Monday, March 1, 2004

Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
(John 11.35-36 NRSV)

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I was reading that once it was a custom in Russian villages, at a time when many children did not survive infancy, to have a mourning hut at the outskirts of every town. All women who lost children were sent to live in that hut for a month of solitude and grief. At the end of the month, the hut was set on fire. The woman inside had to decide whether to live or die. If she came out of the burning hut, this indicated that she was prepared to live, and she then rebuilt the hut for the next mourner.

Earlier generations of people knew for a fact that life was hard and sometimes cruel. So they prepared spiritually for the hard times they knew were coming. We, on the other hand, expect life to be relatively pain-free. So we are unprepared when we see our illusions shattered. That may be why we are so much more prone to depression than earlier generations--why we depend so much more on the deliverance of drugs. Just because you are a friend of Jesus does not mean that you will not get your heart broken. Ask Mary and Martha. Mary was angry with Jesus because he had not come to see about her brother sooner. And John tells us that even Jesus shed tears as he was confronted with the depth of his friends' pain.

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Dear Jesus, through the pain and broken hearts of life make me a stronger servant for you. Amen.

Ron Newhouse

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