RESOURCES:
Download a copy of this message | Week 2 study guide | Bulletin insert PDF | Bulletin insert Word document | Direct link to the video | Access all of the resources for the 2022 Lenten study

TRANSCRIPT:

From Sorrow to Joy: Chapter three

Up until this year I had never read any of Henri Nouwen’s books. I have read some of his profound quotes and heard others mention something he had written but I had not taken the time to taste his wisdom for myself. 

Thankfully, we as an extended cabinet decided to use his book on Spiritual Formation as our Lenten study for this year. I guarantee this book will stretch you and shape you to follow the movements of the Spirit.This week’s chapter is titled “From Sorrow to Joy.”

As human beings we all have experiences of sorrow and joy. Our losses are many throughout the course of our lives. Nouwen also says it another way by saying we move from denial to acceptance.

Ever since I read the book, “From Good to Great,” I have often used a paraphrase of one line in the book with myself and others. The author says in order to be successful we must “face facts” no matter how hard it is. If we cannot see the reality as it is then we will never be able to move to a better place.

In spiritual formation we believe God is always wanting us to move farther along in being more and more conformed to the image of Christ in us and through us.

We are going to look at the steps Nouwen describes as moving us from sorrow to joy or from denial to acceptance.

The first step or movement of the Spirit is “Mourning our losses.”

Nouwen writes the following about our losses,“We are sad because of all we have lost. Some of the losses that settle deeply on our heart are the loss of intimacy through separations, the loss of safety through violence, the loss of innocence through abuse, the loss of friends through betrayal, the loss of love through abandonment, the loss of home through war, the loss of well-being through hunger, heat, and cold, the loss of children through illness or accidents, the loss of country through political upheaval, and the loss of life through earthquakes, floods, plane crashes, bombings, and diseases.”

He continues, “Think about your own losses right now—the many places in your life where you have lost something dear and life giving. You may have lost a friend to cancer, a child to disease, a spouse to death. Maybe a longtime relationship came to a painful end. Someone you loved deeply died suddenly. You may have lost your house or your job in troubled times. Because of emotional or physical abuse, you may feel broken. Whatever your loss, you are not alone in experiencing it."

Loss is universal. Some of us have experienced more loss than others. None of us will go through life without any loss.

Life, Nouwen says, sometimes feels like just one long series of losses. Isn’t that the truth!

We need to learn to mourn our losses. When we accept the reality that we cannot control everything, it places us in a fuller dependence on God’s grace and sustaining. Without the Spirit of Christ and His love within us while we mourn our losses, we will become bitter and stoic instead of gentle, loving, and kind.

I used to say, “Whatever happens to you in life will either make you bitter or better.” Our choice to allow tears to soften our hearts gives the Spirit more opportunity and space to form us as needed.

As I look back on my life, I can see that my most life transforming moments have come following loss.

The death of a beloved family member slowed me down enough to better love the family and friends I still enjoy in this life. My ending up in the hospital and having to recover from surgery a few times in recent years has reminded me of my own physical limitations and my eventual mortality.

Reflect on your own losses and see where God is wanting to use them to draw you closer to the heart and life of Jesus.

The second step is “Connecting your own sufferings with the great sufferings of humanity,”

This is not about comparing our sufferings with others as if to say, “I have it bad, but not as bad as that guy!” It’s about what Nouwen realized when he said,

“I am not the great exception. I suffer as other people suffer. I cry like other people cry, and I can dance as other people dance.”

He makes the point that our suffering, pain, and sorrow are to be lived out in community and solidarity with others who are suffering, in pain and in sorrow.

The very definition of compassion is to suffer with others. Our suffering enables us to care for others.

This reminds me of what it says in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

Often people shy away from others who are suffering. We convince ourselves that they really don’t want our presence. “I’ll only be a bother.” Or we are afraid because we don’t know what to say or fear we will not say what they need to hear.

In truth, I think we often try to say too much instead of just being with someone in their suffering and pain. Presence is more important than words.

The third step of moving from sorrow to joy is “Discovering the One who walks beside you.”

Here Nouwen directs us to the account of the Resurrected Jesus walking alongside of the two on their way to Emmaus. I have always loved this account of the Road to Emmaus found in Luke 24. This is a vivid depiction of moving from sorrow to joy. Starting at verse thirteen it tells us this:

^“Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶ but they were kept from recognizing him.

¹⁷ He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. ¹⁸ One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

¹⁹ “What things?” he asked.“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ²⁰ The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹ but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. ²² In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning ²³ but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. ²⁴ Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

Jesus models for us the patient listening we all must do when we meet those who are suffering. He lets these two pour out their hearts and share their shattered hopes and dreams of what they had thought was going to come to be through this Jesus.

But Jesus goes on to gently remind them that God’s way in the world has always been through sacrifice, suffering, giving up, letting go. Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the Israelites all faced suffering and loss, but God was continuing to walk with them and lead them if only they would see it.

The same is still true for us today. As we go through pain, suffering and loss of all kinds, Jesus walks with us. We may not immediately recognize this in the depths of our mourning but eventually we begin to see just how much the divine heart burn we were experiencing was revealing the love of God to us.

These “aha” moments are so wonderful! Now I see it! Now I can trust God again. I was defeated, hurt, or let down but I refuse to have it define me. I invite you in, Jesus, to help me make sense of it all even when the rest of the world is crying out for me to curse God. As followers of Jesus, we make the choice to take the path of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Anything other than this is to run into a ditch of bitterness and anger that does no one any good.

We choose to allow God to transform our sorrow into joy. We do not deny our sorrow or our losses but allow God’s goodness to make them into something useful and beneficial for us and others.