Throughout the Psalms there is a profound connection between sorrow and joy. It is a feature of the spirituality of the psalms that has always fascinated me. We often think of sadness and joy and mutually exclusive. In this age, however, they are mutually dependent. The world is still broken, and we still contend individually and collectively with sin. Yes, we have our salvation in Christ, but final salvation from the full effects of human rebellion is yet to come. This is an age of tension between what we already have in Christ and what we still anticipate at his coming. We have a wonderful taste of future glory now that only intensifies our dissatisfaction with our present predicament.
The more we are warmed by God’s love, the colder the world seems. The more we are pained by sin, the more we rejoice in salvation. The more we love, the more we hurt. If we “rejoice in the Lord always,” we will inevitably always bemoan the state of this world. The more we suffer, says Paul, the more we hope, and our hope is the foundation of our joy (Romans 5:2-5). The fruit of the Spirit is joy (Galatians 5:22) but also, “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:23). In this age sorrow and joy belong together and it cannot be otherwise. If we anaesthetize the sorrow, we forfeit the joy.
We find, in the Psalms, a deep joy that subsists in deep sorrow. The psalmist was always a man of joy because he was first a man of sorrows. He sowed in tears and reaped with joy (Psalm 126:5). Perhaps the most important thing for us today then, is not the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of sadness. The psalms invite us to share in the joy of God by first sharing his grief. It is a grief he bore most visibly in Jesus Christ who “was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.” In this age sorrow and joy belong together and it cannot be otherwise. If we anaesthetize the sorrow, we forfeit the joy.
Man of Sorrows – the latest Album from Sons of Korah, like all we have released before, is an invitation to venture into deeper places of divine sorrow and divine joy.
