No matter where we turn in the Bible, we meet someone who suffers what we moderns call "depression." The Psalms of David are a prime example. There is one entitled, "Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD" (130:1); that's the powerful name that just saying it humbles one's heart. Then in verse 2, David begs, "Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications." He does not get immediate relief for he adds, "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits" (vs. 5).
David's problem that makes his depression painful is guilt: "If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" (vs. 3). The Holy Spirit has been speaking to him, whose first work on David's heart is the conviction of sin, and it's painful. If we trace that conviction to its source, we come to Calvary--where Jesus prays the Father to forgive those who crucify Him. Then we realize that it's us He is praying for! Not the Jews or Romans.
We have two wonders unfolding here: (a) the wonder of God's redeeming love, and (b) David's deep unworthiness that now he realizes. Therefore, "there is forgiveness with You," he says, "that You may be feared" (vs. 4).
The Prince of sufferers from depression is the Lord Jesus Christ; see Him in Gethsemane. His disciples, even Peter, James, John, couldn't even give Him an hour of their precious human time without going to sleep on Him (Matt. 26:36-40). He "began to be sorrowful and deeply depressed" (the KJV says "very heavy"). How "heavy"? "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death." Have you ever been near there?
And we know that Jesus never sinned; therefore we must conclude--to be "depressed" is not of itself sin. It's human, and Jesus the Son of God became human, the Son of man. He took into His soul all the depression that all humans have suffered, cumulative, corporate, and bore it, "even unto death," the final God-forsaken kind of hopeless death when He cried out in those "depths," "My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
Kneel with Him in Gethsemane; but you can't endure that death. Even suicide isn't close; He won't let you suffer the second death! Not even share or taste it ever so tiny--without you sharing also with Him His resurrection.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 24, 2006.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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