I was talking recently with two women who lead a grief recovery ministry. One of their challenges, they shared, was getting church members to attend their group. They knew several Christians who were experiencing deep loss, yet who would not attend the group. At the same time, non Christians from the surrounding community flocked to the group. As we processed this challenge, both women affirmed my suspicion–there was a stigma among Christians regarding grief. That is, Christians were afraid to let others know 1) they were struggling with grief and 2) they needed help addressing their grief.
This stigma is something we must overcome if we desire to flourish in times of suffering.
Amy Simpson is the author of Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission. She explores the unhealthy posture the church has often had toward mental health (19):
The church allows people to suffer because we don’t understand what they need and how to help them. We have … ignored, marginalized and laughed at the mentally ill or simply sent them to the professionals and washed our hands of them.
And this makes it hard for followers of Jesus to voice their needs and address them.
Churches, Simpson, argues, have grown more aware of other forms of illness and have taken practical steps to empower people to recover from them. But they have not done the same when it comes to mental and emotional health (33, 36-37). Heart disease, she writes, is a serious problem in the United States, affecting about 12% of the population. Cancer strikes more 1.5 million people annually in the U.S., about 1% of the population. Nearly 4% of the U.S. population is living with AIDS. And about 8% of the U.S. population is affected with diabetes. Churches have become increasingly comfortable talking about these physical challenges and ministering to those who suffer from them–while at the same time often ignoring those struggling with mental and emotional challenges:
We visit them in the hospital, raise money to fight their diseases and pay their bills. We bring them meals, drive them to appointments and babysit their kids. We pray for them in our services, ask them how they’re feeling and accommodate them with special foods at our potlucks. And as we’re busy enthusiastically delivering meals to suffering people, we are largely ignoring the afflictions of 25 percent of our population [who suffer various forms of mental illness]. That’s about equal to the total percentage of people diagnosed with cancer each year, living with heart disease, infected with HIV and AIDS or diabetes–combined.
All of this makes Jesus’ cry from the cross all the more remarkable:
I thirst (Jn. 19:28)
There’s a lot going on in this tiny phrase. It’s packed with theological and spiritual meaning. And … it’s also packed with something else–one of the clearest indications of the humanity of Jesus. James Martin in Seven Sayings writes this:
Jesus had a body. Let me repeat, Jesus had a body. Quite a few people have a difficult time accepting Jesus’s humanity. Some of us focus almost exclusively on stories that seem to highlight his divine nature – the Son of God who went around healing the sick, raising people from the dead, stilling storms, all the kinds of miracles that people tend to associate with his divine power. Let’s be clear again: Jesus was born, he lived and he died. The child called Yeshua – his name in Aramaic – entered the world as helpless as any newborn and just as dependent on his parents. He needed to be nursed, held, fed, burped, and changed. Jesus had a body. We know that Jesus got tired from time to time. In one Gospel passage he falls asleep in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus pulled muscles, got headaches, felt sick to his stomach, came down with the flu and maybe even sprained an ankle or two. Like all of us, Jesus sweated and sneezed and scratched. Everything proper to the human body, he experienced – except sin.
Jesus had a body. And therefore, in the midst of the most grueling torture a body could receive, he thirsted. Blood loss, exertion and exposure severely dehydrated his body. And so, he thirsted.
While Jesus is doing many things with this cry, one of the things he is doing is voicing his pain. He is expressing his need. He is, in other words, saying, “I hurt! I am in need!” The one who came to meet our deepest needs is now expressing his own needs. He has no reluctance. No shame. There is no stigma attached to it. In his greatest moment of suffering, he voices his distress and his desire to others.
We’re facing really tough times. Covid-19 has brought an unimaginable trial to our lives and societies. One of the ways we endure these temporary trials is to voice our pain — to God and to each other and to ourselves. Don’t dismiss that pain. Don’t minimize it. Don’t be ashamed of it. Take some time today and this week and give yourself permission to say, “I thirst,”: “I hurt,” “I am depressed,” “I am anxious,” “I am confused,” “I am afraid.” Say it to yourself. Say it to some safe people. Say it to God. Invite those around you to share their pain. This is one of the first steps toward thriving in the midst of suffering.
