Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
State College, PA
A German friend of mine was travelling through Italy on a Sunday with a team of young people. They were members of a short-term mission group and had a long way to go that day, but they were low on gas, and every station they passed was closed. Things were looking pretty grim as the day went on; they had prayed for an opportunity to fill the tank, but nothing had turned up. They were close to giving up hope, looking for a place to camp for the night, when a Porsche pulled up alongside and waved them over. Bernd stopped and got out of the van to see what the other driver wanted, but before he could say anything the guy pulled a gas can out of his car and started pouring gas into the van. They didn’t exchange any words, and when he was finished emptying the can, he jumped back into his Porsche and drove off (ignoring Bernd’s offer of money to pay for the gas).
Bernd, who told me the story, is as unlikely as anyone I’ve ever known to exaggerate this kind of thing, so I have no doubt that what he told me is true. They cried out to God and He provided in a surprising and startling way. They had no idea who had given them the gas or why he had done it. But God had provided for them in this strange way. When we think about God as our provider, we usually have this sort of thing in mind, that God provides us with the things we need materially to get through our lives. And He does provide for us in this way, as Jesus says in Matthew 6:33: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” God provides all the things we need to get through our lives in this world, but these things are not at the center; it’s as we seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness that He promises to provide everything else.
The passages we read this morning are focused on God’s provision for our spiritual well-being. The reading from Ezra tells about God’s people worshiping Him to celebrate their return from exile to the land of promise (6:19-22); in John 6, Jesus proclaims Himself as the bread of life who nourishes His people with his own body and blood (6:35-51); and in Acts we see Philip proclaiming the gospel, which leads those to receive it to be filled with joy, because they’ve been reconciled to God. In Psalm 30, which is the main focus of this sermon, we see that God provides what we most need to become the kind of people He’s called us to be and that at the very center of this is the joy that is rooted in an encounter with God Himself.
The first thing God provides is mercy (vv. 1-3). Notice the words “you spared me” (v. 3). God had kept him from experiencing what he deserved, protected him from the natural consequences of things he had done. This is what mercy is about, receiving something better than what we deserve.
The background of these words at the beginning of the psalm are in the middle section, vv. 6-9 (which we didn’t read together earlier in the service). “As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’” Everything was going well and he became presumptuous. He forgot that his security had come from God and God let him see the reality of his situation: “By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.” God withdrew from him, let him experience something of what life is like without His provision and he says he was dismayed. This led him to cry out to God for help: “To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication…. Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!’”
Things were going well in his life, but rather than giving thanks to God he started congratulating himself. “I’ve done pretty well. I’m not like some of the losers I know; I have a good job, I work hard, and I have a stable life.” What he forgot was that his ability to have a stable life was a gift from God, so God let him experience instability. Everything started going wrong, which reminded him of the truth and led him to come to his senses and cry out to God for mercy. The thing we so easily forget is that we are dependent on God’s mercy every day, every moment, of our lives. But when the psalmist remembers and cries out to God he finds that God is not anxious to punish him for his foolishness and presumption; what he experiences is a fresh realization of God’s mercy: “O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit.”
Of course, in our morally lax culture it’s easy to get the wrong idea about God’s mercy. We too easily think, “It’s not really such a big deal; God knows our weaknesses and forgives us anyway.” We sometimes picture God as an indulgent, grandfatherly figure sitting in heaven wringing his hands over our wrongdoing, wishing we’d straighten up but knowing it’s not going to happen. God, from this perspective, just decides to overlook our sins.
But that’s not how God shows us mercy. He shows us mercy by providing redemption, by providing a way for our sins to be forgiven (vv. 4-5). The psalmist doesn’t deny the reality of God’s anger over his sin. He says “his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping [as a consequence of God’s anger] may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” The background of God’s redemption is His anger over our sin and rebellion. If you’re ever in doubt about this, spend some time thinking about Jesus on the cross; when He took our sins upon Himself, the Father turned away from Him, leading Him to cry out “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” God doesn’t wipe away our sins as if they didn’t matter; He wipes away our sins by calling His only Son to bear the penalty in our place.
God is displeased with our sins, but the wonderful truth announced in the gospel is that He has provided a way for us to escape the consequences of His displeasure. And the psalmist tells us that He comes to us as Redeemer without delay: “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” God, when He confronts us with our sinfulness, doesn’t expect us to wallow in self-reproach. He doesn’t call us to spend time engaging in the wrong sort of penance, going around condemning ourselves and trying to be miserable. Penance, by the way, as I’ve read in Catholic spiritual writers, is not about trying to earn God’s forgiveness (because this has already been freely given); it’s about correcting our bad habits, training ourselves to act differently than we’ve been doing. Penance is about training ourselves to bear the fruit of repentance, which we all should be doing whether we are Protestant or Roman Catholic. But in any case, God doesn’t want us to wallow in misery and self-pity when we come to a new realization of our sinfulness. He has provided for our redemption and His forgiveness comes to us immediately: “His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
This leads to the final point, in vv. 11-12: God provides us with joy. Redemption is not the end of the story. It’s not like a “get out of jail free” pass, where we receive Christ as our Redeemer, which gets us a ticket to heaven, and then get on with living our lives the way we want to. God is not just providing a way for us to get to heaven; He is providing what we most need to become the kind of people He has created us to be, and at the very center of this is joy that grows out of an encounter with God Himself.
But this joy is rooted in our poverty and need for mercy. This isn’t where the psalmist started out. He got into trouble because he forgot about his own spiritual poverty, so his happiness was superficial; it was based on his presumption that he would never be shaken. But then he got into trouble, which is what we, as sinful human beings, do best. So he cried out to God and was able to say “you turned my mourning into dancing.” When he turned to God in repentance, God didn’t say, “I’ll forgive you, but you need to be miserable for a while so you can learn to properly appreciate what you’ve received.” He’s already been miserable. He’s experienced his poverty of spirit, so at the moment when he cries out for help, God grants him the privilege of rejoicing. When he turns to God for help, he is then able to say “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.”
But we often get the wrong idea about joy. It’s something more, something different, from circumstantial happiness. We tend to feel happy when everything is going well; this is perfectly natural and is part of the way we were created. There’s nothing wrong with feeling happy when we experience good things in our lives. But joy is more than this.
I love the hymns of the 18th century English hymn writer Isaac Watts. One of his most-famous hymns is “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” He had a strong grasp of Scripture and a deep experience of Jesus Christ. He has a hymn that starts out, “Alas! and did my Savior bleed And did my Sov’reign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?” The verses go on in wonder over what Christ did in laying down His life to redeem us. Unfortunately, someone in the late 19th century thought the hymn needed a more positive element and added this refrain: “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.” Is this true for you? Are you now “happy all the day” since you encountered Jesus Christ? The Old Testament book that is most-often quoted in the New Testament is the book of Psalms, and the lament is the largest category in the Psalter. Why is this so? Because we, as people living in a fallen world, often find ourselves in trouble, and the Psalter, as the prayer book of the Bible, reflects this reality. We often find ourselves in trouble and cry out to God for help. We’re not “happy all the day.” It’s more truthful to say that “You turned my wailing into dancing [but in the meantime, the wailing was real and heartfelt]; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” Things go wrong; we get off track and lose sight of who we are and who God is. But then we turn to God and He shows us His mercy.
Frederick Buechner has a good description of the difference between happiness and joy: “We need to be reminded… that joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is man-made—a happy home, a happy marriage, a happy relationship with our friends and within our jobs. We work for these things, and if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can usually achieve them. Happiness is one of the highest achievements of which we are capable, and when it is ours, we take credit for it, and properly so. But we never take credit for our moments of joy because we know that they are not man-made and that we are never really responsible for them. They come when they come…. Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstance, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Even nailed to a tree” (Listening to Your Life, p. 287).
William Cowper was a poet and hymn writer in 18th century. He was also a member of John Newton’s church (the former slave trader who wrote “Amazing Grace”). Cowper struggled with mental illness for much of his adult life and more than once tried to commit suicide. There were periods when he was fairly stable, but even during those times he was highly sensitive and anxious. During his periods of acute depression he became psychotic and had to be institutionalized. But he experienced God’s help and faithfulness again and again. He couldn’t sing “and now I am happy all the day.” From time to time he became overwhelmed by darkness and depression, but even then the Lord brought him through, and joy at times took him by surprise. (There’s a very good overview of his life in the book Genius, Grief and Grace, by Dr. Gaius Davies). Here’s a well-known stanza from one of Cowper’s poems:
Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in His wings;
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.
That’s the kind of joy Buechner is talking about; it’s not something we bring about by our efforts to find a happy life. God comes to us “with healing in his wings” and takes us by surprise. He provides us with joy we didn’t expect, maybe even at a time when it doesn’t make sense to feel joyful.
God our Provider provides the things we need to get through our lives in this world. Most of the time He does this in ways that seem ordinary, in ways that might lead us to take credit for it ourselves. But sometimes, when we find ourselves in situations where we’re in over our heads and nothing we try is working, He provides in more extraordinary ways. But more fundamentally, He provides what we need to become the kind of people He’s created us to be. He provides mercy, because we are sinners who violate His law. He provides redemption, because our rebellion has inescapable consequences and can’t just be ignored as if nothing has happened. And He provides us with joy, because this is at the very center of who He has called us to be as people created in His image.
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