You Should Be Sad

My hope isn’t blind—but sometimes I am. 

The hope that belongs to a Christian isn’t blind. It’s obvious. As surely as we believe in the resurrection of Christ, we believe that we will one day be resurrected and meet our Savior in the skies to live and thrive with him forevermore. Our very salvation hinges on the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. Our anticipation of a future resurrection fuels our hope through manifest sorrows before Heaven comes down. 

I’ve been caused to think more on hope, sadness, and their companionship. In the past few weeks instagram has fed me inaccurate and easily disputable ideas of Christian hope. I see from a successful author and church planter that hope and cynicism are opposed; that cynicism equates with sadness which is unbecoming of believers. She spoke boldly about (what I nuance as) blind hope. A hope for a sake of hope. An obligatory hope. A hope that believers ought to have because it hitches a ride on our salvation, like a flea to a dog. More alarmingly, I saw from someone else that if Jesus survived the cross, then we can survive today. But Jesus did not survive the cross. He certainly didn’t raise from the dead so that we can survive today, either. He died on the cross so that we, along with him, could be resurrected.

The hope of the Christian is non-negotiable in that we have a persevering and unwavering future in the life after this one. Our placement as coheirs with Christ, our sonship to the father, and our life everlasting with him are not debatable. But for this life, this world, the places and spaces which we inhabit right now—we have no guarantees.

Proverbs reveals to us the way the world ought to work according to God’s wisdom, but it is not a formula like 1 + 1 =2, nor does it proclaim to be. It’s the methods and mode by which we live, but it does not bear promises. Ecclesiastes speaks frankly to how the world actually works: we ought to enjoy the things that bring joy while we can, because the only certainty of life is that there will be an end to it.  

And Job’s narrative is the outworking of both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes together. His life portrays the wisdom and formula that we expect from Proverbs with the end product of nonsensicalness from Ecclesiastes. Most relatedly, Job is sad. The most common verse that I have heard quoted from the book of Job is “Though He slay me, I will yet praise him,” often given without a second thought to his next sentence “but I will still argue my ways to his face.” Job maintains his righteousness throughout his whole discourse. He preaches his own undeservingness of such poor fate. God doesn’t dispute this. Job is sad, and God does not refuse to meet him in his sadness. 

     Needless to say, I have been sad lately. Really sad. So, I’ve begun taking walks. Each morning, I leash my dog and I walk west down a dead-end road. It’s a short side street, and on the way down I look toward the forest. On the way up I look toward the sun as it rises. It feels warm. It reminds me of the resurrection. It hurts my eyes. I spend those moments hoping beyond all hope that I can feel the Lord like this. Sense his warmth washing over my face. Being blinded by his brightness—his obviousness. Those morning walks tangibly feel like hope. 

I believe in the incarnation, which means I cling to the actuality that Jesus felt. He was a sufferer in every way that we are. In my sadness, in my hopelessness, I rest assured that in those moments my Christlikeness does not dwindle or fade. Those who suffer look like Jesus. I like to imagine that Jesus’ affection for the bleeding woman grew as he laid eyes on her, sympathizing with her poor estate. That the lepers, the lame, and the poor caught his divine attention because they looked like how he felt. Those who are sad can look like Jesus, too. 

I do not believe that God sees our sadness as ungratefulness, or a lack of hope that he is available to us, or a lack of trust that what he does is good. I think he sees our sadness as an opportunity to meet with us in a way that is new and fresh and low, like morning dew that gathers on tall grass. Our sadness does not scare him away, it beckons him nearer. 

And if our sadness is not too much for God to handle, it ought not be so that it is too much for our saintly brothers and sisters. The sadness of others should not be a hinderance to our theology or spiritual formation. Sorrows ought not be a threat to our Christian community, nor our individual salvation. Suffering certainly challenges us, but it ought not cause us to question our sonship in God nor should it cause us to feign our feelings. Our sadness causes a spiritual formation that would not otherwise be forged during laughter, apathetic, nor ignorance. 

I think you should be sad. I think you should let yourself be sad when the situation warrants. There is no spiritual formation to be molded if we should lie to the Lord about our aches and wounds. And we should know better than to think that his eyes are blind to our limping, or his touch numb to our tears, or his ears shut to our yelping. Our hope isn’t blind, and neither is the Lord.