This article was originally featured in Cogitare’s 2023 Fall Edition.
As Christians in these dark final days, we find ourselves questioning how we ought to respond emotionally to the brokenness in our world. Tolkien’s response to this dilemma is two-fold: through profound sorrow and profound laughter. Nienna, one of the divine beings in his world of Middle-Earth, “is acquainted with grief, and mourns for every wound that Arda (the world) has suffered in the marring of Melkor (the great Enemy).” Yet she is immediately juxtaposed with Tulkas the wrestler, who “laughs ever, in sport or in war, and even in the face of Melkor he laughed in battles before the Elves were born.” These two responses to deep evil in the world may contrast, but they never clash. There is “a time to weep and a time to laugh,” the Preacher says.
Both of these answers to evil – especially in our time – should surprise us. Do we not mourn enough already? And is laughter appropriate if there is so much to mourn? Both questions are just, and should be answered in turn.
There is indeed much to mourn. Death and suffering surrounds us wherever we look: abortion, euthanasia, drug addiction, homelessness, rampant crime, and human trafficking, to name only a fraction of these horrors. But how often do we truly mourn these human afflictions? Too often on the news I witness the tragic suffering undergone by fellow human beings, and I have not one tear to dry. The news not only cultivates inattention and time-wasting, but also a heart incapable of mourning. What an irony, that amid the deluge of evils, the shocked soul cannot find the sorrow for just one child murdered! The truth is that in our mortality and finitude, we cannot bear such sorrow. But just because we cannot weep for all does not mean we should not weep for some. If you cannot mourn for a church in Nigeria slaughtered by militant Muslims, or for children killed in gang shootouts, you ought not click on the next news piece. That sorrow is enough for you to mourn.
Nienna’s sorrow, Tolkien writes, mysteriously had the power to cleanse some wounds, or at least give them due honor, and her tears “washed away the defilements of Ungoliant; and she sang in mourning for the bitterness of the world and the Marring of Arda.” How many tragedies go unmourned and unhonored by the church because of our loss of the capacity for sorrow? Deep mourning, the kind with true tears, is largely unknown to most of us outside of our own inconveniences or personal tragedies. A single tear offers more dignity to their pain than all of our hastily whispered thoughts and prayers – as theologically sound as they may be. Even Jesus wept for Lazarus, though he knew Lazarus would not be dead for long. Death will grip others longer; we should mourn at least as much.
Yet the laugh of Tulkas thunders at the darkness, and it is no less fitting than the weeping of Nienna. In Tulkas’ coming, the forces of good are strengthened against the Enemy, and “Melkor fled before his wrath and his laughter.” If the Church does not grieve enough for the tragedies of this broken world, the Church certainly does not laugh as it ought in the face of Satan and his legions. What is God’s response to the vain plotting of the nations? “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (Psalm 2). Our reaction should be the same, founded on the promise of sin and Satan annihilated. Luther writes, “The prince of darkness grim, / we tremble not for him; / his rage we can endure, / for lo! his doom is sure; / one little word shall fell him.” In most battles, we do not know the end, and we justly wait with trembling for its outcome. But laughter is reserved for this war where we can see the end, where we know Satan can do nothing to escape his ruin and all the saints will certainly stand, robed in white, before the throne of God.
But you might ask: “How can it be right to laugh when there is so much to grieve?” This is more of a question of context. We clearly must weep, just as we clearly must laugh. There are times for both, as Ecclesiastes says, but what are the proper times? Weeping should not be self-focused, but for others; laughter should be for our own battles, not directed at the tragedies of others. Tolkien writes, “She (Nienna) does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope.” Yet Tulkas laughs ever, for his sight is focused on the face of Melkor himself, and he is solely conscious of his own struggles.
Being human requires both sorrow and laughter. But being Christian means that we know why we weep and laugh. G. K. Chesterton writes of Colan from the Ballad of the White Horse, “He was gay when he held the sword / Sad when he held the harp.” To the pagan, our Christian laughter is madness, because they know not the mirth of fighting a battle already won. To the pagan, our sorrow is unfounded, because they know not the Eden for which we mourn.
Do not mourn or laugh like a non-believer. Weep as God did when made incarnate, and laugh as God does even now, seated on his terrible throne.
