I’d had one of those days. Bad news followed by more bad news. All of it weighing on me.
But then I took a breath. A deep, lung-filling breath.
All of a sudden, a new weight replaced the bad-news weight. This was a weight of beauty. The simple joy of being alive washed over me.
It didn’t erase the bad news. But it put everything in perspective. What’s right in my life and in the world around me vastly outweighs what is wrong. The scale is totally out of balance.
When Jesus preached his first sermon in a synagogue, he read these words from the Isaiah scroll, saying they were fulfilled in him:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:1-3)
The poor, the brokenhearted, the captive, the imprisoned, the mourning, the grieving, the despairing — they are all acknowledged. Their wounds are real and painful and not ignored. But Jesus does more than just acknowledge them, he does something about them.
In the midst of it all, he brings freedom, release from darkness, favor, comfort, a crown of beauty, the oil of joy, a garment of praise.
The reality of suffering is all around us. But even more so is the reality of healing, of goodness, of truth, of beauty, of joy.