The Origin of Sadness

Sadness is arguably the greatest conundrum of our human experience. Something deep within us cries out, “Surely it wasn’t meant to be like this!” That sense is very much confirmed when we explore what the Bible says about how things were at the very beginning in creation and what subsequently went wrong.

Indeed, when we survey some of the key themes that are woven throughout Scripture, we cannot help but notice that grief and sadness are among the most prominent. The book of Psalms contains a significant number of songs of lament. In one of them, Psalm 42, the psalmist cries out, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (v. 5). Indeed, so intense is his feeling of despair that he states it even more forcefully with the words, “My soul is cast down” (v. 6). The joy and worship that the Psalms express are set against the backdrop of sorrow and perplexity.

This note of sorrow is by no means isolated to the Psalms. An entire book of the Old Testament is titled Lamentations, and it oozes sadness and cries out for answers. Indeed, Jeremiah—widely believed to be the author of Lamentations—earned the nickname “the Weeping Prophet” because, as the bearer of the message of God’s judgment on wayward Israel, he was deeply affected by the grief that was looming on the horizon for the people.

Every human being can identify with this sentiment. How often in the midst of life’s bitter experiences have we ourselves cried out, “O Lord, why?”

Our instinct in trying to find an answer to these particular situations that close in on us and drive us to despair is to look at their immediate backdrop. That is superficial, however, and it fails to explain the deeper issues that lie behind the despondency of the human condition. In that sense, in our quest for answers and for the ultimate antidote to this dark reality, we need to go right back to the roots of creation and our place within it as those who are uniquely made in the image and likeness of God.

Everything about the creation account in the opening chapters of Genesis points to beauty, peace, and happiness. The very fact that the home that God provided for Adam and Eve was called Eden, or “Paradise” (Gen. 2:8), sets the bar for what normality was intended to be—not just for humankind but also for the entire universe. Indeed, the divine declaration upon the completion of God’s creative action, when He surveyed the newly formed cosmos and its contents, that it was all “very good” (1:31) could not have been clearer. It was designed to be the perfect home for Adam and Eve, God’s image bearers and the progenitors of the race that would descend from them.

Of course, we know only too well from the Genesis account that the peace and joy that our first parents experienced from the very first moment of their existence was quickly exchanged for sorrow and dread. Indeed, the perfection of their God-given home was instantaneously engulfed in grief, fear, and perplexity as the divine curse replaced the original benediction. The “enlightenment” that the serpent had promised them turned into darkness and confusion on an unimaginable scale.

Why was this the outcome of what appeared to be a minor infraction of God’s law? Because, despite its seeming to be innocuous on the surface, our first parents’ transgression actually disturbed the underlying order of the universe itself. The entire creation, in all its vastness and complexity, literally turned on one pivotal detail: It could function smoothly and effectively only under the righteous governance of God, its Maker and Sustainer. When this key component and centerpiece of God’s cosmic masterpiece was challenged through Adam’s disobedience, chaos and collapse ensued, and the joy and peace of fellowship with God was exchanged for the grief and pain of estrangement. This estrangement was not only from God Himself but also from the creation that God had given to Adam. In that nanosecond, everything changed.

John Milton, the renowned English poet, captured the enormity of what this meant in his classic work Paradise Lost. It is a masterpiece of English literature, one that captures exquisitely the tragedy and anguish that engulfed the human race through Adam’s rebellion. Yet the tragedy that ensued from Adam’s failure was immediately met by the astonishing grace of God. Had Adam received from his Maker and the Judge of all the earth the penalty that he deserved, he would not have heard what the Lord said. In the midst of divine wrath, there was clemency. Instead of death, there was life. As the prophet would express it in his plea to God in the face of the judgment that Israel deserved, he prayed, “In wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2). Indeed, it has been rightly said that the very fact that Adam lived to hear the words of curse and condemnation that the Lord pronounced on him was in itself a display of divine clemency.

There is, however, something infinitely more extraordinary that would come to light in God’s unfolding redemptive purpose. Through the incarnation, when the Son of God joined Himself to our very nature, He was made like us in every way apart from sin (Heb. 2:17; 4:15). And in doing so, He earned the epithet “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).

He plumbed these depths—with all the perplexity bound up with them—for sinners. He did so not merely so that He would truly be able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15) but so that He would be able to minister to us. He plumbed the depths of sorrow on the cross. There He experienced the divine anathema in the place of sinners, the loneliness of affliction, and the perplexity of forsakenness. But having done so, He is uniquely qualified to sympathize with us in our weakness and to feel for us in our sorrow. But He can do more than this. He is able to exchange the ashes of our grief for the beauty of His grace, our mourning for “the garment of praise” (Isa. 61:3).

Adam was the father of our sadness, but Christ, the “last man,” is the source of fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).