The problem of sadness

Sadness - that's a bad thing right?
Joy - that's the way to go, right?

Joy all the time!
Sadness never!

Are you sure?

Spoiler alert here - if you haven't seen the Pixar movie Inside Out, and don't want to know anything about what happens in it - stop reading here!!  Go see the movie, then come back.

In the Bible, we read the words of Paul -

Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

OK - joy is there.  Right after love.  Surely - there's no sadness in love, right?  Why would love have anything to do with sadness?  And there's nothing in the rest of those verses to indicate sadness has anything to add to our lives.

That's the way I always felt too.  So much sadness in my life had to mean something was wrong - like God didn't care about me.  I'm guessing I'm not alone here.

And yet - the Bible also says -

Jn 11:35 Jesus wept.

John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible.  And it contains a word that's generally associated with sadness.  
Yes - people cry for joy.  But that's not what's happening in John 11:35.

Here's the background for that verse -

Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, died.  Jesus wasn't there to save his life.  Worse yet, Jesus didn't immediately leave to go to Lazarus' house.  When He does arrive, we read -

Jn 11:32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jn 11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jn 11:35 Jesus wept.

There was a lot of weeping going on here.  And not one drop of tears had anything at all to do with joy.

And yet - 

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

Jn 11:38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Jn 11:40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Jn 11:41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
Jn 11:43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

After all the weeping - there was joy.  

Oddly enough - probably even more joy than if Jesus had been there to prevent Lazarus from dying in the first place.
Had Jesus prevented the death of Lazarus - people wouldn't know the depths of their sadness over that death.  The only way they could really understand the joy of the restoration of his life was to feel and understand the sadness resulting from his death.  No matter how much we may claim to understand someone else's grief - unless we are them - we really cannot understand.

And that's part of the importance of understanding that Jesus was both fully man and fully God.  As such - Jesus as man doubtless saw the mortal deaths of people he knew.   Jesus as God has seen the death of so many of His children, including those who would be condemned to eternity in Hell.  If anything - Jesus understood the depths of sorrow even more than the others present at this event.  By the same token - He also understood the joy of "resurrection" so much more than any of the others - since He understood resurrection of believers to be eternity with Him.

So there's sorrow.  There's weeping to go with the sorrow.

But then - if we believe - there's joy.  And weeping of a very different kind to go with that joy.

Back to what I used to feel.