I’ve known many people who struggle with the idea of spiritual joy. They hear that we’re supposed to rejoice in the Lord, that Christians are supposed to be joyful. But they don’t feel joyful. Often they feel guilty about their lack of joy, which, of course, only makes things worse. And it doesn’t help much when they find themselves in a worship service, singing words like, “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away; it was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.” They may sing the words, just to avoid being conspicuous, but they see the contrast between the words they’re singing and the reality of their lives. Or, here’s another one, from a chorus book: “Lay down your burdens at the altar, cast all your cares upon the Lord; There’s just no reason for a heavy heart, no need to worry any more....” It sounds appealing, and they may cast their cares on the Lord and lay their burdens at the altar, but they still struggle with a heavy heart. The song doesn’t fit their experience, and no matter how desperately they cry out, asking the Lord to take away their burdens, they still feel a sense of heaviness; they still wrestle with worry and care.
This section of Nehemiah is a helpful one for thinking about spiritual joy. First, we’ll look at the passage, then I’ll say something about rejoicing in the Lord. The first thing to notice, in this passage, is how the people celebrate their success in building the wall. It’s been a difficult time. Nearly a century has passed since the exiles began to return to Jerusalem at the command of king Cyrus. Along the way, there have been numerous setbacks, both in their attempts to rebuild the temple and in the recent work of repairing the wall. During the work of building the wall, they’ve experienced opposition from their enemies and internal struggles between themselves. It’s been a difficult road, but now they’ve experienced a major victory.
The temptation is to pat themselves on the back: “it’s been a long, hard road, but we’ve managed to pull it off; we’ve done it!” They’ve been diligent and have given themselves to the work, but that’s not the thing they’re emphasizing here. The emphasis is not on their accomplishment. Their first impulse, at this point, is to gather for worship. They recognize the same thing that their enemies have seen: “they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God” (6:16). They recognize that they’ve experienced this victory because of God’s presence among them, so they come to Ezra wanting to worship God: “all the people gathered together into the square.... They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses” (8:1).
God has intervened on their behalf, and they want to celebrate by worshiping Him. This is a good reminder of why we gather for worship. We’re not here to get an emotional high, to have a particular kind of “worship experience.” God may stir and lift our hearts while we’re worshiping Him, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re not here to be entertained or to have our “felt needs” met. We’re here because God has done great things on our behalf and we want to give thanks to Him. We’re here because He is worthy of worship, and we want to tell Him so. We’re here, not primarily to get something for ourselves. We’re gathered together because God is worthy of worship and praise. We’re here because of who He is and what He has done. God has done great things for the nation of Israel at this point, so their first impulse is to gather together in His presence for worship.
The second thing to notice is how the people are affected by this time of worship. The central focus of their worship is God’s Word. Ezra’s not trying to create a particular kind of “mood.” He’s not concerned about making sure that they have an uplifting experience. Several years ago I looked at a church bulletin, and after looking at it I asked someone who had been there, “do they read Scripture at all during the service?” And the answer was “no.” I’ve been in lots of worship services like this, where the main thing is creating the right mood, making sure the songs all flow together to lead to an emotional high. Scripture isn’t used at all, because pausing to read it will break the mood.
Ezra isn’t trying to create the right mood. His main concern is that the people hear God’s Word and understand it. “He read from [the law]... from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand” (8:3). It’s a really remarkable thing, in this culture, that this group includes not only the men, but also the women and any children who are old enough to understand. Of course, one reason that might be given for not reading Scripture in this way is that people won’t understand it. There’s such a large cultural distance, and the vocabulary is unfamiliar; what’s the point of corporate reading of Scripture when the likelihood is that it will go right over the peoples’ heads? So they not only read, they also pause to explain the meaning: “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (8:8). Ezra wants the people to understand, so he reads Scripture to them, then he and the other Levites take time to explain what it means. His primary purpose is not to make the people feel a certain way. He wants them to know the truth that’s revealed in God’s Word.
Knowing the truth in this way, of course, has an effect on them. First, their recent success is placed in the context of God’s saving acts in the past. Their recent victory isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of this larger work that God is doing. It’s part of a long list of God’s saving acts on behalf of His people. God is faithful to His covenant. They’re reminded that it’s not all about them; they’re part of something bigger than themselves. But also, seeing that God is faithful to His covenant in this way, they become aware of their own failure and disobedience. They’re humbled, even in the midst of this great victory. Hearing the law, they’re convicted of sin, which then leads them to mourn.
Notice that they’re having an emotional response to God’s Word. It’s not the one that people usually have in mind when they ask for a “worship experience,” but it is an emotional response to the truth revealed in Scripture. It’s not an artificially created emotional high, it’s a believing response to the truth. We need to know that the immediate result of hearing God’s Word is not always joy. When we see who God is and what He has done for us, we also see clearly our own unfaithfulness. We haven’t loved Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we haven’t loved our neighbor as ourselves; we haven’t been faithful to those two commands that Jesus said are the most important ones. Hearing the Word and understanding it leads us to see our spiritual poverty. It’s no accident that the first beatitude, “blessed are the poor in spirit,” is followed immediately by “blessed are those who mourn.” When we see the truth about God, we also see the truth about ourselves, which causes us to mourn. Our unfaithfulness to God is a source of grief.
That’s why it’s wrong to insist that everything we sing be joyful and happy. There’s a movement in the evangelical church today that says Christian worship should always be upbeat and cheerful. I’ve received promotional brochures from churches that promise things like “our informal, upbeat meetings will give you the lift you need to face the coming week.” But how can we promise that our meetings will be upbeat, when God’s desire may be to humble us and lead us to godly sorrow and repentance? The immediate result of hearing and understanding God’s Word is often sorrow, as the Israelites are experiencing in Nehemiah 8. They’ve experienced a great deliverance from God, but hearing God’s Word fills them with sorrow, because they see that they’ve been unfaithful to this great God who’s done such great things for them.
But then, the third thing to notice is how Ezra, Nehemiah and the other leaders respond to this expression of sorrow. They tell the people to stop weeping, not because weeping is inappropriate. The focus of the next chapter is public confession and repentance, so it’s not that the leaders think the people are off track. It’s that this is the time for celebrating God’s saving acts, not for mourning their own failure. God’s saving work is more fundamental than our personal failure. We haven’t been faithful, but God has. The leaders aren’t canceling their conviction of sin and repentance; they’re just postponing it for the moment. Right now, the focus needs to be on what God has done, not on what we’ve failed to do. The primary thing we need to know, when we come to worship, is that God is faithful to His Word. The primary thing is not our failure, but His saving acts to rescue us from our unfaithfulness.
Have you ever known someone who’s outlook on life was, “I’m not good at anything; I’m just a miserable sinner, and I can’t contribute anything for the good of the church”? Does someone like that make you more aware of the goodness and sufficiency of God? No. An intense awareness of our sinfulness and failure can very easily lead us to be absorbed with ourselves. Mourning our sinfulness has a place in genuine Christian spirituality, but it’s not the primary thing. Whether we’re absorbed with our own successes or our own failures, either way we’re focused on ourselves. God wants us to be absorbed with Him. So we begin, not with ourselves and our failure, but with God. We begin by worshiping Him and rejoicing in all He has done for such unworthy creatures.
This is a time of rejoicing for all that God has done, so the leaders tell them: “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10). Yes, they’re unworthy, but God has intervened and come to their rescue, and He calls them to celebrate in His presence. They can rejoice in the Lord, not because they’re such wonderful, successful people; not because everything has gone well in their lives; but because God is their God and He has graciously acted on their behalf. They’re still going to experience trouble, even before this book is finished, but they can rejoice in the Lord because they’ve experienced His gracious, saving presence.
True spiritual joy is rooted in God’s saving action on behalf of His people. It’s rooted in God’s saving action on behalf of people who are spiritually poor, who are guilty in God’s presence. God has come to save people who are lost, who have no hope in themselves, who won’t be helped by any amount of positive thinking. True spiritual joy is rooted in the truth of our hopeless condition apart from God; it begins with facing the truth about ourselves, which means that it begins with sorrow. It’s not an upbeat, superficial happiness. Its primary focus is not ourselves, but God. So, with that in mind, here are a few observations about rejoicing in the Lord.
1) Rejoicing in the Lord is not inconsistent with deep sorrow and suffering. Both can be present at the same time. Paul’s most joyful letter, his letter to the Philippians, was written from prison. He exhorts the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord, and yet, when he’s describing what he’s aiming for in his own spiritual life, he says this: “that I may know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection [this is the sort of thing we’re used to hearing, but listen to what he says next] and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (3:10). He describes himself and the other apostles as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Rejoicing in the Lord is not being happy with everything that’s going on in our lives. It’s rejoicing in the Lord, in who He is and what He’s done in coming to rescue us from the ruin we were in because of sin. The people in Jerusalem still mourn for their sins (as we can see by the next chapter), and they continue to experience sorrow in their daily lives. But they’ve also been reminded that the God who enabled them to build the wall is a gracious and compassionate God who will be faithful to them until the end. They’ve been lifted out of their own situation and perspective and freed to rejoice in God.
2) Rejoicing in the Lord isn’t the place where we begin. When we promise immediate happiness we’re giving people a counterfeit. By offering them an easy, upbeat spirituality, we’re cutting them off from the real thing. They can’t experience true spiritual joy, because they haven’t understood the truth. They’ve been offered a shortcut, which, in reality, is a dead-end street. The people of Jerusalem have gone through much hardship and failure up to this point. Their feelings of godly sorrow aren’t manufactured; they feel this way because they’ve seen the truth about themselves. Since true spiritual joy is rooted in God’s saving actions on behalf of His people, we won’t experience it without a realization of our desperate need. We don’t begin with grasping after joy. We begin with the truth, which humbles us. And then God, in His infinite mercy and grace, leads us to rejoice.
3) True spiritual joy is a foretaste of heaven. We experience it, from time to time, with varying degrees of intensity, but in heaven we’ll experience it in its fullness. True spiritual joy is rooted in God’s saving acts, which also means that it points forward to the final fulfillment of His saving acts, when we are safely gathered together in His presence. C.S. Lewis talks about the sense of longing that we all experience, as creatures of eternity living in time. He says that many of the good things we experience give us a glimpse of the thing we long for most: “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited” (from The Weight of Glory, quoted in C.S. Lewis on Joy, compiled by Lesley Walmsley, p. 41). Our joy here is always mixed with sorrow, but it’s a foretaste of the joy we’ll experience unmixed and undiluted in that “country we have never yet visited.”
I suspect that many of those who feel guilty about not rejoicing in the Lord actually do rejoice in Him more than they think. And I suspect that many of those who are confused and upset by the fact that their experience is not “and now I am happy all the day” have experiences of joy in God’s presence, foretastes of heaven, even though, at the same time, they experience heaviness and grief and sorrow, both because of the things that happen in their lives and because of the continuing presence of sin and disobedience despite their desire to follow Jesus faithfully. The way to experience true spiritual joy, the way to rejoice in the Lord, is to persevere in cultivating His presence. As we listen attentively to His Word, worship Him intentionally (even when we don’t feel like it), He will give us foretastes of the joy of heaven. Often these foretastes will be fleeting, and often they won’t make sense, because they’ll come to us in the midst of deep sorrow, and the sorrow won’t be removed. But we’re on a journey through this life, and our destination is a place of inescapable joy: “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).
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