Is weeping unChristian when there is suffering and affliction in life?
A reflection on life when it seems to be filled with affliction and suffering
The Bible does speak about walking through suffering in life. None of them is a neat precis and sufficient in itself. Neither are we meant to interpret them as a “series” of discrete “steps” that can and should be followed like a divine recipe. Instead, we need to appreciate that they overlap and inter-penetrate one another, and they can be followed in different ways.
Ronald Rittger wrote a book “The Reformation of Suffering”. And it traces how Luther and the German Reformers tried to recover a more biblical approach toward suffering. It was believed by many that the medieval church held that patience under suffering could merit salvation, and it had become a new paganlike stoicism. Luterans believed that Jesus bore all our punishment for sin, and we do not need to earn Christ’s help and attention but we can be assured that he is indeed lovingly present with us in our affliction.
It was Rittger who argued that the Lutheran Church seemed to follow one aspect of the medieval church - where they ignored the biblical witness of “lament” as a valid response to troubles and misery in life. Many of the psalms are called “Psalms of Lament.” These are cries of distress and cries, and often the psalmist complains about the actions of others, and is troubled by his own thoughts and actions.
However some of the Psalms are expressions of frustration with God himself. Psalm 4423 has the line “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?” And Psalm 89:49 says “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” It is in the Book of Job that cries of lament are written, almost a mirror of the book of Jeremiah. Jer 15:18 says “Why is my pain unending and m wound grievous and incurable?” And to God he says “You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails.”
In order that Christians do not doubt the love of Christ, Rittgers minimised the legitimacy of lament. He says that the early Reformers created a culture in which the expression of doubts or complains are frowned upon. Many Christians were taught not to weep or cry but to show God their faith through being unflinching in life, and being joyful in accepting God’s will. Apparently, many Lutheran authors were embarrassed that the book of Job was in the Bible, since questioning God like Job did was deemed a terrible sin. There was a theologian who explained the book’s inclusion in the Bible by saying that God wanted to show us he could still forgive and have mercy on someone with faith as weak as Job’s.
We need to think about this and consider its truth. Yes, Job did not exercise his faith as he ought to and in the final chapter he says to God “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6). But it is true that Job’s outbursts, cries, tears and laments were illegitimate and doesn’t quite square with the biblical text.
In the first chapter, Job first gets the bad news galore - the death of his children, and the loss of his estate, and we are told that Job got up and tore his robe and then “fell to the ground”. But the author adds “In all this Job sinned not”. Job behaves in a way that many Christians would consider quite unseemingly, and showing a lack of faith. Imagine him ripping his garments he was wearing, falling to the ground and crying out. There seems to be missing the mark of stoic patience. Yet, the author says “in all this, Job sinned not”. In the middle of the book, Job was cursing the day he was born and comes close to charging God with injustice by his angry questions. Yet, God’s final verdict on Job is considered surprisingly positive, where at the end, God turns to Eliphaz, the first of Job’s friends and says among other things that God is angry with Job and his two friends, because he has not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. Now, take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. The result is that Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.
In conclusion, it is good to note that Job’s grief, pain and lament was expressed with great emotion and soaring rhetoric. Job didn’t make it better praying politely in the end. Instead, Job was brutally honest with his feelings, and in the end, God ultimately vindicated him.
What such readings can do for one with suffering and affliction unaddressed in life.
It was indeed a gem that I stumbled upon in the book by Timothy Keller “Walking with God though pain and suffering”. I consider it a gem because it doesn’t forbid a believer in God who also loves God from weeping when things go awry in life. This extraction from the Book of Jon is very lifting when one drifts into the imagining that life is just dark and all of shadows. It’s not that it gives anyone license to shake their fists at God and to ask him “why me?” Even Job does this in a stoic way. Yet, he is not condemned for his reaction. I am not saying that we should all shake our fists at God when our lives have afflictions and sufferings aplenty. If you think that this kind of behaviour expresses how you feel about God inside, take this as Job’s license for you to do this, possibly so that in the end you feel more positive about life and God, though in the end it is very necessary that we give God the opportunity to use the darkness our lives are in to shape us in a better way.
It isn’t common to get counselling from spiritual advisors that it is ok for us to go and weep near the Altar of God in church. Yet, here in this book Timothy Keller gives not just the permission but the encouragement to do so. But you may not want to go to a Church to go up to the sanctuary to weep to God. You can however do that in the very safety and comfort of your own Altar at home or right in the confines of your bedroom. I pray that after reading this reflection, you will gather the strength and energy to do this and have a better grasp of the pain and affliction that your life may be experiencing.
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