Brown's Daily Word 3-18-13

The Lord blessed us with a very joyful and celebrative weekend. One of our teams prepared and served a very special meal Saturday noon at the First United Methodist Church. On Saturday evening Chef Lou and his team prepare an Easter banquet which was served at the Union Center Unite Methodist Church. Both of these events were full of joy and celebration.

The Psalm for Sunday was taken from Psalm 126. This Psalm, known as a song of ascent, is filled with a sense of dreams come true with laughter, joy, and gladness. It speaks of the fact that THOSE WHO SOW IN TEARS WILL REAP WITH SHOUTS OF JOY. Joy is the outcome of the Christian life. We don’t generate it - the Lord does. None of us have joy intrinsically within ourselves. Many people seek to attain joy through entertainment, which offers a temporary, artificial joy.
The joy of Psalm 126 is past, present, and future. “We were filled with laughter” and “songs of joy”, vs 2; “we are filled with joy”, vs 3; and we “will return with songs of joy” vs 6.

This joy was and is lavished on Israel, giving the nation a reputation for blessedness. “Then it was said among the nations, ‘the Lord has done great things for them’”. When the Jews returned to Israel from Babylon, they were allowed to renew the pattern of their former way of life, which included rebuilding the temple.

We are the given comforting assurance in verse 5: “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” To “sow in tears” is a reference to death. It was a common way of referring to burial; even Jesus used this imagery when He described death as a seed buried in the ground which will sprout into new life (John 12:24). The grave is not the final word. We can rejoice even in the face of death because we have hope for restoration, and the promise of eternal life. Sorrow is our sowing, and rejoicing will be our reaping. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). The release from Babylon was like being raised from death to life.

Verse 6 assures us that though we weep we will rejoice. In Gethsemane, Jesus sowed tears for a world lost in sin. In another garden, He destroyed the power of sin by conquering death. Homecoming and harvest are God’s promises to His people. God weeps with us, so that we may someday rejoice with Him. Because of Jesus, death is not the end of life. “Because I live, you shall live also”, Jesus said. “I am the resurrection and the life; they who believe in Me shall never die.” God took the worst deed of history—the Cross—and turned it into the greatest victory. There will be an end to mourning. God will wipe the tears from our eyes. “We will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”

The image here is that of the harvest when sheaves, bundles of grain, usually wheat or barley, were cut and gathered together. The joy in harvest was a highlight of the year, and a time of great blessing.

Joy is essential to our lives; it is the experience of knowing that we are loved, and we are redeemed, and that nothing in this world can take that blessing away. We often discover joy in the midst of sorrow. During the most painful times we become aware of our Christian reality larger than ourselves, that enables us to hope. Henri Nouwen wrote, “My grief was the place where I found my joy.” We may undergo hardship, but God will have the last word. This means we can rejoice even when our wishes are not realized.

Joy is not an escape from sorrow. We foolishly think we can achieve joy by eliminating the things in life that hurt us. We are experts in constructing futile strategies for achieving joy. When we come to the end of our resources we realize that joy is a gift from God, not an attribute which we can attain on our own work or merit. True joy enables us to face reality, because we do so with the assurance that God is working in our lives, even in the things that cause us pain, to bring about His perfect will.

In Christ,

Brown

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