Charles Spurgeon spoke of depression as the soul relentlessly bleeding out — like one who dies again and again, hour upon hour.
The mind can descend far lower than the body, for in it there are bottomless pits. The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again each hour. (Spurgeon’s Sorrows, 16)
According to Spurgeon, our depressions of various kinds make us like those who “traverse” the “howling desert.” We endure “winters.” We are “bruised as a cluster, trodden in the wine-press,” and we enter the “foggy day” amid storms, like those “caught in a hurricane.” “The waters roll continually wave upon wave” over top of us. We are like those “haunted with dread” in the “dark dungeon” or “sitting in a chimney-corner under an accumulation . . . of pains, and weaknesses, and sorrows.” We “sit in darkness, like one who is chilled and benumbed, and over whom death is slowly creeping.” We are as “panting warriors” and “poor fainting soldiers,” crying out for relief from this “long fight of affliction” (49).
His sermons use the metaphors that Scripture offers for the sorrowing, titles such as “the frail leaf” (Job 13:25), the “wounded spirit” (Proverbs 18:14 KJV), the “fainting soul” (Psalm 42:6), and “the bruised reed” (Isaiah 42:1–3).
Spurgeon described his personal experience with depression while standing before his congregation to preach. They’d been through thick and thin together for many years.
He who now feebly expounds these words knows within himself more than he would care or dare to tell of the abysses of inward anguish. . . . Terrors are turned upon me, they pursue my soul as the wind. (48)
I am quite out of order addressing you tonight. I feel extremely unwell, excessively heavy, and exceedingly depressed. (78)
We know Charles Spurgeon as the prince of preachers, but Spurgeon became a friend and pastor to the depressed, answering letters, visiting, and being visited.
Sympathetic Savior
The garden of Gethsemane, which Spurgeon called the “garden of sorrow,” becomes for us a consoling picture of the “mental depression” of Jesus. “Bodily pain should help us to understand the cross,” he says, but “mental depression should make us apt scholars at Gethsemane.” “The sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to his sacrifice” (75).
So, when the book of Hebrews says that Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are,” and that “because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 4:15; 2:18), Spurgeon readily applied this sympathy of Jesus to include not only our physical weaknesses but also our “mental depression” (75).
The result? Sufferers of depression can find a place to rest within the storyline of Jesus. “How completely it takes the bitterness out of grief,” Spurgeon explains, “to know that it once was suffered by him” (62–63).
Sometimes in our depression, the cross, the empty tomb, and the future return of Jesus offer little or no felt comfort. In such moments, what our anxious, howling sorrows need is the man of Gethsemane.
With Us in the Garden
In Gethsemane, we realize that ours is no distant king, staying back in safety while sending his soldiers to fight and die or overcome on their own. In Gethsemane, we see our King go first. Here is no aloof monarch but one among us, leading from the front even when it comes to sorrows.
He hungers when his people do. He thirsts when they thirst. He puts aside the cup of water offered to him, passing it to a fellow soldier who looks more faint than himself.
Therefore, we who see him fight and suffer among us begin to believe that we too can endure. We cry out, “This day, assuredly, we can bear poverty, slander, contempt or bodily pain, or death itself; because Jesus Christ our Lord has borne it.” Indeed, “if there be consolation anywhere, surely it is to be found in the delightful presence of the Crucified.” “Ordinary mourners . . . sip at sorrow’s bowl, but he drains it dry” (64).
The sorrowing have a Savior, yes! But also a fellow Friend. He will enter sorrows we cannot overcome with a deep-cave vein of joy we do not possess. And from that sympathy and strength, he will lift our head, and we will behold his grace upon grace. By his means, we will stand and laugh again.
Hasty Is Harmful
Spurgeon points to the sorrowing Savior to defend those of us who experience depression from people like Job’s friends, friends too hasty with their help.
Is another’s sorrow and fear warranted and proportional to what he or she is experiencing? After all, to cry about crying things and to feel frightened by frightening things are not sins. We weep with those who weep.
If anxiety or depression is taking hold of a soul with grief or fear out of proportion to the sorrow faced, we must still slow down and discern the source. Is the sorrow due to circumstantial trauma, a conscience issue, something bound up in the body?
Whatever the situation, we slow down into wiser kindnesses in our care.
Especially judge not the sons and daughters of sorrow. Allow no ungenerous suspicions of the afflicted, the poor, and the despondent. Do not hastily say they ought to be more brave, and exhibit a greater faith. Ask not — “why are they so nervous, and so absurdly fearful?” No . . . I beseech you, remember that you understand not your fellow man. (41)
According to Spurgeon, “strong minded people are very apt to be hard upon nervous folk” and “to speak harshly to people who are very depressed in spirit, saying, ‘really, you ought to rouse yourself out of that state.’”
The result is that a strong person may say to a poor suffering one, “Stuff and nonsense! Try to exert yourself!” But when he does this, he utters “one of the most cruel things that can be said to the sufferer.” By trying to help, he “only inflicts additional pain.”
Comfortless Comforters
What accounts for our tendency to be impatient in our care for those suffering from depression?
First, we may judge others according to our circumstances rather than theirs. “There are a great many of you who appear to have a large stock of faith, but it is only because you are in very good health and your business is prospering. If you happened to get a disordered liver, or your business should fail, I should not be surprised if nine parts out of ten of your wonderful faith should evaporate” (67).
Second, we may still think that trite sayings or a raised voice can heal deep wounds. A person “may have a great spiritual sorrow, and someone who does not at all understand his grief, may proffer to him a consolation which is far too slight.” Like a physician who offers a common ointment for a deep wound, we “say to a person in deep distress things which have really aggravated him and his malady too” (68).
Third, we may resist humility regarding our own lack of experience. “There are some people who cannot comfort others, even though they try to do so, because they never had any troubles themselves. It is a difficult thing for a man who has had a life of uninterrupted prosperity to sympathize with another whose path has been exceedingly rough” (68).
Devilish Enemy
Spurgeon also points us to the sorrowing Savior to defend us from our enemy the devil. Here he takes a marked turn in his usually gentle approach as a caregiver and sufferer. When we face our ancient foe, there remains only one thing we sorrowing ones can and must do. We must fight! We may not understand our sorrow. We need great help in our depression. Much lies beyond our control. But as it relates to the devil, we are vouched for by Jesus, and we can act. Spurgeon says,
The soul is broken in pieces, lanced, pricked with knives, dissolved, racked, pained. It knows not how to exist when it gives way to fear. Up, Christian! You are of a sorrowful countenance; up and chase your fears. Why would you be ever groaning in your dungeon? Why should Giant Despair forever beat you with his Crabtree cudgel? Up! Drive him away! (34)
But how? In essence, we use the phrase, “you might be right, but Jesus.”
You might be right, things are worse than I thought, but Jesus!
You might be right, all is lost, but Jesus!
You might be right, I am abandoned, but Jesus!
You might be right, I am forfeit, but Jesus!
You might be right, I should stay down, but Jesus!
You might be right, it would be too late for me, but Jesus!
You might be right, I am out of reach, but Jesus!
You might be right, I am a sinner, but Jesus!
You might be right, they would be better off without me, but Jesus!
You might be right, I deserve to die, but Jesus!
We plead not ourselves but the promises of Jesus; not our strengths but his; our weaknesses, yes, but always his mercies.
Our way of fighting is to hide behind Jesus, who fights for us. Our hope is not the absence of our regret or misery or doubt or lament, but the presence of Jesus. “Doubting Castle may be very strong, but he who comes to fight with Giant Despair is stronger still!” (35).
Desiring God