One of Vincent Van Gogh’s gifts to the art world was his ability to portray sadness alongside joy, ugliness next to beauty. And he seems to have done this not to say life really sucks, even when you think it might be happy. Rather, it looks more like hope, or at least longing. A longing that there is more. That despite everything there is a feeling of belief in something on high, as he wrote to his brother about that famous Christmas sketch, God remains in the midst of everything.
Only two religions have confronted ugliness and pain head on: Buddhism and Christianity. As our Buddhist scholar from Episode 73 told us, the Buddha so keenly felt the pain of the world that he meditated day and night until he could see a way through. His enlightenment was essentially the insight that pain is caused by our longings, longing for pleasure, comfort, intimacy, joy, and so on. If we can learn not to long for the things of this fleeting world, but to detach from them, we’ll experience what he called equanimity. That’s the peace of experiencing neither pain nor bliss, but perfect stillness in the midst of hardship.
That’s one way of approaching the sadness of the world, detaching from the things we get sad about. Van Gogh would have made a terrible Buddhist. He wanted to name both joy and pain. He wanted to depict them and invite the viewer to feel them deeply. Detachment is the last word you’d associate with the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. But as I’ve probably said before on the show, Jesus too would make a terrible Buddhist.
He named both the joy and pain. In fact, he experienced and inhabited joy and pain. He was passionate against injustice when he overturned the tables of the priestly money makers in the temple, he wept at the funeral of his friend Lazarus. The Greek word used in that scene in John’s gospel, dakryō, implies not just lament, but actual tears. It’s the verb of the noun for tears. The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament goes so far as to say “during the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears” (that’s Hebrews 5, if you want to check that out). And of course, the climax of the whole Gospel account is called the Passion – Jesus’ arrest, trial, torture, crucifixion and resurrection.
Like Buddhism, Christianity talks a lot about pain. Unlike Buddhism, Christianity encourages the full acknowledgement of human anguish, tears and all. Combined with a deep longing for the mending of all things.
The end of suffering comes not from our detachment from desires, but from God’s own future intervention in the kingdom. And the resurrection of Jesus is what makes that intervention more than wishful thinking, more than pie in the sky when you die. The resurrection of Jesus is like the proof and the pledge that God can and will bring life where there is death, and joy where there is sorrow.
By John Dickson
Van Gogh
Want to hear the rest of the episode?
Check out episode 138: “Van Gogh”
