QUESTIONING
FAITH
By
Mary Marrocco
On
the roadway to Paradise, sorrow is a part of joy
An unforgettable look emanated
from James’ eyes as he told of the sacrifices he’d made
to raise his son alone; neither boasting nor with shame, simply a narrative.
He’d given up much to keep his son John, including his own family,
who couldn’t accept the child. John had just been accepted into
medical school — for which purpose James had for years been working
overtime, postponing his own education. A look of shining peace, joy
fulfilled, pain not gone or forgotten but changed, beamed from his eyes
and radiated from his whole being.
In times of sorrow and suffering,
joy can seem a far-off dream, an illusion. I’ve mentioned the
word “joy” to people and seen the look of incredulity, as
though I’d mentioned flowing waters to a Saskatchewan farmer in
the midst of the 1930s drought. Could such a thing be? Could it be for
me?
It’s a trick of sorrow:
sometimes it can make joy seem imaginary. But could joy be present within
the suffering that makes us sad? Joy can seem to forget sadness; but
isn’t sorrow somehow present in joy, too, changed but recognizable,
like the grownup woman whom we last saw as a small child?
Your joy is your sorrow
unmasked . . .
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
The more joy you can contain. . . . (Kahlil Gibran)
James’ joy in John’s accomplishment was pure and filled
the room. Yet the pain — physical, mental, spiritual — that
preceded it, and helped bring it about, was somehow present too. Could
we imagine standing in the light of day with no shadow? The bright side
of the moon with no dark side?
Christian tradition reminds
us that we dwell in a place where sin and suffering are ever-present;
that we’ve been exiled from Paradise, an angel with a shining
sword guarding the gate so we cannot return.
Christianity maintains joy
is the eternal reality, sorrow and pain the passing ones. Often it seems
the other way round — our preaching, teaching, writing, witnessing,
can dwell on pain and let joy fade away.
“Rejoice!” was
the angel’s greeting to Mary, at the sin-shattering moment of
the incarnation. Her “yes” to God’s overshadowing
her brought with it the shadow of suffering, a sword that pierced her
heart even as (because?) her heart was big enough to bear God himself.
Was that sorrow a masked version of the joy the angel brought her?
We don’t dwell in Paradise.
But does it dwell within us? One of our earliest Christian theologians,
Irenaeus of Lyons, was a disciple of St Polycarp, an early bishop and
martyr who was a disciple of the Apostle John. Irenaeus has a unique
depiction of Adam and Eve. He describes them — and therefore all
humanity — as living “in the roadway to Paradise.”
He portrays them as children in the garden, destined to grow, develop,
change; created in God’s image, with the capacity to become ever
more like God. That destiny doesn’t alter when they move from
Paradise into the roadway. What changes is that now, their capacity
for God is to be fulfilled within a world of suffering and sin. Now
sorrow is part of joy; pain is part of learning to love.
It may not be what we would choose. Had Adam and Eve consulted us, we might have said, “No, stay in Paradise, we don’t really want sorrow and suffering even if they do lead to joy and wholeness. Let’s have the joy without the sorrow.” But there’s a surprising delight in being in the roadway to Paradise, in discovering here (rather than in a Paradise with no shadow of suffering) our capacity for God. Joy and sorrow are inseparable, writes Gibran; “together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
Within their relationship
is the mystery of how God is intertwined in our lives.
Irenaeus reviews Old Testament
history, in which humanity is tripped up over and over by sin and sadness,
seemingly lost. He retells the story through incarnation eyes, showing
how Christ enters into that lostness, and by taking it up and making
it his own, redeems it, “recapitulates” it (Irenaeus adopts
this word from Ephesians 1:10). Christ brings the incarnation into the
human story, thereby re-opening humanity to the divine. Thus a history
of pain and sorrow and brokenness becomes moreso a history of joy and
love and fulfilment. This is how Christ recapitulates human history,
and each of our histories, if we will let him.
James was telling his history
with incarnation eyes: a story not of sadness only, but of sorrow taken
up into joy. If we were to allow Christ into our own sorrows, might
they too be taken up into joy?
Marrocco is a theologian, marriage and family therapist, and author. She can be reached at marrocco7@sympatico.ca
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