Blessed by Restoration Joy
#Blessed by Restoration-Joy
PSALM 126
PSALMS OF ASCENT
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
We were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“the LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, LORD,
like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.
A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem during feast times included singing Psalms 120 – 134, the songs of Ascent or going up. This month, we will ponder and pray through Psalm 126, the seventh of the 15 songs. Its theme, joy, reminds me of the book written by C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, a memoir that explores his journey from atheism to Christianity, detailing the “surprising” moments of joy that he experienced along the way.
I just returned from my first pilgrimage with six other ladies. We walked 122,6 km between Malgas and L’Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa, during August, my quiet month. I did not know three of the ladies, and it was, therefore, especially delightful to discover that all of them laughed easily. As a young woman who enjoyed travelling, I quickly learnt that a joyful heart is the most essential piece of luggage.
Yet, joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship; it is a consequence, Eugene Peterson reminds us. He tongue in the cheek illustrates this by relating the story of Martin Luther and his close friend, Philipp Melanchthon, the author of the Augsburg Confession. Melanchthon was a cool man, whereas Luther was fervid, a scholar as opposed to a doer, and he continued to live like a monk even after he had joined the German Reformation… One day, Luther lost patience with Melanchthon’s virtuous reserve. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ he roared, ‘why don’t you go out and sin a little? God deserves to have something to forgive you for!’
A Word of Praise
The psalm begins with a scene of nearly delirious joy as the exiles remember their deliverance from the Babylonian captivity. Instead of using the terribly ‘wrong’ word unbelievable – one we so frequently employ to describe the miraculously good and impossible breakthroughs wrought by God in our lives, they compare the events that lead to their freedom and return to Jerusalem as having a dreamlike quality to it — as if they had to pinch themselves to realize their freedom was a real-life event.
Peterson aptly explains that this exuberant JOY has a history! During this dark chapter in Israel’s story, they experienced the worst that can come to any of us: rape in the streets, cannibalism in the kitchen, a nine-hundred-sixty-five kilometre forced march across a desert, and the taunting mockeries of captors. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem, but also make it very clear that she has served her sentence, that her sin is taken care of – forgiven! (Isaiah 40: 1-2 MSG)
Two questions: What captivity has God freed you from, or do you need Him to free you from?
The story of God’s grace and his deliverance to the Israelites was such that the nations took notice, acknowledging the miraculous hand of God, ‘The LORD has done great things for them!” The Israelites took this phrase and joyously repeated it, for it is a theme mentioned by many in the Bible:
o Samuel preached about it. (1 Samuel 12:24)
o David thanked the Lord for it. (2 Samuel 7:21,23)
o Mary sang about it. (Luke 1:49)
o The healed demoniac told everybody about it (Luke 8:39)
More Questions: What are the effects of God’s intervention in your life? What has God done for you? Have you ever seen Him work in a situation that was indisputably Him?
A Word of Prayer
As these pilgrims ponder their past and deliberate their deliverance, they also pray to the Lord for the future. You see, just as joy builds on the past, it borrows from the future, expecting certain things to happen. Two images fix their hope: The first is “bring rains to our drought-stricken lives” (MSG) or “Restore our fortunes, LORD” (NIV)
The Negev, in the south of Israel, is a vast desert, and its watercourses, or Wadi’s, are a network of ditches cut into the soil by wind and rain erosion. During the rainy season, these can become dangerous flood areas. In many ways, our own lives are like this – drought-stricken – and then, suddenly, the long years of barren waiting are interrupted by God’s invasion of grace, much like a sudden downpour in the desert. It somewhat echoes Paul’s prayer for the Philippians – complete the work you started, God!
I love how the NKJV translation cries out in verse 4, “Bring back our captivity, O LORD—for those who have been set free, indeed are crying out to the LORD, to return the rest of the exiles to their homeland.” This burden for their brothers and sisters to be delivered, as expressed here in prayer, is a reminder for the church. Every one of us who has been delivered from our sins should carry a burden for those still lost in sin.
A Word of Promise
The second image takes us back to farming, for the ancient Israelites were a strongly agricultural society, and thus, the Bible is filled with farming references and metaphors. Farming can be full of heartbreak in an ordinary year, but imagine the state of the land when the exiles returned. The fields were fallow, and there was no harvest and little food to eat. All they had was a few precious seeds that held the promise of a future harvest. Planting them was done with weeping, for they knew everything depended on the next crop. I love how the King James version refers to these seeds as precious! Imagine the faith of the farmer as he hides these precious seeds in the barren earth, patiently waiting for them to sprout, multiply and mature. The triumph of the Sower who trusted God to transform these seeds into a great harvest can be seen in the joy with which he carries the fruit of his labours.
In a similar vein, God expects his church, each one of us, to bear the burden for the lost, sowing seeds of the Gospel message as we navigate our lives from Monday to Sunday. Just as Jesus and Paul carried this burden, so should we. At times, this burden may lead us to tears. I am reminded of a group of Salvation Army volunteers who found themselves at their lowest point. Unsure of what to do, they sent a telegram to their founding father, William Booth, seeking advice. His response was simple yet profound: “Try tears!”
In many ways we are all sowing tears: maybe over an Absalom son or a prodigal daughter; maybe over our failures and mistakes, or perhaps we are weeping over disappointed hopes. How wonderful to be reminded that God carefully collects our tears for His bottle, standing vigil and guarding our buried seed.
The repeated promise implies there is no end to weeping here, as there shall be no end to joy hereafter.
And those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:10
