Have you ever heard of a clinical disorder called SAD? SAD stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder, sometimes called “Winter Depression” or the “Winter Blues.” It’s been around since the early 1980’s, when a doctor named Norman Rosenthal noticed that his body acted differently during the winter months than it did during any other time of the year. For a number of years, he had noticed that, during winter, he had a much harder time getting out of bed in the morning. He seemed to have a lot less energy overall; was more likely to get sick, to overeat and oversleep; and much less likely to have enough energy to fully concentrate on his work throughout the day. He thought he was on the verge of depression. After studying his symptoms with his colleagues, they came to the conclusion that he was just … SAD.
Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real clinical disorder in which millions of people who have normal health throughout the year experience a variety of negative symptoms going all the way down to depression during the winter. SAD is more common in the northern, colder states of our country. 1.4% of people in Florida are diagnosed with SAD, while nearly 10% of the people in our Midwestern states are, leading people to believe it has something to do with the amount of sunlight we don’t get up here during the winter.
Regardless, a lot of people are going to be SAD this Christmas, but, for many, it will have nothing to do with winter. Do you know who Brendan Dobson was? He was a 7-year-old riding a snowmobile with a grownup last weekend up in Washington County, without a helmet and going much too fast when they swung around a corner and flipped the snowmobile, injuring the adult and killing Brendan. Another 7-year-old, Cassius Clacks, was walking with two of his siblings two Wednesdays ago at the corner of Fond du Lac and Center, when a bus took little Cassius’ life – right in front of his father.
Families who have lost loved ones recently are more likely to be SAD this winter than others. So are those who are far from home, far away from the family they love and much closer, distance-wise, to people who just don’t care about them as much. So are those who got some bad news recently – about their health, about their job, about their baby, about their income.
Do you know the cure for a diagnosis of SAD? Your doctor may introduce you to light therapy, ionized-air administration, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or carefully timed supplementation of the hormone melatonin. But, Dr. Calvin Frederick, who used to work at the National Institute of Mental Health, has a much simpler solution. He says, “Just stop expecting yourself to be so happy.” Do you like that advice? Jesus doesn’t.
Do you know what the biblical word for “happy” is? “Blessed.” When you say you’re “blessed,” you are really saying that you’re happy. And Jesus believes that you can be – even in the northern climates, even in tragedy.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he says in Matthew 5. “Blessed are those who mourn.” “Blessed are the meek.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you.” Those are just some of what we call the “Beatitudes.” And there’s one more that Jesus says today that you won’t find in Matthew 5, one that doesn’t get as much press as those others, but one that is just as important. “Blessed are those who do not fall away on account of me;” or, literally, “Blessed are those who are not offended by me.”
How do you suppose a person who is offended by Jesus would feel? Probably the opposite of how he tells us to. In other words, you wouldn’t feel happy if you’re poor, or blessed when you mourn. You would never be satisfied as you hunger and thirst. You’d feel sad when people insult you, angry when they persecute you and hold a grudge when they falsely say all kinds of evil against you. That’s what those offended by Jesus would do. Has Jesus ever offended you? You wouldn’t be the first.
He offended his cousin too. The cousin of Jesus was John the Baptist, the one who prepared the way for Jesus in the wilderness; the one who said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world;” the one who baptized Jesus in the Jordan, heard the Father say, “This is my Son,” and saw the Holy Spirit land on him. Well, one day, sometime after all these things, when things apparently weren’t going all that well for him, John asked his cousin, “Are you really the One, or should I try to find true, lasting happiness in some other person?”
Are you surprised that he asked that? Do you think Jesus is surprised by how often we try to find happiness in so many things and people other than him? John and Jesus help us evaluate how many reasons we really have to be SAD this morning.
(2) When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples (3) to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (4) Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you heard and see: (5) The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. (6) Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”
Did you hear what a 70-year-old man named Orteal Tyler did this week in Milwaukee? This past Wednesday, he noticed that his 50-year-old cousin had taken several cigarettes from a pack he had left in the kitchen. He grabbed a rifle sitting near the refrigerator, walked into the living room and killed his cousin. When asked why he shot his cousin over a couple cigarettes, he said, “We had been arguing over various things, mostly money, for a long time. The missing cigarettes – that was just the final straw.”
John the Baptist obviously didn’t kill anyone, but there must have been a “final straw” for him; something that pushed him over the edge, to the point that he did something he never would have dreamed of earlier in life. He questioned whether Jesus could really do what he had said.
John put up with a lot for Jesus, stuff that most people wouldn’t. He ate locusts and wild honey. He lived in a desert without any A/C. He wore camel skin that was really itchy. And the reason he was in prison was because Herod wanted John’s permission to sleep with someone who wasn’t his wife. John didn’t give it, so Herod had him arrested. And, throughout it all, John defended Jesus.
“Just wait,” he told the Pharisees who tried to shut him down, “my cousin is coming whose sandals I’m not even worthy to untie.” “You talk big,” he told them, “but with one sweep, he’s going to clear the threshing floor, take his friends and leave you behind.” “You do with me whatever you please,” he told Herod, “His judgment is coming. The axe is already at the root of the tree, waiting, waiting, waiting …” apparently, waiting at least until after the axe separated John’s head from his body. Herod had John beheaded shortly after this, and Jesus never even tried to get him out of prison. Even when John asked for help, Jesus didn’t get an army together. He didn’t drop what he was doing. Hetold someone else to tell John about all the great things he was doing for everyone … but him. “The blind see, the lame walk; lepers are clean, deaf hear, the dead raised;” but John, who invested more of his life into Jesus than anyone … sits in prison. All alone.
It’s kind of how an unemployed person feels when one of their friends tells them they’ve finally got a job. You want to be happy for them, but, what you’re really thinking is, “One less for me.” And maybe that’s not the final straw for you. Maybe yours comes after you find out someone’s going behind your back. They don’t trust you. And rather than be a good Christian and actually talk to you, they talk to all your friend and neighbors trying to get as much dirt as they can on you. Maybe your final straw comes after you pour months of your passion into one thing, and the first comment you hear when it’s done is, “Someone else would have done it better. I wish it were different.” Maybe the straw that finally breaks you is when your mom says she has cancer, just like her mom did before her, and just like you probably will at some point after her. Maybe it comes sitting by the hospital bed of your son or daughter, listening to the piercing beeps of too many machines sending too many needles into their fragile skin. Maybe it’s sitting there, watching them cry, and you can’t help them. Or, maybe you couldn’t even be there with them. Maybe it’s hearing your son tell you they’re expecting, but they’re not married, and they weren’t even dating.
Or maybe you’ve done a pretty good job avoiding that final straw. You’ve never wondered if Jesus is real. You’ve never begged for a sign. You’ve never asked him “Why?” You’ve never cried an endless stream of tears sitting up in your bed late at night. You just cope. You get by. At some point, you just told yourself to stop expecting that it’s even possible for any person to feel purely … happy. Or blessed. When your spirit feels so poor all the time. Or, when it’s so easy to mourn. When you hunger and thirst for a righteousness that never seems to be coming.
What kind of person does that make you? What kind of Xian? In Hebrews 11, the heroes of faith are Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and … the person who’s one piece of bad news away from sinking into depression? They’re Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and … the one who spends so much time wishing their life were so different? Gideon, Barak, Samson, David and … the one who, especially during Christmas, feels so much worse than you ever tell anyone?
You want to feel blessed all the time. You want to feel happy. You want to be confident. But so did Peter – when Jesus walked out to him on the water. Peter wanted to believe. He wanted to have faith. He wanted to not be afraid. He stepped out of the boat to do something he knew Jesus said he could. He believed … just before he began to doubt. And we all know what happened when he did.
Jesus caught him. During one of his weakest moments, he saved him. Because he knows how it feels to have no one there for him.
The next time you’re tempted to cry out, “Where was God when I needed him,” stop for one second and ask yourself where God was when God needed him, nailed to a tree, crying, bleeding, suffering, dying? God left him all alone. Completely forsaken. And he just took it; not arching his back, or dulling the pain, or even crying “It is finished” until it really was. Until the whole world, full of people like me and you, was finally forgiven. “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms,” God promised in the book of Deuteronomy 1500 years earlier. Imprisoned on a cross of lonely pain, God kept that promise for every person of all time. Where were you when his everlasting arms caught you? Peter was underwater. John was in prison when he heard that the eyes of the blind were opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame were leaping like a deer, and the mute tongues shouting for joy,” just like God said they would 700 years earlier in the book of Isaiah.
Jesus wasn’t rubbing salt in John’s wounds with his answer. He was reminding him that God always keeps his promise. Whether it’s been 700 years since he made it, whether you go a year in prison without seeing him, through 40 years in the desert of wandering or short spurts of sadness where you’re tempted to believe God has left you all alone, God is there for you. God loves you. That’s what he was telling John. But he had one more thing to say about him.
(7) As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? (8) If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. (9) Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. (10) This is the one about whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ (11) I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Do you know that John the Baptist is the only prophet or apostle in the New Testament who was is talked about in the Old Testament? Not Peter. Not Paul. Not Luke. Just John. God must have thought quite a bit of him. And then to have Jesus say that, “among those born of women, there is not anyone greater than John the Baptist.” That would have made John feel pretty special … if he had actually heard it. Jesus didn’t tell that to John. He told that to the crowd of people after John’s friends had left him, to emphasize how much he adores the person who is even greater than him. “Yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he,” Jesus said. Do you know who that is? Jesus answered that question in Matthew chapter 19:
“Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” It’s little 7-year-olds like Brendan Dobson and Cassius Clacks. That’s who Jesus holds in his everlasting arms. And not just them.
“Whoever humbles himself like a little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said. In other words, whoever trusts God, admitting that, like little children, there’s a lot about Jesus and about life that we don’t understand. But we understand the message he was sending when he was dying. We know exactly what he meant when he said, “Where I am going, you cannot follow. But you will follow later.” He was saying that he’s not afraid, not ashamed, and not offended to call us his friends and to drive you to his Word where he promises that there is nothing in all creation, nothing in any prison, that can ever separate you from him.