Winters are long here. With long winters come the winter “blahs.” I struggle with the darkness of the mornings and the evenings and long for the warmth of a summer day relaxing on a BWCA lake. I long for the “happiness” that seems to arrive when summer comes.
Happiness was a topic Jesus addressed in the Gospel of Luke. The Greek word in Luke’s gospel means something like “lifejoy.” It’s sometimes translated “blessed,” and other times translated “happy.” But Jesus’ take on happiness, or blessedness, is paradoxical and upside down and requires a little bit of unpacking.
“Jesus raised his eyes to his disciples and said: ‘Happy are you who are poor because God’s kingdom is yours. Happy are you who hunger now because you will be satisfied. Happy are you who weep now because you will laugh….’” (Luke 6:20-21)
Some have completely spiritualized Jesus’ message – and this makes some sense. The poor are the poor in spirit, those who realize that without God they are spiritually impoverished.
The hungry are those who hunger after righteousness, who come to understand that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection open the door to new life in God’s kingdom. Someone once said that there is a God-shaped heart inside of every human soul and only he can fill it.
Christianity begins with coming to know Jesus Christ as Savior, but it doesn’t stop there. The rest of our journey is learning to follow him as the Lord of our lives. He calls us to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves. He calls us to serve selflessly, to build our communities and each other up even as we share the good news with others.
The more we follow, the more we live the gospel, the more we are truly satisfied deep down in our souls.
There’s a great deal of happiness research out there. In a 75-year Harvard Study of men from a cross-section of society, researchers have come to some interesting conclusions that actually dovetail quite nicely with what Jesus taught 2,000 years ago.
• Happy people lean into relationships with their family, friends, and community.
• Happy people focus on experiences, not stuff. They do things together with others.
• Happy people do good for others. They contribute to the community.
• Happy people know money doesn’t buy happiness. Once you have a certain basic level of income that is enough to pay your bills, more money doesn’t make you happy…unless you give it away to those in need.
• Happy people take care of their health and well-being. They exercise often, they eat well, they avoid excessive amounts of alcohol, and when asked why, they do it so that they can share their lives with others.
We all weep. Death is a part of life and sorrow comes with loss. But the Christian message is that resurrection means hope and new life, a house not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens. The psalmist says “weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Christians believe no matter how deep or dark the valley, there will be sun, in Christ the worst thing is never the last thing.
I’m prepared to go along with the idea that Jesus is speaking spiritually about poverty and hunger and joy in the hereafter…but then Jesus hits me with a whammy. He says, “how terrible,” or “woe unto you,” if you are rich, if you have plenty, if you are well entertained (Luke 6:24-25).
This isn’t just about life eternal in the kingdom. It’s also about life in the kingdom here and now – and in the here and now most Americans are the well-fed rich with a hundred satellite TV channels. Yet most of us still aren’t happy!
Jesus is saying if you put your trust in your stuff for happiness, then all the happiness you will ever experience you will experience in the here and now. If you’ve got plenty now, and you aren’t busy sharing it with everyone in need, your hunger will be unfathomable hereafter.
If you are busy being entertained without seeing the needs of those around you, take the blinders off, get off your high horse and start caring for those who weep.
Researchers at Harvard see all of this too. You can’t buy happiness, you can’t save your way into happiness, or hoard your way into happiness, you can’t be happy by shutting the world out, and you can never be happy all by yourself!
So give a friend a call this winter. Laugh together. Weep together. Perhaps go and worship together. Do something for someone else together, maybe crochet some baby caps for newborns in Africa like several women in our congregation did in December.
Maybe then the winter “blahs” will become the winter blessings and your life will take on a new joy.
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