Wesley Bros Sept. 5
Sometimes I can get pretty down for several weeks or even months at a time. I have learned healthy skills to manage it, though manage does not mean eliminate. There is a baseline sadness that just kicks in for a while and no matter how my logical brain tries to override, the chemicals insist that we will be sad again today. This is quite irritating, to say the least.
I’ve come to realize that I often feel an internalized pressure to have it all together and to be happy all the time. Maybe that’s true for you, and maybe we have different reasons for feeling that way. Maybe it’s as simple as not wanting to bother other people, so you’re “fake happy” as Hayley Williams of Paramore calls it. Or maybe it’s the pressure to prove that you’re really a Christian and you’ve got the joy joy joy joy down in your heart. For those of us in the LGBTQ community, we can feel a pressure to show the world our “queer joy,” because our happiness is a weapon (or shield?) against homophobia. But at the end of the day, I’m still just a person like everyone else, and the witness of my faith in Christ or my reality of being gay does not rest on the ups and downs of my emotions or mental health.
So sometimes I am a very joyful gay Christian, and sometimes I am a very sad one. I have come to terms with this: that faith in Christ does not magically protect anyone from sadness. In fact, it’s quite common for very devout people of faith to experience profound periods of darkness, what we’ve come to call “the dark night of the soul.” In these times, we may question everything. We may be too weary to question anything at all.
I hear the invitation of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It is both a profound comfort and yet also challenging to imagine how following a Man of Sorrows could be an easy yoke or light burden. But after a lifetime of following this Jesus, it somehow makes sense to me.
This week’s comic points to the song “Art Thou Weary,” a hymn written by the Greek Orthodox saint, Stephen of Marsaba in the 8th century, and translated into English in the 19th century by J. M. Neale. I love that this hymn talks about our need for Christ on the cross, not because of our sinful nature, but because of our weariness. Where Western Christians have focused on Christ’s atonement like a courtroom scene with a Judge, Eastern Christians have instead emphasized Christ’s atonement like a hospital with a Great Physician. John Wesley referred to it as the therapy of the soul. I invite you to reflect on the words of this hymn, and let them be as therapy for your soul today.
Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distrest?
Come to Me, saith One, and coming
Be at rest!
Hath He marks to lead me to Him,
If He be my Guide?
In His Feet and Hands are Wound-prints,
And His Side.
Hath He diadem as Monarch
That His Brow adorns?
Yea, a Crown, in very surety,
But of thorns.
If I find Him, if I follow,
What His guerdon* here? *(reward)
Many a sorrow, many a labour,
Many a tear.
If I still hold closely to Him,
What hath He at last?
Sorrow vanquishd, labour ended,
Jordan past.
If I ask Him to receive me,
Will He say me nay?
Not till earth, and not till Heavn
Pass away.
– St. Stephen of Mar Sabas, J. M. Neale, Translator