Every year at this season, the “news” goes between how more depressing this time of year is to how it’s really a myth that this time of year is more depressing than others. I think what is most certainly depressing is that when everyone, including Christians, hear depression we think therapy or more likely medicine, we don’t think Word and Sacrament let alone the pastoral office. Since the late 70’s Confessional Lutheran theologians (and not just ‘nuts’, ‘rightwing’, ‘stormtroopers’ like me) have warned that psychologists and psychiatrists would replace the historic curer of souls, pastors (Seelsorger), if the church kept kowtowing to these. Well that ship has long sailed, about 30 years, and I for one and glad be no longer plying those seas.
If depression is a disease as the main speaker at the high school-aimed Higher Things in 2018 said repeatedly, emphatically, so that Queen Gertrude would’ve spoken up; if this is true, don’t go to a curer of souls for that anymore than you for your diabetes.
For my part, give me a spirit of heaviness, languidity, faintness, despair, or weakness for which I have Word and Sacrament, the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit, angels and archangels rather than the disease of depression for which I need doctoring.
Speaking of the Spirit, what about Isaiah 11:2? “And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” Spirit should be capitalized as it is in ESV, EHV, and NKJV. The point is if there is a Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and fear of the LORD, then there is spirit of stupidity, misunderstanding, discouragement, weakness, ignorance, and no-fear of the LORD (Ps. 36:1; Rom. 3:18).
Isn’t this spirit what Isaiah 61:3 speaks of? Or do you think Isaiah had something different than we do? How about Churchill, Spurgeon, or Luther? No, no, they were not of a different spirit than we are in these matters.
“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness[1]; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified”( KJV).
“To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness” planted by God to display his glory” (MSG).
“To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (NASB).
“And provide for those who grieve in Zion– to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor” (NIV).
“(He has sent me) to provide for all those who grieve in Zion, to give them crowns instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of {tears of} grief, and clothes of praise instead of a spirit of weakness. They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, the Plantings of the Lord, so that he might display his glory” (GW).
“to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, a cloak of praise instead of a faint spirit, so that they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord to display his beauty”(EHV).
“to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified” (ESV).
[1] Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon “failing, weak, specially of wick burning with a very little flame, almost gone out…of a spirit broken down, Isa. 61:3” How about Elton singing of Marilyn and then of Lady Di:
“And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in”
Better still how about our Lord who doesn’t snuff a dimply burning wick (Is. 43:2)? To paraphrase Conway Twitty’s 1987 hit: That’s His job!
