The world says, “Don’t get involved.” “Look out for number one!” “It’s not my business; I have enough troubles of my own.” The world says that sorrow does not exist. Yet the world is miserable because of sorrow. It needs the comfort that comes from Christ. In recent years we have heard a great deal about co-dependency. That term describes one who gives to another who has a problem like alcohol or abuse to the extent that his or her own self is destroyed. A co-dependent ignores the reality of sorrow, which comes with the actions of another person. On the other hand, there is one who could be called a co-taker. A person only out for themselves. Always a taker, never a giver. Those extremes seem to be our reaction to the sorrows and pain of our neighbor. We do too much, or we don’t do anything. It is God’s will that we share our neighbor’s pain. We cannot remove it, or cover it up. We can help carry the load.

Dag Hammerskjold once said that the crisis of life is not that no one will help bear our own concerns but that we have no one else to help bear the load of care. Like Arnold von Winkelried, Swiss hero of the battle of Sempach, we must stand in the pass and gather all the spears into our own breast. We must visit the home where death has come. We must enter the hidden tumult of the criminal in jail. We must agonize over slums and become leaders in civil righteousness. We are not bound, but we are bound. We must be the compassionate of the earth, for our reward is to grow in compassion. Comfort comes to those who mourn for their own sins. Others are content with the unexamined life. The Christian cannot be content with the unexamined life. Some see sin as a trivial affair. The Christian cannot see sin as trivial but dark, deep and wicked; destructive, desperate and deadly. The happy ones according to Christ are sensitive to the grief that God feels because of our sin. We take responsibility for our sin. We must say like the psalmist: “My sin is ever before me.” And so God is ever before us. Begging to call us out of the slough of despond and to dwell in his eternal light. Comfort comes to those who mourn for their neighbor’s sin. How do you react when you discover a brother or sister destroyed by sin? Do you shout, “they made their bed, now let them sleep in it?” Or, do you feel greatly troubled by our neighbor’s sin. We should be greatly troubled when we read of the greed in the market place, the lust in the streets, the sloth in our relationships. Absence of this trouble is not a sign of spiritual maturity it is a sign of the lack of spiritual maturity. His heartbreak grieves and is sorrowful. He calls us into that kind of compassion. The reward for this kind of sorrow is comfort. The picture of which is to “call to the side of.” It is a picture of God embracing us to provide consolation for our sorrow. This comfort is no mere soothing but tenderness and reinforcement.

The joy, which comes from such comfort, is not the opposite of pain, or in respite of pain, or despite pain. It is because of pain. Joy is sorrow accepted in contrite love. Happiness shows up pretty much when you expect it to – a good marriage, a rewarding job, a baby’s birth, and a pleasant vacation. Joy, on the other hand, is as notoriously unpredictable as the one who bequeaths it.