Post by Lee on Apr 29, 2014 3:17:34 GMT
How could anyone say that?— "Sorrow is better than laughter"!
Are we not constantly exhorted to rejoice, and rejoice, and rejoice? The strange and marvellous thing is that these two apparent opposites are both beautifully true, and it is the sorrow that engenders the rejoicing. Paul, writing to the Romans of the wonderful workings of God's wisdom, speaks of the same deep truths, and borrows the very wording of Ecclesiastes when he says (8:20)— "The creation was made subject to vanity, by reason of Him Who hath subjected the same in hope." We suffer with Christ (he says—v. 17) that—in order that—we may be also glorified together. And he says that the suffering— the sorrow—the light affliction which is but for a moment— worketh for us an eternal weight of glory.
Paul uses the same strange and beautiful paradox to describe his own condition and course through this evil world (2 Cor. 6:10)— "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."
Here is how the sorrow is related to the rejoicing. Here is why in this present dispensation of probation, sorrow is better than laughter. It is more wholesome. It is more sound. It is more constructive— more purifying—infinitely
more powerful for the development of calmness and peace and kindness and sympathy and love. So the Koheleth continues—
"By the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better" —and out of the heart are all the issues Of life.
Can we not, even now, even in our own limited experience of the reality of life—can we not of ourselves perceive the deep
truth of the principle that "Sorrow is better than laughter?" Therefore the heart of the wise chooses to dwell in the
sobering influence of the house of mourning, but the heart of thoughtless fools is in the emptiness and shallowness and giddiness of the house of mirth. "The laughter of the fool is as the crackling of thorns under a pot."
Rene
Are we not constantly exhorted to rejoice, and rejoice, and rejoice? The strange and marvellous thing is that these two apparent opposites are both beautifully true, and it is the sorrow that engenders the rejoicing. Paul, writing to the Romans of the wonderful workings of God's wisdom, speaks of the same deep truths, and borrows the very wording of Ecclesiastes when he says (8:20)— "The creation was made subject to vanity, by reason of Him Who hath subjected the same in hope." We suffer with Christ (he says—v. 17) that—in order that—we may be also glorified together. And he says that the suffering— the sorrow—the light affliction which is but for a moment— worketh for us an eternal weight of glory.
Paul uses the same strange and beautiful paradox to describe his own condition and course through this evil world (2 Cor. 6:10)— "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."
Here is how the sorrow is related to the rejoicing. Here is why in this present dispensation of probation, sorrow is better than laughter. It is more wholesome. It is more sound. It is more constructive— more purifying—infinitely
more powerful for the development of calmness and peace and kindness and sympathy and love. So the Koheleth continues—
"By the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better" —and out of the heart are all the issues Of life.
Can we not, even now, even in our own limited experience of the reality of life—can we not of ourselves perceive the deep
truth of the principle that "Sorrow is better than laughter?" Therefore the heart of the wise chooses to dwell in the
sobering influence of the house of mourning, but the heart of thoughtless fools is in the emptiness and shallowness and giddiness of the house of mirth. "The laughter of the fool is as the crackling of thorns under a pot."
Rene