My father passed away last year. It was a Friday, so, two days later I found myself gathering to worship in my local church. I sat near the rear of the sanctuary, the area usually occupied by families with young children. Thus I was surrounded with the sound of babies babbling joyfully, combining with the chorus of voices singing to our God: The Author of life, and the Lord who conquered death.

What a peculiar moment, to sit heavy with the grief of death, while simultaneously rejoicing in the blessing of new life. It felt like a living parable emphasizing the command of Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” This command may seem, at first glance, like a duplicitous existence. How do we hold these two polarized emotions at the same time? How do we rejoice in the coming together of two people in a new marriage, and weep with the widow who has lost her dearest friend of decades? How do we rejoice with the new mother, while weeping with the woman whose womb is empty? How do we rejoice in the baptism of a new believer, while weeping with the parents whose child has rejected the faith of their parents? Is it disingenuous to attend a funeral the same weekend as a baby shower?

Until my father’s death, I gave this command little thought. It seemed a bit like a platitude: something we assent to mentally, but never truly accomplish. But that Sunday, and in the weeks following I found myself holding this strange tension of joy and grief in ways that were perplexing and yet profoundly centering. To be “sorrowful yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10)”, made sense amidst the body of believers wherein our church was full of people who experienced grief and joy, concurrently. Indeed, holding this tension of sorrow and joy is the most honest way for a Christian to live. We are, after all, citizens of an already-not-yet kingdom, we ought to know these twin emotions better than anyone else.

As Christians we know the great grief of the chasm that exists between mankind and God, the desolation that sin has unleashed upon the world, the sorrow of people enslaved by their own iniquity, cursed with death. And yet we also know the unparalleled joy of the Gospel: God became man and dwelt among us, to save his people from their sin. Death is still imminent, but in Christ the curse of death is broken, the great chasm has been bound up, and our eternal home is fixed in the presence of our holy God.

This tension of grief and joy then is the best way for us to acknowledge reality as it really is. We ought always to know both of these things to be true, but we do not always experience them that way. We often have seasons of trials and sufferings, in which blessings and joy seem far away; we may fall into bitterness or envy, and fail to see God’s promises, we may begin to doubt his goodness as hardship piles upon hardship. So too we can have seasons of abundance, where peace may mark our days, and blessings are too innumerable to count, we may fall into apathy; we may be easily lulled into a sense of comfort wherein we lose our vigilance in fighting sin, we may even become so contented in this world we forget we were made for another. 

Amid such complexities God’s grace comes to us through his church. God’s command to weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice gives us the surprising gift of equilibrium. We are balanced from errors in either direction by God-centered fellowship. As we exist, not as solitary Christians who know only our own experiences, but as Christians who are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another (Romans 12:5). We tune ourselves into the experiences of one another and enter into joy and grief respectively. We are safely kept from myopia, wherein we would see only our good, or only our loss, kept from both despair and apathy. Instead, we see the great tapestry that is the work of God, wherein he carries the suffering with sustaining faith and the steady presence of his Spirit, and gives good gifts because he is a good God.