There are places in the heart that do not yet exist,
and into them enters suffering,
that they might exist.
—Léon Bloy
Part I: Winter Has Come Too Early
Like you, I imagine, I find that during these unprecedented days, I’m in a constant oscillation between grief and hope. I’ve been conditioned by my culture, and often my Christian sub-culture to I might say, “close myself off” when I’m sweeping down to grief and then “open myself up” when I circle back to hope. It feels like the grief end of things is negative or wrong, and the hope end is positive or right.
But, as staggering as it seems, Jesus turns that kind of thinking upside down. My friend, Peter Rollins, and I can call him my friend because I’ve talked with him one time on the phone, says,
“The moment we feel the loss of all that once gave us meaning is not a time in which we are set free from Christ, nor is it a moment where we fall short of Christ: It is the time when we stand side by side with Christ.” -Peter Rollins, Insurrection.
And so, I’ve been trying to see with different eyes. And wait. The invitation that life has presented to all of us right now is to enter into the pain and be with it for a moment, a day, a week, maybe a few months. Be there. Be present to it. And grieve.
To grieve, in part, means to feel the anguish and name the injustice. Anguish and naming, like sunlight and water, allow for the growth of clarity, and within an ecosystem of clarity, it’s possible hope can emerge. I say possible because nothing is for sure. It’s also possible that you’ll wind up drinking adult beverages and giving into the darkness!
When Jesus, who lived the full archetypal human life, teaches that mourning leads to comfort, he was showing us the way of hope.
When Jesus, who represents life and life more abundant, weeps as he rides into Jerusalem in the last week of his life, he was showing us the way of hope.
When Jesus, who is the Son of God, and the exact representation of God, cries out in despair on the cross, he was showing us the way of God.
Walter Brueggemann, finishes his book, “Prophetic Imagination” with these beautiful words,
“Mourning is not a formal, external requirement but rather the only door and route to joy. Seen in that context, Jesus’ saying about weeping and laughing is not just a neat aphorism but a summary of the entire theology of the cross. Only that kind of anguished disengagement permits fruitful yearning, and only the public embrace of deathliness permits newness to come. We are at the edge of knowing this in our personal lives, for we understand a bit of the process of grieving. But we have yet to learn and apply it to the reality of society. And finally, we have yet to learn it about God, who grieves in ways hidden from us and who waits to rejoice until his promises are fully kept.”
I think that what I think is that woundedness and grief are woven deep within the very essence of God himself(herself/itself) such that to grieve is to know God. Why does the Psalmist say, “God is close to the broken hearted”? Because God is broken-hearted.
Yes, winter has come early. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It will take courage to wait. And feel the anguish. And name the injustice. To give Spring a chance.
Part II: While in Winter
It’s important to note that grieving isn’t blaming.
There’s a remarkable story of a blind man being healed in the 9th chapter of the book of John. It’s notable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how a powerless, blind man is open to grace while the powerful, seeing elite are closed to grace. Maybe the blind man knew how to grieve?
Early in the story, the disciples ask a question we have all asked: “Who’s to blame?” Jesus says, my paraphrase, “It’s not a cause and effect kind of thing. It’s not his fault or his parent’s fault.” And then he takes the discussion to a different place as he heals the man. Maybe the real question isn’t who’s at fault, but how can we help?
We’ve all seen Christian leaders assign blame when bad things happen. I watched it happen after the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and certainly after 9/11 in 2001. Covid-19 is no different. It’s the same story, different chapter: the reason for the disaster is because God is angry at our sin. Well, to be clear, it’s usually the sin of the “other person.” It’s rare to hear a preacher stand up and say, “It’s my sin.” No, it’s usually the sin of someone else.
This kind of reaction is true of the non-Christians as well. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
Blame the bats.
Blame the Chinese.
Blame the liberals for stirring up trouble too soon.
Blame the president for not acting soon enough.
But blame is what the spirit of the satan does. The Hebrew name is ha-satan. It means accuser. And wherever accusation lives, so the spirit of the satan lives. Even in the church. Yes, definitely in the church.
Followers of Jesus are called to co-suffering Love, not accusation. We say we follow the most gracious person who’s ever lived, but what do our actions demonstrate? We are all going to get an opportunity to show whether we’re interested in co-suffering or blaming in the days ahead because it’s very possible this “storm” may be worse than anything we’ve experienced.
In keeping with the point of the story in John 9, Jesus wastes zero time blaming. He spends all his time alleviating suffering.
So grieving isn’t blaming. But it is naming. It’s willingly saying things like, “This hurts,” “I don’t know what to do,” or “I’m really feeling bad about this loss.”
Try it right now.
Pause and think about what hurts.
About how you’re uncertain of the next step.
About what you have lost.
One of the more important things we can do is to give ourselves space and grace to name these things. And when we practice giving it to ourselves, it opens up room to give others space and grace as well.
As I look back over my own life full now with grief and naming, I notice a pattern emerge: I have put too much emphasis on particular pursuits to make me happy. It’s embarrassing, but the truth is, sometimes I go after things with everything I have not because the thing itself is all that important, but because I’m just trying to make something of myself. I seem to fall prey to an idolatry of achieving, as if a particular thing will cause me to be fulfilled.
One of the byproducts of authentic grieving is recognizing that in far too many instances we give our power away too quickly. We’re all a bit like Esau, selling our birthrights of autonomy and agency for what’s right in front of us.
I have come to believe that nothing really completes us, not even God, at least not in the sense that we use that phrase. If that were true, we would constantly view him as another product, the ultimate product, to bring us happiness and contentment. We would all marry God “for his money.”
Wait, maybe that’s what we have done.
Thank God most of our plans fall apart. It allows us to see the error of our ways. It allows us to see that God doesn’t “work” that way. God cannot fill us up or make us happy or complete us because God is well… incomplete.
That’s right, God is Love and Love is broken. Love is wounded. To be with Christ is to be with the One who has experienced being forsaken. To be with Christ is to be with the One who is constantly pouring out. To try and fill yourself up with something that’s constantly pouring itself out is impossible. The salvation Jesus offers isn’t a “get me inside of you so I can fix you” salvation. It’s the salvation from needing to be fixed.
God joins with us, showing us the incompleteness of Love. The movement is less about getting Love inside the smallness of who we are, and more about us opening ourselves up to the largeness of who Love is.
And now, finally, Winter is fading and we’re getting to hope.
Part III: Spring Beginning
It’s Spring when we can begin to shed old identities, let go of the way we thought it was going to be, and still find we’re alive, full of life and potential. This is hope.
There’s a certain energy that emanates from those who merge their identity with the One who lost his identity. We can take that energy and give it to the world. It’s what we’ve always done. Our strength has never been in the way we govern, or influence world powers, or create systematic theology. Our strength has been in our willingness to give it all away. We are people of mercy, grace, and compassion. Compassion means bringing our passion into alignment with others. And that’s the thing that has changed the world.
In the 300s, Christianity became the state religion out of love for power. (Initially, to be fair it was also out of an understandable desire to escape persecution, but ultimately it became about power.)
Additionally, in the 300s, Christianity started the first hospital not out of love for power but out of love for the other. Christians were the ones willing to take care of the sick and dying during the plagues. I’m sure there were non-Christians too, but by and large, the world owes a debt of gratitude to Christianity for forming the first hospices and then hospitals.
And here we are in the 2000s facing the “plague”of Covid-19. I wonder what Christians will be known for in the coming months.
Compassion is our identity. We are the ones who “see” the other. BTW, this is the thing Frederic Nietzsche hated about Christianity. Nietzsche, you may know, is something of the father of modern-day atheism. But unlike most of the modern atheists, he seemed to genuinely wrestle with Christianity. He hated it because he thought it created weak people, but at least he took it seriously.
The point here is that compassion is the thing we’ve been known for and it’s the thing we could be known for again. And that brings us hope! It won’t look like what we thought it was going to look like. It will be different, but again, thank God it will be different.
My struggle over the last week or so pales in comparison to others, but for me, I’ve had to grieve the loss of my routine. My wife and I are “young” empty nesters. This past summer, all three of the boys living with us moved out. Through Fall and Winter, I grieved the loss. It wasn’t until about February and now into March that I found that I was enjoying this new chapter of life. I was experiencing some margins in a way that I had not experienced for the 25 years I had been a parent with kids at home. And then, Covid-19. Ha. My schedule has been wrecked. Again, it pales in comparison to the loss of others, but I see this as emblematic of my life: I plan some stuff. Life blows through like a hurricane. I pick up the pieces and start again. This is neither the first, nor the last time this will happen.
And then I think, “What if I die from this thing?” Honestly, what if I die? We’re all going to die. Death is fatal every single time. Christians are the ones who know this more than anyone. We’re not the ones who hide from our fear. We’re the ones who say Jesus has overcome our biggest fear. And we bring our passion into alignment with others.
This is a massive opportunity, an opportunity to have the humility to agree with what the world has been telling us for a long time, that is, that Christians aren’t very good at governing, or politics, or production, or fame. Not really. We’re really just good for giving our lives away. Yep, that’s about it. And that brings me hope.
Again, this is a different kind of hope than the hope of, “Oh, I wish this would all go away so things would return to normal.” This is a hope that honestly grieves the loss, and then says, “Oh man, something good could come of out this.”
So, yes, I’m in a constant oscillation between grief and hope. As I reflect upon the movement, I picture my life going back and forth. Faster and faster. I engage both of them. Grief. Hope. Over and over. Until it blurs into one response.
For grief and hope are symbiotic. They are different sides of the same coin.
Jesus-followers don’t go around pain to get to hope. They go through pain. They get to Spring and sometimes they get to Spring right smack dab in the middle of Winter.
I end by borrowing from Cornell West, who probably borrowed from Desmond Tutu, who, let’s be honest, probably borrowed from Zechariah 9:12… I’m neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I’m a prisoner of hope.