Sorrow as Sweet as Honey
Sorrow as Sweet as Honey
Heather Bjur, MA, LMFT
“But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you[…]open your mouth and eat what I give
you.” Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, which he unrolled
before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.
And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak
to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.
Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with
it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. {Ezekiel 2:8-3:3}
As a counselor, one could say I deal in the economy of suffering on the daily. Though we all scramble to evade its grip, sooner or later we learn that we’re wasting our energy. The truth we’d rather close our eyes to is a guarantee of sorts: we are guaranteed suffering. Often our own denial clouds this reality like a dense morning fog, and on happy days it becomes laughably simple to believe the mirage that all suffering is behind us...that we’ve paid our dues and arrived.
But there’s a deeper reality, a deeper magic, to use Lewis’ words, for those who name His name...a paradox of suffering in our upside-down Kingdom.
I recently felt compelled to pick up Ezekiel. It seemed a random choice, but we all know there’s very little (really nothing, let’s be honest) that happens randomly under His watch.
I drank up the imagery of the creatures and the wheels ushering in the throne of the Most High. Ezekiel’s repetitive use of the term “likeness” stood out to me - he simply possessed no words to describe what he saw. Awesome and fearful, stunning and glorious.
My eyes came to rest on the last few lines of chapter two and the first few of chapter three. The Lord was about to hand Ezekiel a scroll to eat: “On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.”
The statement is doubly fascinating. First, this scroll was extremely unique, for ancient scrolls were rarely inscribed on both sides. Second, the depiction of the scroll is clear: it contained only lament, mourning, and woe , and Ezekiel was instructed to eat it. Full of words that have bitter connotations, Ezekiel must put this in his mouth and taste what would surely be awful.
He doesn’t hesitate. He opens his mouth. His obedience is beautiful.
The Lord speaks again, instructing Ezekiel to fill his stomach with the scroll.
The next line takes my breath away: So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
Honey? That’s not what I was expecting. Granted, I’ve read the book before, so I knew what was coming, but if I were to associate a taste with the words lament, mourning, and woe, it would certainly not be sweet. Bitter, acid, and sour are what immediately come to my mind.
You too, right?
And is this not what we fear? Do we not run from suffering as though it will destroy us? That we might be burned from touching it as if it were acid? That to mourn might mean that we are overcome with bitterness? That to allow ourselves to lament could open the door to a never-ending depression from which we simply cannot recover, like a sourness in our spirit to accompany us all our remaining days?
But this is not the way of our paradoxical God.
I hear the echoes. Do you?
…The last shall be first.
…He who loses his life shall gain it.
No different with suffering.
Sweetness from sorrow. Sweetness from tears. Even healing.
Is this not the backwards way of the Kingdom? Is this not our upside-down God who puts on flesh and dies for those who turned their backs on Him?
In fact, as Michael Card writes in his lovely and necessary book, A Sacred Sorrow , not only is lament necessary, it’s worship.
A sinless God who hangs on a tree for sinners counts our lament and mourning as worship.
I hear the Scriptures ring through my heart, “Suffering Savior… Man of Sorrows, well acquainted with Grief…” What God is this??
A God who knows us intimately.
We naturally run from pain, both physical and emotional. But in our running, what if we’re missing Jesus...Our Suffering Savior?
What if, in our demand for peace and contentment, we numb ourselves against the only One who can hold us while we mourn? In our fear that letting the sorrow in we will somehow be destroyed, we miss ever knowing the companionship of the One True Comfort?
He knows pain in a physical body on this earth.
He knows rejection from friends and broken relationships.
He knows the gut-wrenching agony of loss.
Just like us.
May our cry be one of honesty. If that honesty means mourning, then mourn, and may you find His presence to be as sweet as honey.
If your honesty means lament, may you look up from your tears, and see His face gazing lovinging, sweetly, at yours.
If your honesty is all-out woe, may you offer it to the One who longs for you to share it with Him, that He may be with you in your pain.
Because in this upside-down, backwards, inside-out Kingdom, nothing is wasted. Not even sorrow and suffering. He’s a Redeemer. He’s making all things sweetly new.
Even sorrow.