No tearless spirituality

The way of Jesus is the way of tears. While many Christians in Western Europe and North America tend to present a Christianity that rescues and protects us from pain and suffering, Christians in the rest of the world are fully aware that just as Christ learned obedience through tears and suffering, so will the rest of us. Suffering is the rule in the Christian life not the exception (Hebrews 5:8).

Middle-class Western evangelicals, seduced by the idols of comfort and ease, often sacrifice being "salt and light" on the altar of easy living. The church has a responsibility to teach its children how to endure suffering instead of investing in suffering-avoidance techniques. When suffering comes, we act surprised as if tear-producing pain were absent in the lives of biblical characters like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and so on.

Could a life devoid of tears be a sign of spiritual immaturity or of being lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16)? If Jesus learned obedience through suffering then so should all of us, including our children. As John Chryssavgis writes in his essay "The Spiritual Way":

"[T]ears are at once a foretaste of death and of resurrection. They are not, as unfortunately they are often perceived, a negative aspect of the spiritual life, a way of merely regretting past sins or ongoing weaknesses. As symbols of imperfection, tears are in fact the sole way of spiritual progress."

Tears signify fragility and woundedness, Chryssavgis suggests, the broken window through which God enters the heart, bringing healing and wholeness to both body and soul. Human shortcomings and human failures should be embraced because they point us to the Triune God. Pain, suffering, and tears present the ultimate opportunity for receiving and appreciating the grace, mercy, and strength of God as are made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I'm not saying that we should live recklessly, unwisely, and sinfully in order to create suffering. I only stress the reality that suffering is a normal way of life in the Kingdom.

Theologian Louis Berkhof reminds us that Christ not only suffered on the cross but he also suffered during "his entire life." Perhaps one of the reasons young people walk way from the church is that when they begin to experience the reality of suffering, the Christianity of personal peace and affluence---as Francis Schaeffer once lamented---sterilized and coddled them from the truth that life is hard, and without the Triune God you will not make it. If Christianity has not been presented as the answer to suffering then what good is it?