On July 11th, I went to a wedding. Not just any wedding but one where I was both the officiant and the father of the bride. The wedding of my daughter, Elizabeth, to Ryan Steel, was everything I could have hoped for. The weather (for July in Texas) was amazing as was the venue where the wedding was held. Everyone looked beautiful/handsome in their wedding finery. The five (!) flower girls and the ring bearer were cute as could be. The service had moments both touching and humorous. The reception was a wonderful time of celebration, with food, dancing, and conversation amongst family and friends, many of whom had not seen each other in person for a long time. Though exhausted at the end of the day, my heart overflowed with joy.
The next day, I got up, put my suit back on, and went to a funeral. The father of my good friend, Wade (who is the senior pastor at my previous church), died on the Wednesday before the wedding after a lengthy battle with cancer. I wasn’t in the pew long before I was overwhelmed with sadness. From the same eyes that less than 24 hours earlier had flowed tears of joy, now poured tears of sorrow, not only for my friend’s loss but for all the other losses in my life and the recent losses of others. I pondered the incongruity of how, after the funeral, folks offered me words of congratulations on the wedding as I am sure Wade received condolences at the wedding.
This is the world in which we live. Real joy and real sorrow. There is no escaping it without either denying ourselves the richness of the joy or living in denial about the sorrow. That is not the way of the Christian. We are called to walk in truth and this joy/sorrow tension is part of that. The two are often brought near to each other in the Scriptures. The Psalmist tells us that weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning (30:5). The Apostle James instructs us to count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds (James 1:2). Even the redemptive work of our Saviour unites these two, when we are told that for the joy set before him he endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).
Some think that this tension is eternal, that either we live our lives in the tension and then we die (as have those who came before us and as will those who follow) and that’s it or we are reincarnated and get to do the whole joy/sorrow part on repeat. But for the Christian, even as we embrace the tension for this life, we have a great hope that it does not go on forever. Instead, Jesus has secured for us a future day when God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).
This promise, that one day it will be all joy and no sorrow, is what sustains us in this life that often seems more sorrow than joy. It empowers us to walk through the sorrows. It enables us to keep ourselves open to the joys that our God blesses us with in this life. So, we weep and so we rejoice. And we join with the church through the ages crying, Come, Lord Jesus, come!
