Exuberant Joy

Psalm 126

On August 15, 1945, my father was on his US Navy ship in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, one of thousands of ships assembled for the scheduled invasion of Japan on November 1. He had just celebrated his 24th birthday two weeks earlier and was the second oldest on his ship of 75 young men. August 15, 1945 is known in the US as VJ day, victory over Japan. This is what my dad remembered of that day.

When we were in Leyte Gulf, when it was announced the war was over, that was something. We had gotten word that the war was over but then that it was a false alarm. Then a few hours later it was official. We were in Leyte Gulf staging for going into Japan and I think every ship in the fleet was in there. Leyte Gulf was big but you had trouble finding a place to anchor.

When the war was over, we fired up all of our pyrotechnics, which were flares and so forth, and VERY pistols. We had several pistols we fired. Each one had a different color and a different shape. On our flag deck we had a big locker full of signal rockets and flares and every ship emptied their whole locker. They played their searchlights all over the place in the water. They rang the ship’s bell and blew their whistles. We broke our ship’s bell and blew out the motor on our air compressor. We had to fix that the next day. And fire-fighting ships were running through the harbor with their hoses all streaming up in the air and with colored plastic over the lights. Some ships shot off their guns and an order went out to knock that off. Our pharmacist mate went over to a cruiser and got a great big can of medical alcohol and we broke out all of our grapefruit juice and mixed medical alcohol and grapefruit juice. It was a real wild night. Ever since then, fireworks on July 4th have been anticlimactic.

Everyone knew that there would be a lot of casualties in the invasion of Japan. Estimates are that one million American military and one million Japanese military and civilians would have been killed during this invasion. So the celebration was exuberant. There would be no invasion. The war was over. They would not die and soon they would be going home. Every time our family went to an American Independence Day fireworks celebration, my dad remembered the joy of that night in 1945.

When was the last time you were out-of-control excited? I mean yelling and screaming and slapping each other on the back and hugging excited.

In the world of sports, there are celebrations when a national team wins the African Cup or European Cup or one of the other regional competitions. And then the nation whose team wins the World Cup really celebrates.

There is a lot of excitement when a favorite sports team wins a competition, and when a country is victorious in war, the victory is even greater. People may not know where they were when their sports team won a championship, but my parents’ generation remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news that WWII was over.

In more recent memory, there have been two exuberant celebrations. One is when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. For almost thirty years Berlin had been divided by this wall with East German guards who shot those attempting to cross from East to West. I visited relatives in East Berlin nine months before the wall came down and no one could have predicted that in less than a year the border between East and West Berlin would be open. When the wall was opened people began taking hammer and chisels and chopping away at it in a grand celebration. My cousins sent me pieces of the wall and wrote: “Enclosed we send you pieces of the wall that we ourselves on 1/1/90 in the area of the Brandenburg Gate knocked out of the wall with the sweat of our faces, with hammer and chisel, and thereby made the wall a little more permeable.”

One year later Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the end of apartheid in South Africa came into view. This official system of discrimination against non-white South Africans had existed for more than forty years and seemed it would never end. For 27 years Mandela was in prison. It seemed that he would die in prison and apartheid would go on forever. But then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the president of South Africa began discussions with Mandela and what seemed impossible came to be a reality. The celebration was exuberant.

What had seemed would last forever was now a memory. What had seemed impossible was now a reality. My father came home and had six children, and by the time he died, 17 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. The wall that had separated East and West Berlin was replaced by new buildings and slabs of the wall became a memorial. Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa and celebration ensued.

Psalm 126 was written at a time of exuberant celebration. After seventy years in exile in Babylon, the Jews were coming back home to Jerusalem and they could not contain their joy. This is a psalm of joy, uncontainable joy.

Joy is an important word in the Bible and the second of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5. What becomes clear as you read the 210 verses in the Bible that contain the word joy is that God wants us to be joyful.

To be overwhelmed by the pressures around us, to be beaten down, to walk around in a cloud of gloom, this is not God’s desire for us. God wants us to be joyful. To live a life of worry and anxiety, to be filled with fear, to live a life controlled by strict adherence to rules and regulations, this is not God’s desire for us. God wants us to be joyful.

Joy is not a superficial emotion. Happiness is superficial. When I get what I want, I am happy. When I don’t get what I want, I am unhappy. But joy comes from deep within and persists through difficulty and sorrow. When we focus on God and what God has done for us, we are filled with joy which allows us to carry our joy through difficult times. Look at the example Jesus set for us. (Hebrews 12:2)
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus agonized, suffered and endured the physical, mental and spiritual pain on the cross because his focus was on what he knew would happen after all this suffering. Suffering doesn’t last forever for the Christian. Suffering will always end for the Christian. Eternal life lived in the presence of God in paradise is what lasts forever and so pain and difficulty can be endured.

Because of this, James says in his letter: (James 1:2-4)
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3  because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Jesus is forever; suffering is only temporary, and this allows joy to be our continual experience.

Joy may be our continual experience but it can be dampened by the weight of our worries and anxieties. This has been my experience in recent months. The news of the world pulls me down. I look hard for some good news but it is difficult to find. Anarchy and terrorism is on the rise. Self-centered politicians and self-absorbed voters dominate the news. Culture is steadily degrading with decreasing respect for others and a celebration of sin. I receive reports of followers of Jesus who seem to be pulled by financial gain as much as they are drawn to Jesus.

In the midst of this I hold on to my hope that Jesus is at work and the time is steadily approaching when Jesus will call an end to time and we will all appear before him to be judged. Jesus will be seated on his throne and the devil will be cast into oblivion. This world with all its sin and corruption will not last and so I have a quiet joy that carries me through the disappointment of this world.

Psalm 126 describes a time when that joy could not be contained, when that joy was not quiet. Seventy years earlier the unthinkable had happened. Jerusalem had been conquered by the Babylonians. This was a humiliating, national defeat but it was also a religious defeat. The Lord God was the protector of Israel. The Temple in Jerusalem was his dwelling place on earth. Israel had experienced many difficult moments in its history, but it had never been conquered – until now. The Babylonians took the leaders of Israel and marched them to exile in Babylon. They were crushed, defeated, full of questions and doubts. How could God have allowed this to happen to them? Most of those who made the long, bitter walk to Babylon died in Babylon. Seventy years later when the exiles returned to Jerusalem, only a few old men and women had memories of that bitter defeat.

The children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these exiles grew up in Babylon. They heard stories of what they had never seen. They read in the Bible of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They read of Moses who led Israel to the Promised Land and of Joshua who led the military conquest of Canaan. But they read of what they had never seen.

The exiled Jews spent a lifetime and a half of longing, waiting, praying, and wondering if God would ever answer their prayers. Then all of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzar died, his successor was overthrown by Cyrus of Persia and the Hebrews were on their way home. The unthinkable happened. They returned to Jerusalem. They began to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple and the celebration was exuberant. Psalm 126 begins with:
When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion,
we were like men who dreamed.
2 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.

The impossible was now a reality and joy was the mood of the people. It bubbled from deep within and could not be contained. Mouths were filled with laughter. Tongues burst forth with songs of joy. The key verse of Psalm 126 is verse 3:

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

The joy used in this psalm is translated in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, by the word from which we get euphoria. It is celebrating what has long been awaited joy.

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

This is a present tense statement of the condition of the psalm writer and those for whom the psalm was originally written. Those who are called “we” in this psalm are glad in the present because of their memory of what God did for them in the past.

This short psalm has a wonderful structure. We are glad in the present (verse 3) because of what God did for us in the past (verses 1&2) and because of what God will do in the future (verses 4, 5, & 6). The psalm starts out in the past tense, moves to the key verse of the psalm in the present tense and then concludes in the future tense.

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy because we remember when…

This is not the only time in history that people celebrated because of what God had done. For many years Israel worked as slaves in Egypt. They were a  captive slave-force, building pyramids for the Pharaoh. They were being mistreated and abused. The next thing they knew, they were across the Red Sea and celebrating their deliverance from Egypt. They sang with Moses and Miriam: (Exodus 15:1–2)
I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
2 The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

Many years later Israel was sitting, paralyzed by fear as they faced the Philistines and their champion warrior, Goliath. The next moment, David had cut off Goliath’s head and the Philistines had been routed and Israel was celebrating.

The disciples had studied under Jesus and were sent out on their first field assignment, thirty-six pairs of disciples, and they returned rejoicing. (Luke 10:17)
The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”
You can hear them celebrating with each other, telling their stories of how God had worked through them, and what they had experienced.

Over and over again in the Bible, throughout church history, and into the present, what has seemed impossible has become a reality. There was no way it could happen and then it did happen. “we were like men who dreamed.” What was impossible entered history. Joy is not illusive. There is a history of joy upon which we can stand, remember, and be glad.

We are glad in the present because of what God has done in the past and we are glad in the present because we know God will again, repeatedly, inevitably act in a way that leads us to celebrate.

The psalmist uses two images to talk of God’s future inevitable intervention in history.
4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams in the Negev.
5 Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
6 He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.

The first image is that of streams in the Negev. The Negev, in the south of Israel, is a desert. The streams of the desert are dry, baked by the sun. But then comes a sudden rain and they are filled with water and the desert comes alive with blossoms.

We can go through barren years. In the history of the church, there have been periods of revival when whole cultures have been transformed and the church has been the vital, living, creative center of life. But there have also been periods in which the church has been weak, ineffective and seemingly irrelevant to society. Voltaire, of the French Enlightenment in the middle 1700s, confidently predicted that the church would become extinct within his lifetime and the only Bibles would be found in museums. The church appeared to be so weak that it seemed a viable prediction. But eleven years after he died the Second Great Awakening came and a hundred years after his prediction, the French Bible Society was located in his house.

Time and time again, it has seemed as if the church has outlived it’s usefulness. It has been led by corrupt leaders, seduced by materialism, and seeking the benefit of those in power rather than the people. The television evangelists of today who plead for more and more money to support their gaudy, extravagant lifestyles are not new to church history, merely the latest version of sinful humans who take advantage of the church for their own benefit.

But despite the bleakness of the landscape, despite the pollution of the church, it has risen time and time again from the ashes of greed, decadence, and institutional rigidity to once more be the fresh, exuberant expression of God’s kingdom on earth.

Fresh, living water always comes to bring life to barren, sun-baked streams in the desert.

The second image of future joy in this psalm is that of bringing in a harvest. There is always an element of uncertainty when planting a crop. Will there be too much rain, too little rain, rain but at the wrong time, a storm that will wreck the harvest, a freeze that will destroy the crop, a disease that will eat away the harvest?

5 Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
6 He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.

The psalmist seems to indicate that kind of tentativeness. There is no indication that those sowing have a high degree of confidence that the seeds they are planting will ever result in a harvest. Maybe there have been recent raids in which the harvest has been taken and there is no confidence this will not happen again. Perhaps there has not been enough rain and the seeds are sown with a distinct possibility they will rot in the ground. Whatever the circumstances, Psalm 126 tells us that though we sow in tears, we will return with songs of joy because of the harvest that will be reaped.

There have been many who have labored, planting seeds, in the history of the church. We, as Christians, wherever we live, whatever we do, are planting seeds. Just by our daily interactions and in the relationships we are building, we are planting seeds. It may  not seem that the soil is ripe for sowing, but as a Christian, whether you intend to or not, God is using you to plant seeds.

The church, that in the early years of church history thrived in North Africa, has been almost extinct for thirteen hundred years. The church today is restricted in what it is permitted to do. The persecution of followers of Jesus is intense. There can be a lot of uncertainty in our hearts as we look toward a harvest, but there will be a harvest. Seeds are sown in sorrow, without much hope for a harvest, but the harvest will come with songs of joy. The church is growing in Iran and Saudi Arabia where the persecution of followers of Jesus is most intense. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the inevitable growth of the Kingdom of God.

So do not be discouraged if it seems difficult to plant seeds, if the harvest seems dubious.  Remember that God will produce the harvest, and that he will bring you joy.

It is possible to have joy in the present, even when the present causes us to suffer because we know there will be a harvest. In Psalm 125 we learned that we can be secure in our relationship with God even when evil is reigning because we know that evil is always temporary. Evil does not endure.

Psalm 126 makes the same point, but on the positive side. We can have joy in the present because we know that there will be a harvest. The fields will not be barren forever. The seed will grow and it will be harvested.

Now here is the problem for us. We live in the McDonalds and Burger King age of instant gratification. We walk into a fast-food restaurant and if we don’t have our meal in sixty seconds, we are impatient. We want food and we want it now and most times we get it when we want it.

We pray and ask God for help and then we wait. We do not like to wait, but we wait. We wait for a week, two weeks, two months, a year, maybe even two years or even five years or ten years and finally we say enough is enough. What does it mean in the Scripture that God is our help? We prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing has happened, nothing has changed.

“You helped Israel escape from Egypt,” we pray. “Why not help us?” But Israel prayed for help for at least eighty years and probably longer before God helped. That means that no one alive during the Exodus could remember a time when they or their parents had not been praying to God for deliverance. People of faith prayed their entire life for help, for deliverance, and died without seeing their prayer answered. But even so, their prayer was answered – just not in their lifetime. Their prayer was answered in God’s time.

The Hebrews who returned after the Babylonian Exile were, with a few possible exceptions, Hebrews who had been born in captivity. Sixty to seventy years had passed from the time when the Babylonians defeated Israel and took them away. The prayers of those who died in captivity were answered. Israel did return from captivity to Jerusalem. What was longed for and prayed for did happen, in God’s time.

The psalmist says we are glad because of what God did for us in the past and we are glad because God will do it once again, in his time.

We don’t know why God acts when he does. We don’t understand why God does not act sooner than he does. We don’t know why but we do know that God does act decisively in history in a way that leads us to celebration.

I know that some of you are moving through very difficult times. I know that some of you have prayed for revival in this land and in other parts of the world for many years and the events of the past few years can seem very discouraging. I am reminded of the sadness of the world every week when I look at the pictures of the children at the Village of Hope that are in our bulletin. It has been more than 3 ½ years since I have seen the children.

Deep down, I know that God is at work and so I have hope. I sow in tears and have hope that I will reap with songs of joy. I grieve for the people of this country who are trapped in poverty and the lack of opportunity to use the talents God has given them. I long to see people set free and the culture transformed so that it becomes less self-centered and more other-centered.

It is painful for me to watch people make poor choices and painful to see the leadership of nations fight for power at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve. But I continue to pray. I go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, and I have hope that I will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with me.

Sow in your family. Sow in your neighborhood. Sow in this country and wherever you go. Even though we wait for an answer to the desire of our hearts, we are glad. Even though we see no answer to the desire of our hearts, we do not give up hope. Even though we die without seeing what we long for, we do not die in despair. God will do what he promised.
We are not fighting for a lost cause. God will bring the harvest.

Psalm 126 does not give us a formula for joy. It reminds us that joy does not come without sorrow. It reminds us that the joy we seek comes from God’s inevitable acts in history, acts that fill our mouths with laughter and puts songs of joy on our tongues. It reminds us of the promises of a God who accompanies his wandering, weeping children until they arrive home, exuberant, bringing in the sheaves.

It speaks of people who gather to worship God whose lives are lived between memories of God’s mighty, inevitable interventions in history and God’s certain promises of future inevitable interventions.

It speaks of people of faith who, despite the conditions of their lives, are able to say, “We are filled with joy.”

As the Hebrew pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem for their annual festivals, this psalm put hope and joy into their hearts. I pray that it will do that for you as well.