In the early 1970's, when I was living in northern California, my friends and I spent a lot of time backpacking. Sonoma, where I grew up, was less populated than it is now, and we could put on our backpacks and walk up into the mountains for the weekend. During the summers, we often went for longer times to the Sierras, or to Point Reyes National Seashore. I loved being out in the woods, away from all the noise and confusion of town life.
We were big fans of John Denver. Many of his songs described the kinds of things we looked for when we went out hiking. He always described city life as lonely and alienating (as in “Guess He’d Rather Be in Colorado,” or “Fly Away”). And getting out into nature is presented in his songs as liberating and renewing (as in “Rocky Mountain High,” or “Wild Montana Skies”). His music fit the sort of life we were trying to live and the kinds of things we were hoping to find in the outdoors. And much of what he said was true. It’s certainly true that we see God revealed in His creation, and being out in this world that was created to reveal His glory can be refreshing and rejuvenating. But we weren’t interested in God at all, and John Denver’s music really didn’t talk about Him, except occasionally in a sentimental way.
As I was thinking about John Denver and the effect his music had on me in the early 70's, I did an internet search and found that many people still feel the same way about his music. Here’s an excerpt from one site: “Through his music, I soared like an eagle I touched on the mountaintops in rocky cathedrals. Through his music, I sailed on blue ocean waves, I rode among canyons and on bright stars gazed. Through his music, I saw clear lakes shining bright. I saw forest shadows in a glowing campfire's light. Through his music, I hiked along steep rocky trails. I recalled his wondrous stories and glad magical tales.... Through his music, I felt the passionate gift of love. His spirit brought me peace and solace from high above. Through his music, I felt his pain and heartfelt sadness. In the final days, I cherished his moments of hope & gladness. Through his music, I received gifts far beyond measure, His love, his heart, his life, forever will be my treasure.”
Clearly this tribute goes beyond mere enjoyment of his music and the joy of being in God’s creation. When I was backpacking in the early 70's, I wasn’t interested in God. I was trying to find a sense of meaning and purpose in life, apart from God. And the music I was listening to was part of that whole package. John Denver’s music helped us turn our love of the outdoors into a semi-religious experience. But in his life it didn’t work. In many ways, his later life is a sad commentary on the fruit of worshiping and serving God’s creation, rather than God Himself. Our experience of joy in God’s world could have pointed us to Him, but it didn’t, because we turned it into an idol.
Our hearts long for something more than the things that fill our lives most of the time. What we long for can be summed up in the word joy. C.S. Lewis’ early life was marked by periodic experiences of joy. Here’s what one biographer says: “They arose from seemingly incongruous events, incongruous, that is, until one remembers that the Spirit ‘blows where it listeth.’ He chose the word joy to describe these experiences. It is the best possible word, the shortest and fullest. Joy is the ever-present, central quality in all forms of religious experience. The first time it came to him from the memory of a small garden that his brother had made for him out of a biscuit tin filled with moss, stones, twigs, and tiny flowers. It came again while he was reading a book by Beatrix Potter, his favorite, Squirrel Nutkin. He valued these experiences of joy more than anything else he had known, and he desired, as all who have experienced them desire, to have them again and again. It was this mystical quality that set him apart from other boys. He was surprised by joy. He spent the rest of his life searching for more of it” (George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, p. 52). In this longing for joy, C.S. Lewis and John Denver were very much alike. But Lewis found this longing fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and his longing for the experience of joy became secondary to his desire to know God. Lewis’ longing for joy led him to God. Denver continued seeking joy as an end in itself, and it destroyed him.
Psalm 126 is about the joy of being rescued by God. In my obsession with being outside, away from civilization, I was seeking joy as an end in itself. I wanted the experience of joy, because life without it seemed empty and meaningless. The psalmist recognizes that joy is not an end in itself. Christian joy is responsive. It’s a response to God’s presence and intervention in our lives. It’s a by-product, something that follows from God’s presence.
Joy is more than cheerfulness. One of the ways we can get off track is by turning joy into a moral obligation, a legal requirement. Have you ever known Christians who paint on a happy face, no matter what? When we went on vacation a few years ago, I wanted to read something different from what I normally read, so I picked up some short stories by G.K. Chesterton. Murder mysteries. In one of the stories, the victim is a cheerful optimist, and everyone is asking how anyone could possibly have wanted to murder him. “There was something absurd and unseemly about secret violence in connexion with so entirely entertaining and popular a figure. For Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to the point of being comic; and popular in such a manner as to be almost legendary. It was like hearing that Sunny Jim had hanged himself....” (The Innocence of Father Brown, p. 232). As they’re discussing the matter, Father Brown, the Catholic priest who is the hero in these stories, says: “I’m not sure that the Armstrong cheerfulness is so very cheerful - for other people. You say that nobody could kill such a happy old man, but I’m not sure.... If ever I murdered somebody.., I dare say it might be an Optimist.” One of the bystanders responds: “do people dislike cheerfulness?” And Father Brown replies: “People like frequent laughter..., but I don’t think they like a permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing” (p. 236). There was something wrong about Armstrong’s cheerfulness; it wasn’t quite real. In fact, it wasn’t genuine at all. It turns out that he killed himself; he just couldn’t keep up the act any more.
The psalmist speaks about the joy God’s people experience in response to His intervention. In verses 1-2, he’s looking back on the return from captivity: “When the Lord restored his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!” (New Living Translation). The thing we need to notice here is that the stress is not on their feelings of joy; the stress is on God. The emphasis is on the great things God has done for them. We don’t have that much control over how we feel. Happiness tends to come and go, depending on how our lives are going in this world and how our bodies are functioning at the time. The focus of his joy is God. Rejoicing in the Lord is an act of worship in response to who God is and what He’s done. The Psalms are full of this sort of thing. For example, Psalm 33:1: “Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.” Or Psalm 95:1: “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.” Rejoicing in the Lord is not a cheerful attitude that we choose to adopt; it is an act of worship. We rejoice in the Lord, not by denying the reality of suffering and sorrow in this life, but by turning our gaze to the fact that our eternal God is on the throne.
We rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Romans 5:1-11. Paul mentions rejoicing three times in these verses. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.... Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” We rejoice because we have been reconciled to God and we look forward to an eternal future that incomparably outweighs our present sufferings. The Bible is full of this sort of thing. Joyful worship delights God’s heart.
The psalmist says God’s intervention was so startling that they could hardly believe it was true: “It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion’s exiles” (The Message). Often when God intervenes, it surprises us. One day things seem bleak, and the next day everything has changed. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, because they were jealous of him, and then later he was thrown into prison unjustly. When it looked like he might have an opportunity to get out, he was forgotten and remained in prison for two more years. But then one day the guards came and led him out of the prison, into Pharaoh’s presence to interpret a dream. When he got up that morning, it was just like any other day in prison, like all the other days that had begun and ended with no hope of change. But by the end of the day he was the prime minister of Egypt. No doubt he could have said, looking back, that it was like living in a dream. He had to pinch himself to make sure he was really awake. That’s what it was like for the exiles when they were allowed to return to Jerusalem. “We were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.”
Their experience caught the attention of the surrounding nations: “Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’” Some of the people weren’t pleased about God’s intervention. We know from the accounts in Ezra and Nehemiah that there was much opposition from some of the leaders in the region. But Nehemiah says that when the wall was completed, even those who opposed them recognized that they had received help from God: “When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” (Nehemiah 6:16, NLT). These people didn’t like Israel. They weren’t happy for them. But they had to recognize that the Lord had “done great things for them.”
In verse three, the psalmist draws a general conclusion. He’s begun by remembering God’s intervention in returning the captives from exile, and then he says: “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” They are people for whom God has done great things. The return from exile is one of those things, but there are countless others. Psalm 78 describes how God rescued them from Egypt: “He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt. But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness. He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea closed in upon their enemies. He brought them to the border of his holy hand, to this land of hills he had won for them. He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes” (Psalm 78:51-55, NLT). They are people for whom God has done great things, and their hearts are filled with joy as they call that to mind. God’s intervention in the past continues to affect them in the present, because it shows that God has set His love upon them.
The psalmist looks back on all that God has done, and it fills him with joy. But that doesn’t mean everything is going well. He’s rejoicing in God’s intervention, but God’s intervention hasn’t taken away all their problems. God hasn’t done everything they would have liked Him to do. They’re not rejoicing because God has allowed them to get their own way. Too often when people say God wants them to be happy, they’re only talking about getting their own way. As long as God gives them what they want, they think they’ll be happy. But that’s not what the psalmist is talking about. God has done great things for them, but their present situation is far from ideal.
Those who returned were only a minority, a remnant. Most of the people are still scattered across southern Asia and will never return to Palestine. The nation is under the control of foreign nations and will never again live as they did under the leadership of David and Solomon. The psalmist cries out, in verse 4: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord.” We need to recognize that these two things go together: “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy,” and “Restore our fortunes, O Lord.” It’s perfectly consistent for us to recognize that God has done great things on our behalf, and at the same time cry out to Him for help.
The psalmist uses two images in verses 4-6. The first one is in the second half of verse 4: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev.” The Negev is the southern region of Palestine. For most of the year, this area was dry, parched and arid, covered with a network of ditches carved by centuries of erosion. But during the rainy season these ditches were suddenly filled with water. Eugene Peterson says: “With such suddenness long years of barren waiting are interrupted by God’s invasion of grace into our lives” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 95). The psalmist longs for a greater outpouring of God’s blessing on the nation. He’s done great things in the past, and they rejoice in being people for whom God has intervened. But they long to see Him working among them in new ways. They long for a sudden interruption of God’s grace into their lives.
The second image, in verses 5-6, is that of a sower. “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” It’s not just that the psalmist is longing to see God work in a greater way. He feels genuine sorrow as he looks around at the condition of his nation. This same one who says “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy,” is also sowing in tears. We can see this same tension in the apostle Paul. I mentioned Romans 5, where he says he’s rejoicing in hope, even in the midst of suffering and trouble. And yet, in chapter 9 he says: “My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed–cut off from Christ!–if that would save them” (Romans 9:2-3, NLT). He’s “rejoicing in hope of the glory of God” and “filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people” at the same time. “One of the most interesting and remarkable things that Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness of the redeemed” (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction). The psalmist weeps over the condition of the nation, and he rejoices in the Lord at the same time. These two things are consistent with each other.
Sowing points to everything God’s people contribute toward the building up of God’s kingdom. As the psalmist cried out to God and wept in His presence, he was sowing with tears. As God’s people throughout the centuries have labored to improve the spiritual condition of the Church, they have been sowing with tears. God’s people have been praying for many centuries now, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” They have often prayed that prayer with tears of grief and sorrow; they have been sowing in tears. And they will reap with “songs of joy.” They have lived with a mixture of genuine spiritual joy and grief. But they’ve been sowing in anticipation of that great day when there will be no more grief mixed with our joy. Christian joy, by its very nature, is eschatological. It looks forward to the end of time, when God will wipe away all tears from our eyes and there will be no more sorrow or crying or suffering or death. It’s a “rejoicing in hope.” The psalmist, as he is sowing in tears, is looking forward with confidence to the certainty of a joyful harvest.
Christian joy is responsive. It grows out of a response to God’s intervention in our lives. So how do we make use of this? The most obvious thing is that joy is not something to pursue as an end in itself. The people who are most intent on finding happiness are the ones who so often make a mess of their lives. Happiness seems to elude them, no matter what they do. Joy is not an end in itself. It’s a by-product of God’s presence in our lives. So the way to experience spiritual joy is to cultivate a relationship with God, and especially to meditate on the great things He has done in the past. That’s what the psalmist is doing. He’s grieved by the condition of the nation, so he begins by reminding himself of all the things God has already done in restoring the nation to their own land.
We can begin by reading Scripture, seeing how God has intervened for His people, seeing all He has done to provide salvation for us. But when we read Scripture, it’s difficult to get the things we’re reading to sink beyond the surface of our beings. We read it and we believe, and yet there’s a sense in which we really don’t seem to grasp it. We know it’s important. We even know that if we could somehow grasp it our lives would be transformed. But it just doesn’t get below the surface of our beings.
Part of our problem is that we read the Bible, and we study it (although, if we do these two things with any consistency we’re doing more than the majority of modern evangelicals), but we don’t meditate on it. In older evangelicalism, before the twentieth century, meditation on Scripture was assumed as a basic spiritual discipline. Here’s a very simple way to begin meditating on Scripture: 1) Choose a short passage, maybe something from your daily reading, and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. 2) For five minutes (or longer, if you want) listen to the Lord speaking to you through the text, and respond to Him in prayer. Both things are important. Stay with the text for awhile, reading it over and over, letting it sink in. Then respond to God in prayer. Be attentive to the Lord’s presence as you do this. 3) At the end of the time, choose a word or phrase to take with you, and thank the Lord for being with you and speaking to you. By taking a short phrase with you, you can continue to meditate on the passage at spare moments throughout the day. It can help you turn your heart to the Lord when your mind is free for a few moments. This is a good way to begin. It’s simple and not very demanding, but it also leads us into a more complete response to God’s Word. It provides a good context for meditating on Scripture, and as we do this we will increasingly find ourselves saying, “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”
You may find it helpful to write in a journal. You could use it to keep track of the short phrases you take away from your meditation on Scripture, and it’s also a good place to record answers to prayer and things God is teaching you. I’ve only done this sporadically over the years, but I keep coming back to it because I believe it’s a good discipline. From time to time I go back and look at the things I’ve written and I’m reminded of things that I otherwise would have forgotten. God intervenes in our lives over and over again, but our minds are occupied with other things and we forget. We need to remember the times that God has come to our rescue. It will strengthen our faith and help us remember to give thanks to God for the great things He’s done.
The way to become joyful Christians is to cultivate an increased awareness of God and the ways He’s been active in our lives. Over a lifetime, as we prayerfully meditate on God’s Word, remind ourselves of all the times God has intervened in our lives and spend time in His presence giving thanks and praise, we will find that spiritual joy is an increasing reality for us. “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”
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