I've been reading through Jeremiah and to me he appears to encapsulate this heart-wrenching grief. He is almost, after all, told to complete a seemingly fruitless task. He preaches for the Israelites and Judeans to turn back to God and give up their idolatry and no one believes that he's telling the truth. They would rather believe a flatterer, a deceptive comforter who drips honeyed words and tells them what they want to hear rather than the hard truth. Even when eventually they do recognise that Jeremiah is at least sent as a messenger of God they still insult, mock, leave him in a pit of mire, arrest, beat and plainly ignore what he has to say. All the while the fall of Jerusalem and the advancement of a great and terrible empire, the Babylonians, are ever in Jeremiah's sight. Then when the judgment actually comes, when the effects of sin are finally revealed, he seems utterly heart-broken.
Lamentations is testimony to the despair that almost overcomes him. Yet in the midst of sorrow at such a crooked world inhabited by such unfaithful people, Jeremiah still has cause for hope and a deep-dwelling, tear-stained joy. You see, even when the Israelites had gone as far as God was going to allow them and they had experienced the judgment they had been expecting since the law itself was penned, they were never, even from the first time they crossed the line, completely forsaken or completely without hope.
A remnant of Israel and Judah will eventually return and God will bring about a redemption that far outstrips a small physical gathering. Remembering God's covenant promises, that He will dwell with His people and be their God, Jeremiah also has to remember God's mercy and faithfulness to himself personally, attributes which He doesn't just shrug off when He enacts punishment. Jeremiah has complete assurance that even though the world looks bleak now, He should never be fooled into thinking that God has got up and left the universe to wind down into chaos and despair. Suffering is never meaningless, no matter how nonsensical and harsh it seems. Jeremiah puts it like this:
'Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,
because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion,"
says my soul,
"Therefore I hope in Him!" '
Lam 3:22-24It is easy, even as a Christian, to despair at times at the overwhelming nature of how this world is. We would be very unlike Christ not to be moved to tears. But sorrow is never complete without joy just as the night would be incomplete without the morning. On this present earth, the way it is now, we unfortunately learn more about joy through our sorrows, perhaps a result of our sinful self in being incapable to be joyful without having something to compare it to. For, an age is coming where there will be no sorrow. So joy is not defined by sorrow in a comparative way as such. However, in keeping this sorrow presently before our eyes we delve into joy when we take God at His promises, that is, when we believe that He really does have transforming power; that the gospel is for the salvation of all who believe; that God will bring righteousness and justice to light; that when He says He will redeem the world and His people, He actually means it.
Joy comes with the morning, like it came on a resurrection morning for a world that was literally heart-broken. Jesus still had to go through the night of sorrow, however, before He triumphed. I suppose I am reminded then that sorrow is not the opposite of joy, but is the catalyst which God uses for taking us deeper into His joy, when we see His plan and ability to heal up the broken-hearted.
in Streams in the Desert, edited by L. B. Cowman (Zondervan 1997), p.23
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