Psalm 30, verse 5:
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
Luke 2:10-11:
“. . . The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see---I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”
If your mind has been turned toward the massacre of school children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, you may not see much cause for joy. Let’s admit right up front: There is nothing that brings us joy as we think of the shooting spree which left some twenty children and several adults dead.
Our hearts grieve for those grade school children whose lives were snuffed out and for the teacher and adults in the school who died as well. The parents and other family members see little joy as they try to come to terms with the deaths of their little six- and seven-year-olds.
People have said some senseless things after hearing about this. A former governor who tried to get the presidential nomination in 2008 gave his explanation for these deaths. This politician-turned-television commentator, said,
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" (Huckabee) Earlier this year, this man said about another mass shooting:
". . . since we've ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn't act so surprised" when such things happen."
That kind of thing is said quite often by politicians. But a neighbor of ours put something up on Facebook today which is a good answer to these reckless statements. Vic McDade posed a question:
For those who ignorantly say "we have taken God out of our schools", how can we
or the government remove an omnipotent, omnipresent God? If the government did not
put Him there, how can the government remove Him? God is working all around the world
in places where He is not allowed by the government. Have enough faith to know God
is always with us if we are His children. God bless.
We don’t know what to say in the face of these killings, abroad or at home. But a pastor in Vermont gave some pointers about what NOT to say, but also some appropriate things to say in the face of death, especially when children die. Pastor Emily Heath previously was a chaplain in the emergency department of a children’s hospital. She said she so many senseless tragedies, but she said, “I also heard some of the wort theology of my life coming from people who thought they were bringing comfort to the parents. More often than not, they weren’t. And often they made the situation worse” (Heath).
Some of the horribly wrong things people say include these:
"God just needed another angel."
Or, "Thank goodness you have other children," or, "You're young. You can have more kids."
Pastor points out that “The loss of a child will always be a loss, no matter how many other children a parent has or will have.”
“We may not understand it, but this was God's will.” The pastor says about that, “Unless you are God, don't use this line.”
But the pastor suggests some things to say which may help the grieving person:
“I don't believe God wanted this or willed it.” We need to remember that not everything that happens is what God wants to happen.
Another thing: It’s good to tell the person it’s OK to be angry and that you will be ready to listen to angry expressions.
You should be quick to admit you don’t know why this happened.
Also, tell the grieving friend that you really can’t imagine or understand what he or she is going through. Because you don’t.
Joy can comes when you least expect it.
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
John I. Durham in The Broadman Bible Commentary paraphrases it this way:
Tears may come to spend the night, but joy comes with the morning (Durham 230).
That contrast between times of sorrow and times of joy is the theme for this entire 30th Psalm. The poet takes us back and forth between sad times and joyous times.
The old Spiritual put it this way:
Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down. Yes, my Lord.
Sometimes I’m almost to the ground. Yes, my Lord.
The Bible is a book of high idealism. But at times it is also a book of hard-down realism. Psalm 30 is realistic in showing how our lives fluctuate between joy and sadness. We often act as if the life of faith is a life of constant joy. But, down deep, we know better.
Right after the line that says “Joy comes with the morning,” the Psalmist says he had thought he could live on the mountaintop always and not worry about going down in the valley:
As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain.
But in the middle of that prosperity, he had a rude awakening:
You hid your face; I was dismayed.
Georgia novelist Terry Kay tells of a young woman who is taken in by the empty promises of an older man, a traveling salesman, who had a “salesman’s way of building castles out of air.” Then someone in the story says, “Lottie wanted to live in castles, even those made of air (Kay 30).
We build castles of air if we think the sun will always shine on us. With that kind of personal building project, we need the somber reminder from the psalmist:
I said in my prosperity,“I shall never be moved” . . . You hid your face; I was dismayed.
Now, let’s consider some situations the psalmist describes in which Joy may come when we don’t expect it:
But let’s back up and look at the opening of this 30th Psalm.
The Psalmist begins with praise because God helped him in a time of great need:
I will extol you [lift up praise to you], O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me. (Strong 107).
When the poet says, you have drawn me up, the word [dalah] pictures letting down a bucket for drawing water. So the writer says, in effect, I was ‘way down in a hole where I couldn’t get out, and the Lord drew me out. [Item 1802 Strong]
Again, most of us have “been there, done that.” You probably can recall times the Lord pulled you out, when you felt you were down in a hole and unable to get out by my own strength.
So the psalm begins with a description of help from God in an unspecified situation.
I read a newspaper story about some of the people who had been displaced by a hurricane. A mother with two daughters told of how they had been doing pretty well as they moved into a rent house they own in a town outside the devastated area. But when Thanksgiving time came, they began to sense their great personal loss and were not able to summon much joy for the extended holiday season from then to Christmas and New Year’s (Mabin). They were still searching for Joy.
Cort Flint was pastor of our First Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina, back in the 1960s. Dr. Flint wrote a book on grief. I’ve always felt the very title was a help in time of trouble. He called the book Grief’s Slow Wisdom. Likewise, joy may come slowly.
It’s true of Peace and of Joy, two Advent themes: You’re not likely to find either one as the direct result of a search. Both Peace and Joy are more likely to come as by-products of drawing near to God.
Then, verses 2-3 describe God’s help in time of sickness:
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol [that is, from the grave], restored me to life so that I might not go down to the Pit.
This word for Pit can mean a cistern used as a dungeon [Strong, Item 953]. So this ties in with being drawn out of water which we noticed in the first verse.
When we are sick, we may feel as helpless as if we were down in a cistern.
From time to time, we hear of miracles of healing. Some of you who listen to this program have told me of such miracles which bring joy to the ill and their families and friends. In terms of the psalmist’s testimony, the Lord restored me to life so that I might not go down to the Pit.
But the ill are not always brought back to life and health.
When healing does not come, this is no reflection on the faith of the patient or the faith of family and friends. But “Joy comes with the morning” when a seriously ill person is healed. We say, with the psalmist in verse 4: Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
The psalmist then notes another time of joy:
v. 5 [God’s] anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime.
With the pressure of guilt, all joy leaves us. But Joy will come if we seek God’s forgiveness.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth wrestles with guilt over the murders she and her husband have committed. So Macbeth asks the court physician:
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow . . . (Shakespeare)
If you are struggling with guilt, let me assure you: God will forgive and bring you lasting joy.
The psalmist offers one more reminder of the source of Joy in verses 11-12:
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth [clothing worn to denote sorrow] and clothed me with Joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
The Hebrew word for joy means a creaking or shrill sound, a shout. [7440 & 7442, Strong]
When we’re aware of God’s incredible goodness to us, it makes us want to shout for joy!
If we search for joy in outward circumstances, the search may well end in futility.
The song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” as originally written, reflects a dismal prospect for joy at Christmas, just hoping for better times “next year”:
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight. . . .
Next year all our troubles will be miles away.
Faithful friends who were dear to us, Will be near to us once more.
Someday soon we all will be together, If the fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow (Martin and Blane).
But, late in life, the composer Hugh Martin became a Christian. So he laid aside the pessimism and, with fellow songwriter John Fricke, rewrote his song this way:
Make the music mighty as the heav'ns allow
And have yourself a blessed little Christmas now (Martin and Fricke).
The time may come when you or I will be alone, with no relative to share the season with. What then? It’ll be rough. But we need to recall that the original meaning of Christmas -- celebrating the coming of Christ into the world and into our lives -- is more basic than the dearest of human relationships. Until we come to terms with that, if our health is bad, if we don’t have children and grandchildren gathered round or if money is tight and we can’t buy presents, we’ll “have to muddle through somehow.”
It comes down to a question of what we are celebrating, of how we define Christmas Joy.
Family gatherings. Yes.
Santa Claus. Yes.
Christmas cards. Yes.
Oodles of good food. Yes.
But where does Baby Jesus factor into all this?
Does Christmas Joy come from these beautiful but external aspects of Christmas?
Or from a deep awareness of God’s revelation of Himself through His Son?
These are not necessarily contradictory, but success in the search for Christmas Joy will depend on our definition.
Our second passage on Joy is from Luke’s Christmas story. Angels bring to shepherds “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10-11).
The shepherds were down-to-earth people, in the most literal sense.
If they came traipsing into our Baraca class room this morning, dressed as they were that night in the fields, smelling as they probably smelled that night in the fields, our impulse would be to invite them back out the door the way they came in.
But Christmas reminds us, Jesus came to live among the plainest kinds of folks.
When those sheep herders in all their grubbiness found the manger with Mary and Joseph and their newborn Son, the shepherds found Joy that sent them out to spread the word of Joy to others.
Someone gave Pastor Joy Heaton in Richmond tickets to a mega-pageant at a mega-church that charged mega-bucks admission. Pastor Heaton felt the whole idea was out of keeping with the simplicity of that first Christmas night with the plain-down shepherds on the hillside.
She said she was grateful for an expense-paid night out but was worn out by Christmas stars that have to be plugged in. She was tired of churches that mirror the American consumer culture that requires us "to pay to sit in a pew because costumes cost so much."
Heaton wondered whether we might sense the real Christmas, with poor people who slept near "animals in stables or out in the fields," if we went out one night to watch some animals. Not a drive-through nativity scene, but out in the country under the stars. She asked whether we would be bored stiff or whether "the silence and stillness [would] draw us into a few precious moments of wonder and awe."
She asked, "When will we realize that the glory of God is not found in a box labeled “Christmas” . . . ? It does not have to be assembled or plugged in (Heaton).
Often children can be ahead of adults in finding joy.
Stephen Shadeeg is a businessman, the father of four children. They had a rule at their house that none of the children could go down to see gifts under the tree until the rest of the family was awake, so they could all go together.
Their son David was seven years old, and he came bounding into his parents’ bedroom about four thirty one Christmas morning. The father said young David’s face glowing with excitement, his mouth running at about ninety miles an hour, as he cried out "Daddy! Mother! Come quick! I saw it!"
As they wiped the sleep from their eyes, both the husband and wife were sure the rule had been broken. David had discovered the new bicycle he had been wanting for two years. They felt cheated that he had rushed ahead and they had missed seeing his discovery. But it was Christmas, after all, and they couldn't scold him for being overly anxious.
They woke the other kids and with the whole family in tow, David led them down the stairs and through the darkened living room toward a window on the eastern side of the house.
He hadn’t even seen his bike under the tree! Rather, he pointed his little finger to the eastern sky and said, “Look! The Star of Bethlehem! I’ve seen the star!” (Sermons.com for Advent 2, 2012)
ADVENT---JOY---SOURCES
Emily C. Heath, “Dealing With Grief: Five Things NOT to Say and Five Things to Say In a Trauma Involving Children,” Huff Post Religion, December 14, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/dealing-with-grief-five-t_b_2303910.html
Mike Huckabee, Mike Huckabee: “Newtown Shooting No Surprise, We've 'Systematically Removed God' From Schools.” Huff Post Politics, December 14, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mike-huckabee-school-shooting_n_2303792.html
Robert Lowry, “How Can I Keep from Singing?” http://www.preciouslordtakemyhand.com/christianhymns/mylifeflowson.html
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