Church is always a curious mixture of those who are rejoicing and those who mourning. Buried in Romans 12 is Paul's call to the church to "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." As part of our loving one another we can both rejoice when we weep and weep when we rejoice. There is phenomenal wisdom is this little verse. Seeing others rejoicing reminds us of God's goodness and not to judge our God by circumstances but to have an eye on eternity and view this world as our temporary home. But there is also great wisdom in the call to weep with others when we are rejoicing - it keeps us from associating God's goodness only with blessing and rejoicing, again liberating us from a circumstantial view of God, and it reminds us of the brokenness of the world and that our hope is not in it but in our Father.
Church is always a mixture of the two, the couple struggling with the loss of a child whilst another joyfully announces their pregnancy. The news of an engagement whilst someone struggles with their marriage or singleness. Those celebrating promotion whilst another face redundancy and so on and so on. Rejoicing and weeping with others is a call to love our neighbours as ourselves and be free from self absorption. It is a call to love god's people rather than wallow in self pity, to focus on God and his sovereign fatherly goodness and care rather than on circumstances.
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