With the summer quarter winding down here at North Heights, I’ve been able to sit in on a few Wednesday night classes (but I’m very much looking forward to getting back behind the podium in the Fall). Frank Wells is just finishing up a study dealing with overcoming suffering, and in one class a couple weeks back there was a discussion about why it is “better” to mourn rather than to rejoice. That idea comes directly from scripture (Ecclesiastes 7:2). After a few minutes of talk, the class moved on, but the debate stuck with me and I haven’t been able to let go of it. Why is it better to mourn than to rejoice? It seems so backward, especially in our modern culture, which teaches “do what makes you happy.”
I’m sure there are a lot of reasonable answers to the question, but one that I have settled on is this: Celebrations and rejoicing aren’t bad, and the wise Solomon doesn’t say they are; he just says there’s more value in mourning than in rejoicing. Celebrations are good, but they are always purely in reaction to something. A celebration is always looking back on something that has happened. You got a promotion at work. You had a baby be born. You turned 39 and enjoyed a delicious birthday cake. Those things happened. They’re done. Now you get to rejoice that they happened. And then what? Then the fun ends. The celebrations cease. Life goes on. Nothing really changes. Something did change, in the past. You had a birthday (that’s a change), then afterward you celebrated. You got a promotion (that’s a change), then afterward you celebrated. You welcomed a new baby into this world (that’s a change), then afterward you celebrated. But once the party is over, you aren’t getting another promotion (as far as you know). You aren’t having another baby (anytime soon). You’re not celebrating another birthday (for another year). What’s done is done and the celebration is too.
Grief is something else.
Grief is a process that, like rejoicing, begins with a change. Someone died so you grieve. You lost your job so you grieve, etc. Unlike rejoicing, however, grief doesn’t just look backward: Grief accomplishes something in the future. Grief doesn’t just react to the past the way celebrations do: Grieving is meant to ease us into a new phase in life. We have to learn to live without that loved one. We have to learn to move on to find a new job, etc. Grieving is the slow and steady march toward that new normal. By its nature, grieving is better than rejoicing, because the benefits of grieving—when done in a healthy, spiritual way—last far longer, and mean more to us, because they help us in the future to move past the past.
~ Matthew