Inconsolable desire. Nostalgia for something we have never known. Homesickness for a home we cannot name. The pervasive edge to even our happiest moments, that makes even beauty hurt, and reminds us that those moments are fleeting. These feelings are wrapped up in the German word “sehnsucht,” a deep sense of longing for something we cannot quite pinpoint.
Out of this desire comes, as C. S. Lewis writes, “nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
This hopeless pursuit of happiness leads to what the writer of Ecclesiastes calls vanity: “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” Our lives are fragile and fading; they will eventually be forgotten, and any attempt to create our own happiness is futile.
Where does this inconsolable desire come from? In Ecclesiastes 3:11, we are told that God “has put eternity into man’s heart.” We were created for eternity, and every longing, every desire, every attempt to fill our empty hearts, is an attempt to get back to the Garden. Not only do we long for eternity, but creation itself groans with longing.
Yet on our own, our attempts end in vanity. This is the root of injustice, pain and suffering. In our pursuit of happiness, we climb all over each other, trying to rise to the top at others’ expense. Our futile efforts to chase desire lead only to despair.
Yet hope comes, in another garden: Gethsemane. Here, we see the Man of Sorrows, on his knees, weeping tears of blood, praying that the cup of the Father’s wrath will be removed from him. But he goes on for the joy set before him, and drinks that cup to its very dregs, with his outstretched arms on the cross beckoning us not only back to the Garden of Eden, but also into an entire New Creation. This new creation is more than a garden: it is a City.
If we have this hope, then why do we still struggle with nameless desire? Why is joy still tinged with grief? Perhaps, as Lewis writes, it is because whatever beauty we see here is “not the thing itself… only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
Thus, in a sense, sehnsucht is not only backward-looking, but also forward-looking. In Romans 8:23, Paul says, “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Our longing looks forward to the day when all will be made right and joy will no longer be mingled with grief.
In the meantime, what sustains us? Paul writes in Romans 8 that the Spirit, “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” When we are so grief-stricken that we don’t know how to pray, when we feel like we are listlessly drifting through life and all seems to be vanity, and when even our joy has an element of sorrow for something we cannot name—he intercedes for us.
Even when we cannot find the words to express our longing, the Spirit hears our unuttered prayers, the deepest whispers of our hearts that even we cannot make sense of. We can struggle, long, and lament, but we must take it to God, who will carry us into the future weight of glory to which our current sufferings and joys alike are not even worth comparing.
So what is the answer to sehnsucht, to inconsolable desire? To go to the One who hears our groaning and intercedes for us, and to look forward to the day when we enter into his eternal joy: the weight of glory which we were made for. Our desire will not remain inconsolable forever.