Reason For Joy - May 17, 2009
REASON FOR JOY
Psalm 98
John 15:9-17
In church one Sunday a small child was turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn’t talking, spitting, humming, tearing the hymnals, or jumping up and down. He was just smiling. Suddenly his mother jerked him around, and in a stage whisper that everyone could hear, said, “Stop grinning. You’re in church.” With that she gave him a slap on his backside, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks she added: “That’s better,” and returned to worship.
What is it about being active church folks that makes some of us so solemn? If worship is a celebration of salvation and resurrection through Jesus Christ – and it is – then why are churches often times so lifeless? I’ve been in churches where people radiate waves of disapproval when children clap their hands during not-so-rhythmic hymns, or a too-enthusiastic “Amen!” is seen as an interruption. I’ve seen the same men and women who stomp and cheer at a football game sing “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” or recite John 3:16 from their pews with the same deadpan expression they’d wear if they were watching a boring movie. Since when do silence and somberness equal holiness?
Reflecting on the lackluster worship in his boyhood church, the Reverend Charles Lerrigo of Calvary Church in San Francisco recalls a song children used to sing before entering the sanctuary: “Very softly we will talk, very gently we will walk, as to church we go.” “The message was clear: Shut up and get serious!” Lerrigo says. “That’s what I was taught about going to church. Today I know that’s a perversion of the Gospel. To focus only on the somber side is to ignore the whole message of the Bible – a message which includes huge amounts of joy,” he adds.
A good example is Psalm 98, which begins, “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things,” and it continues in tones of joy all the way through. The joy of the psalmist is so overflowing that he’s not content to rejoice in the Lord by himself; he asks his audience to join him in the party. Even then, he’s not content, so he adds that creation itself should join in the glee: “Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy.”
But why is he so happy? It is because he knows what he knows. His joy is rooted in the steadfast love and faithfulness of God; and what he knows is that because God has done marvelous things in the past, God can do them again in the present and the future.
Although the psalmist doesn’t specify what marvelous things he’s referring to, we can pretty well guess. Again and again in the Old Testament, writers point back to the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt as a mighty work of deliverance. And they attribute that deliverance not to the power of Moses or the weakness of Pharaoh, but to God. since God did that in the past, nothing is impossible in the future.
· If – IF you believe that God did great things for you earlier, you’ve got a reason to at least lean toward optimism.
· If you know that God once intervened in the course of history for your benefit, you have to believe that God can do it again. And more than that –
· If you believe God is in charge and will bring all things to the right conclusion at the end, you have every reason for a genuine smile, for real joy.
Dan Wolfe, lay leader at Clarington (PA) Church, and clown minister known as “The Amazing Earl,” says, “The Bible tells us to make a joyful noise. What more joyful noise is there than laughter? Christians should be the happiest people on earth. Read the last chapter (of the Bible). We win!”
A century ago G. K. Chesterton wrote something to the effect that although Jesus let his grief, sadness, and anger show on his face, he had to restrain himself from smiling constantly because he knew Christianity’s great secret – that the promise of the kingdom of heaven, the promise of deliverance, is all true. He knew what he knew, and his faith in God’s promises was so sure that even as he ate with his disciples for the last time, knowing he would soon face death, Jesus spoke of God’s abiding love and of the disciples’ faith – the reason for joy. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
It was Jesus’ expectation that his followers would be joyful. I once had a conversation with a church member who recalled an experience she had in another town. The memory of it was quite vivid and continued to raise questions in her mind about why so many churches are mostly empty. She happened to be outside a church when the service ended. People – a great many of them – were leaving the building. They were hugging and kissing, greeting one another, talking animatedly, laughing and smiling, obviously joyful for having been together in the presence of God. Wouldn’t every church be filled to overflowing, she wondered, if everyone left worship with such obvious joy?
Every day in the lives of Christians is a day for rejoicing, and our gatherings as the community of faith should be the most exuberant of times. What can be more cause for celebration than God’s liberating, all-encompassing love? That Christ confounded sin and death and hatred and intolerance by rising on Easter morning is much more a reason to laugh than watching any Jim Carey movie. In a world that finds little to celebrate these days, blessed are those churches where balloons, smiling people, storytelling, singing, clapping, and dance encourage us to celebrate with joy the God of our salvation.
When you know what you know, it makes all the difference. And it’s the reason to smile.