These are important questions because how we understand the relationship between joy and pain helps determine how we understand ourselves, happiness, and the gospel.
Too often we have the false idea, very prevalent in our culture, that joy and pain are incompatible, and that Christ came to rescue us from pain. Our culture tends to believe that if you are in pain you cannot be happy and to be happy you must avoid pain.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Joy and pain are not incompatible, and Christ does not, as poor preaching sometimes wants us to believe, promise us less pain. The reverse is closer to the truth, though any formula linking joy and pain must be very carefully worded since masochism is always a danger.
Careful wording aside, in this life, joy always comes with pain. Joy and pain both lie at the heart of what it means to be human. In terms of a biblical definition, the human being might well be defined as a being of joy, living in pain. And in the end that is what separates us from the rest of creation.
The paradoxical connection between joy and pain, ultimately, points us towards eternity. By revealing to us our limits, it points us towards something greater, God's kingdom, a higher synthesis of love and communion, within which, as the vision of Isaiah has it, there will be satisfaction without limit, embrace without distance, success without jealousy, smiles without tears, reunions without separation, joys without missing your loved ones, and life without death.
What Christ promises us is not a life on this earth without pain, but an eventual joy that will be clear-cut, pure, and which no one or no thing can ever take from us.
To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/one-
www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser
www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser
No comments:
Post a Comment