Walking with Jesus through Depression
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
February 24, 2008
Job 17; 1 John 3:1-3

Job 17:1 My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
the grave is ready for me.
2 Surely there are mockers around me,
and my eye dwells on their provocation.
3 “Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is there that will give surety for me?
4 Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 Those who denounce friends for reward—
the eyes of their children will fail.
6 “He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom people spit.
7 My eye has grown dim from grief,
and all my members are like a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous hold to their way,
and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10 But you, come back now, all of you,
and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
11 My days are past, my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.
12 They make night into day;
‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’
13 If I look for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in darkness,
14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
Shall we descend together into the dust?”

1 John 3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

I. BEGINNING

There are a lot of things that are a challenge for college aged young adults. You’re in a turbulent time of your life—trying to figure out who you are. Trying to figure out what you’re going to do with your life. Encountering new people, new ways of thinking, new cultures. Living in new circumstances. Apart from the family and friends you grew up with. Growing in understanding of your own responsibility for your life. Growing into the person you are meant to be.

There are enough challenges for young people your age. In addition to that, many young adults suffer from the debilitating mental affliction of depression.

According to one health source, approximately 25% of young people will experience depression before they are 24 years old.[1] This is the highest incidence rate of any adult age-group. In addition, fewer than 20% of young adults with depression receive high-quality care.[2]

A. Emotions—Dysphoria

Most people with depression feel sad, hopeless, and worthless. A persistent emotional state of feeling sad or down. Those whow suffer from depression often suffer guilt and anger—usually at themselves—often mixed with a belief that they are failures in some way. There is often a hopelessness in terms of what they feel they are able to do about their situation. They feel God no longer is paying any attention to them and may find themselves crying for no particular reason.[3]

B. Behavior

Depressed individuals lose satisfaction in doing many activities and generally have a lower activity level. Daily activities often seem useless or boring. And spiritual disciplines, if they are still still being practiced, can seem empty and lacking in energy.[4]

Some feel so hopeless and discouraged that they consider or attempt suicide. Nearly 75 percent of depressives think about suicide, and about 15 percent of people who seek treatment for depression attempt suicide.[5]

C. Physiology

Depression can have effects on a persons physiology. Many depressed individuals also suffer from insomnia and loss of appetite and have trouble concentrating. Some people with depression move and think slowly, but others feel restless.[6] There is often a loss of sex drive in addition to appetite, and some even speak more slowly and at a lower pitch.[7]

D. Cognitions

And depression affects individuals’ thinking. Psychologists often refer to “the primary triad”—the viewing of events, self, and the future in an affected manner. Depressed individuals perpetually interpret events in a negative way, conceiving of their interactions with the world and with God in a negative way. They evaluate themselves as of lower value than when not depressed—showing lowered self-esteem. And they often indulge in guilt or blame of self. Their assessment of the future is often one of hopelessness.[8]

Depression is a serious affliction that cannot be overcome merely by trying to “think positively” or by “snapping out of it.” One person I know who struggled greatly with depression was repeatedly told by family members to “suck it up” and “get over it.” And so in addition to feeling bad, this person felt bad about feeling bad—as if depression was itself some kind of failure to get on with one’s life.

Depression is a serious affliction that cannot be trivialized. It is in every way one of those ‘wilderness experiences’ that we face in our lives. And so as a wilderness people, it is important that we understand how it is our faith speaks to those who suffer from depression.

II. THE TEXT—JOB

Now, the Bible does not mention depression directly. The term is of relatively recent invention. But if there is one place where the emotions felt by someone experiencing depression can be clearly seen, it is in the Book of Job. The grief that we hear in Job’s words is all to familiar to anyone who has ever suffered from depression. There are fewer passages that capture the elements and pathos of someone suffering from depression so starkly.

Job 17:1 My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
the grave is ready for me. …

Job describes the emotional state of those who suffer depression—a broken spirit, a feeling of hopelessness, a contemplation of death and the end of things.

7 My eye has grown dim from grief,
and all my members are like a shadow. …

Here is a reflection of the physiological toll that such depression takes—an eye grown dim (both literally and metaphorically), and members like a shadow—parts of the body that feel detached, less substantial.

11 My days are past, my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.

A hopelessness about the future. A sense of failure: “my plans are broken off.”

So, the Bible may never mention “depression” but it is clear that the phenomenon is not unknown to God’s people. And this is a very important thing for us to understand: depression exists in the context of faith.

III. DEPRESSION AND CHRISTIAN FAITH

People of faith who struggle with depression often face a doubly difficult time. For, in addition to suffering the effects of depression, they often suffer the additional burden of feeling like they’re bad Christians. Because as we all know, Christians are supposed to be happy all the time. We’re supposed to be singing “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” and “I’ve Got Joy, Joy, Joy, Down in my Heart” and a million other hymns that are so darned happy! Just look through the hymnal—the only time you see anything remotely sad is in the Good Friday hymns. The overwhelming majority of the hymns is trumphalistic.

A colleague of mine once reported that a grieving woman she once knew was told by her friends that what she really just needed was more faith. How often are those who suffer with depression told essentially the same thing by people within the faith communities and without. You wouldn’t be depressed if you were just happier.

Our Christian faith can be a great help to those suffering from depression, but not in the trite, overly simplistic way that is often supposed. Faith in Christ does not automatically make people happy. That is a misunderstanding of what our faith really is.

IV. WALKING WITH JESUS THROUGH DEPRESSION

The title of this Lenten sermon series is “Walking with Jesus” when we explore how it is our Christian faith helps us to respond to the challenges we face in our lives. And it is Jesus who offers us our best and fullest understanding of how we can respond to people who suffer this affliction.

A. Walking with Jesus

In the midst of his despair, Job utters these words:

13 If I look for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in darkness,
14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
Shall we descend together into the dust?”

“…where then is my hope? … Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?”

As I reflect on this text, I cannot help but reminded of a line in the Apostle’s Creed. It is a line that we Protestants do not read very much and in many of the versions we have, it is omitted. But it goes like this:

And I believe in Jesus Christ [God’s] only Son our Lord, who… suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;
he descended into hell;
the third day he rose from the dead…”

It is curious thing that Jesus should have descended into hell for most modern Christians. But if we understand hell as the same thing that Job calls “Sheol”—the Pit, the grave, the realm of death and greatest brokenness, then this affirmation takes on whole and new powerful meaning.

In effect, for the Christian, the answer to Job’s question: “Will [my hope] go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” can only be: “Yes!” Christ, our hope, descends with us to the Pit. In the midst of even the darkest night, Christ is with us. Beside us in the dark. In the throes of our deepest depression and isolation, Christ is there. In the very Pit with us.

Our primary message to someone is not that Christian faith is a magic cure to all depression and unhappiness, but rather that in the midst of one’s greatest despair, there Christ is with you. It is something we proclaim every time we read the Eucharistic prayer, when we pray about Jesus Christ “who knew human pain and suffering.” The Christ we know, walks with those who suffer from depression.

B. The Community

There is a way that we can, as a community, help those suffering from depression.

The first is that we can surround a person with love and fellowship. One of the greatest afflictions of those who suffer is a feeling of being alone, utterly cut off and abandoned. A church—as a community—can help people to feel loved and surrounded by people who affirm them as they are.

In addition, depressed individuals often become very internally oriented, focusing on themselves, blaming themselves, obsessing over their own failings. The depression has a way of causing people to not be able to see beyond themselves. A Christian community can offer to people struggling with depression an opportunity to externalize their behavior, to look outside themselves. Many people have helped guide themselves out of depression by serving others—something our community does very well. And so, by offering opportunities—and the invitation—to engage in acts of service for those in need, to work for issues of justice for others, we as a community become a lifeline for those who are trapped in an inward looking despair. We are a bridge to a world beyond the world of one.

C. The Identity of the Sufferer

And most importantly, we as Christians, have something to say to individuals who suffer from depression—indeed to all individuals. It is a message we take from the words of 1 John:
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.

We are children of God. Every one of us. From the happiest to the most depressed. From the one brimming with confidence to the most insecure. From the one surrounded by friends to the loneliest. We are all children of God.

That is the message we can bring to all who suffer. That is the message that those who suffer from depression need to hear from us.

V. END

We as the church cannot cure a person’s depression. As believers in a holistic understanding of the person, we know that depression can only be tackled by the right combination of support, encouragement, community, counseling, therapy, and very often by medicine. Those who struggle with depression should take advantage of all that therapy and medicine has to offer for health.

But we in the church have something to say about healing, about restoration to wholeness. And we can do much toward that healing by letting people know how much they are loved. By surrounding them with a community that will support them in their times of need, that will give them avenues to move outside of themselves. That will remind them that they are beloved Children of God, full of human dignity and no less in the image of God than anyone else.

And we can let them know, that in their darkest times, when they walk that lonesome valley, that road through the valley of the shadow of death, they do not walk it alone. The Jesus we proclaim, the Christ we know, walks it by their side. And the Christ whose own suffering was transformed into joy and victory, will comfort them in their affliction, and bring the promise of new life and hope.

Notes

[1] http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=240&id=2079&np=298
[2] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/498574
[3] Clinical Handbook of Pastoral Counseling, Vol. 2, Robert J. Wicks and Richard D. Parsons, eds., New York: Paulist Press (1993), p. 419.
[4] Wicks & Parsons, above, at 420.
[5] World Book, 2005, “Depression”; Wick & Parsons, at 426.
[6] World Book, above.
[7] Wicks & Parson, above, at 421.
[8] Ibid.

Back to Sermons page

Back to AU UMC Home

No part of this text may be reproduced or otherwise disseminated without the express written consent of the author.


Home \| About Us \| Worship \| Study \| Community \| Service \| Justice \| UMSA \| Support our Ministry \| Sign up
Sermon Page \| Preaching Resources
*Walking with Jesus through Depression* Rev. Mark Schaefer Kay Spiritual Life Center February 24, 2008 Job 17; 1 John 3:1-3 Job 17:1 My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. 2 Surely there are mockers around me, and my eye dwells on their provocation. 3 “Lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is there that will give surety for me? 4 Since you have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. 5 Those who denounce friends for reward— the eyes of their children will fail. 6 “He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom people spit. 7 My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow. 8 The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless. 9 Yet the righteous hold to their way, and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger. 10 But you, come back now, all of you, and I shall not find a sensible person among you. 11 My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. 12 They make night into day; ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’ 13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, 14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ 15 where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? 16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” 1 John 3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. I. BEGINNING There are a lot of things that are a challenge for college aged young adults. You’re in a turbulent time of your life—trying to figure out who you are. Trying to figure out what you’re going to do with your life. Encountering new people, new ways of thinking, new cultures. Living in new circumstances. Apart from the family and friends you grew up with. Growing in understanding of your own responsibility for your life. Growing into the person you are meant to be. There are enough challenges for young people your age. In addition to that, many young adults suffer from the debilitating mental affliction of depression. According to one health source, approximately 25% of young people will experience depression before they are 24 years old.[1] This is the highest incidence rate of any adult age-group. In addition, fewer than 20% of young adults with depression receive high-quality care.[2] A. Emotions—Dysphoria Most people with depression feel sad, hopeless, and worthless. A persistent emotional state of feeling sad or down. Those whow suffer from depression often suffer guilt and anger—usually at themselves—often mixed with a belief that they are failures in some way. There is often a hopelessness in terms of what they feel they are able to do about their situation. They feel God no longer is paying any attention to them and may find themselves crying for no particular reason.[3] B. Behavior Depressed individuals lose satisfaction in doing many activities and generally have a lower activity level. Daily activities often seem useless or boring. And spiritual disciplines, if they are still still being practiced, can seem empty and lacking in energy.[4] Some feel so hopeless and discouraged that they consider or attempt suicide. Nearly 75 percent of depressives think about suicide, and about 15 percent of people who seek treatment for depression attempt suicide.[5] C. Physiology Depression can have effects on a persons physiology. Many depressed individuals also suffer from insomnia and loss of appetite and have trouble concentrating. Some people with depression move and think slowly, but others feel restless.[6] There is often a loss of sex drive in addition to appetite, and some even speak more slowly and at a lower pitch.[7] D. Cognitions And depression affects individuals’ thinking. Psychologists often refer to “the primary triad”—the viewing of events, self, and the future in an affected manner. Depressed individuals perpetually interpret events in a negative way, conceiving of their interactions with the world and with God in a negative way. They evaluate themselves as of lower value than when not depressed—showing lowered self-esteem. And they often indulge in guilt or blame of self. Their assessment of the future is often one of hopelessness.[8] Depression is a serious affliction that cannot be overcome merely by trying to “think positively” or by “snapping out of it.” One person I know who struggled greatly with depression was repeatedly told by family members to “suck it up” and “get over it.” And so in addition to feeling bad, this person felt bad about feeling bad—as if depression was itself some kind of failure to get on with one’s life. Depression is a serious affliction that cannot be trivialized. It is in every way one of those ‘wilderness experiences’ that we face in our lives. And so as a wilderness people, it is important that we understand how it is our faith speaks to those who suffer from depression. II. THE TEXT—JOB Now, the Bible does not mention depression directly. The term is of relatively recent invention. But if there is one place where the emotions felt by someone experiencing depression can be clearly seen, it is in the Book of Job. The grief that we hear in Job’s words is all to familiar to anyone who has ever suffered from depression. There are fewer passages that capture the elements and pathos of someone suffering from depression so starkly. Job 17:1 My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. … Job describes the emotional state of those who suffer depression—a broken spirit, a feeling of hopelessness, a contemplation of death and the end of things. 7 My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow. … Here is a reflection of the physiological toll that such depression takes—an eye grown dim (both literally and metaphorically), and members like a shadow—parts of the body that feel detached, less substantial. 11 My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. A hopelessness about the future. A sense of failure: “my plans are broken off.” So, the Bible may never mention “depression” but it is clear that the phenomenon is not unknown to God’s people. And this is a very important thing for us to understand: depression exists in the context of faith. III. DEPRESSION AND CHRISTIAN FAITH People of faith who struggle with depression often face a doubly difficult time. For, in addition to suffering the effects of depression, they often suffer the additional burden of feeling like they’re bad Christians. Because as we all know, Christians are supposed to be happy all the time. We’re supposed to be singing “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” and “I’ve Got Joy, Joy, Joy, Down in my Heart” and a million other hymns that are so darned happy! Just look through the hymnal—the only time you see anything remotely sad is in the Good Friday hymns. The overwhelming majority of the hymns is trumphalistic. A colleague of mine once reported that a grieving woman she once knew was told by her friends that what she really just needed was more faith. How often are those who suffer with depression told essentially the same thing by people within the faith communities and without. You wouldn’t be depressed if you were just happier. Our Christian faith can be a great help to those suffering from depression, but not in the trite, overly simplistic way that is often supposed. Faith in Christ does not automatically make people happy. That is a misunderstanding of what our faith really is. IV. WALKING WITH JESUS THROUGH DEPRESSION The title of this Lenten sermon series is “Walking with Jesus” when we explore how it is our Christian faith helps us to respond to the challenges we face in our lives. And it is Jesus who offers us our best and fullest understanding of how we can respond to people who suffer this affliction. A. Walking with Jesus In the midst of his despair, Job utters these words: 13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, 14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ 15 where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? 16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” “…where then is my hope? … Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” As I reflect on this text, I cannot help but reminded of a line in the Apostle’s Creed. It is a line that we Protestants do not read very much and in many of the versions we have, it is omitted. But it goes like this: And I believe in Jesus Christ [God’s] only Son our Lord, who… suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose from the dead…” It is curious thing that Jesus should have descended into hell for most modern Christians. But if we understand hell as the same thing that Job calls “Sheol”—the Pit, the grave, the realm of death and greatest brokenness, then this affirmation takes on whole and new powerful meaning. In effect, for the Christian, the answer to Job’s question: “Will [my hope] go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” can only be: “Yes!” Christ, our hope, descends with us to the Pit. In the midst of even the darkest night, Christ is with us. Beside us in the dark. In the throes of our deepest depression and isolation, Christ is there. In the very Pit with us. Our primary message to someone is not that Christian faith is a magic cure to all depression and unhappiness, but rather that in the midst of one’s greatest despair, there Christ is with you. It is something we proclaim every time we read the Eucharistic prayer, when we pray about Jesus Christ “who knew human pain and suffering.” The Christ we know, walks with those who suffer from depression. B. The Community There is a way that we can, as a community, help those suffering from depression. The first is that we can surround a person with love and fellowship. One of the greatest afflictions of those who suffer is a feeling of being alone, utterly cut off and abandoned. A church—as a community—can help people to feel loved and surrounded by people who affirm them as they are. In addition, depressed individuals often become very internally oriented, focusing on themselves, blaming themselves, obsessing over their own failings. The depression has a way of causing people to not be able to see beyond themselves. A Christian community can offer to people struggling with depression an opportunity to externalize their behavior, to look outside themselves. Many people have helped guide themselves out of depression by serving others—something our community does very well. And so, by offering opportunities—and the invitation—to engage in acts of service for those in need, to work for issues of justice for others, we as a community become a lifeline for those who are trapped in an inward looking despair. We are a bridge to a world beyond the world of one. C. The Identity of the Sufferer And most importantly, we as Christians, have something to say to individuals who suffer from depression—indeed to all individuals. It is a message we take from the words of 1 John: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. We are children of God. Every one of us. From the happiest to the most depressed. From the one brimming with confidence to the most insecure. From the one surrounded by friends to the loneliest. We are all children of God. That is the message we can bring to all who suffer. That is the message that those who suffer from depression need to hear from us. V. END We as the church cannot cure a person’s depression. As believers in a holistic understanding of the person, we know that depression can only be tackled by the right combination of support, encouragement, community, counseling, therapy, and very often by medicine. Those who struggle with depression should take advantage of all that therapy and medicine has to offer for health. But we in the church have something to say about healing, about restoration to wholeness. And we can do much toward that healing by letting people know how much they are loved. By surrounding them with a community that will support them in their times of need, that will give them avenues to move outside of themselves. That will remind them that they are beloved Children of God, full of human dignity and no less in the image of God than anyone else. And we can let them know, that in their darkest times, when they walk that lonesome valley, that road through the valley of the shadow of death, they do not walk it alone. The Jesus we proclaim, the Christ we know, walks it by their side. And the Christ whose own suffering was transformed into joy and victory, will comfort them in their affliction, and bring the promise of new life and hope. Notes [1] http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=240&id=2079&np=298 [2] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/498574 [3] Clinical Handbook of Pastoral Counseling, Vol. 2, Robert J. Wicks and Richard D. Parsons, eds., New York: Paulist Press (1993), p. 419. [4] Wicks & Parsons, above, at 420. [5] World Book, 2005, “Depression”; Wick & Parsons, at 426. [6] World Book, above. [7] Wicks & Parson, above, at 421. [8] Ibid. Back to Sermons page Back to AU UMC Home Copyright © 2008. Mark A. Schaefer. No part of this text may be reproduced or otherwise disseminated without the express written consent of the author.

	The AU United Methodist-Protestant Community is an open and ecumenical fellowship for all students, faculty, and staff regardless of age, race, gender, ability, sexual orientation, denomination, or religious background.
	Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors. The People of The United Methodist Church