Restore Us, O God: Joy
Psalm 126 12/11/2011 Third Sunday of Advent
The Church of the Wayfarer
Dr. Norm Mowery, Pastor
The theme for this the third Sunday of Advent is JOY.
Talk about joy.
Yesterday, from the first moment that I met Pixie, I experienced sheer joy! Pixie is the cutest, most lovable and adorable rescue dog in the whole world. I am thrilled to announce that Linda and I are in the process of becoming Pixie’s family.
It was sheer joy for me at first sight.
Some weeks ago I read about a man who recovered his wallet that was lost for 63 years, and rejoices.
I thought that that story was a great example of joy until I met Pixie.
As we journey to the Christ Event during this Advent Season, we imagine the joy that man had as he recovered a piece of his identity!
Have you ever lost your wallet? It’s hard to imagine something more traumatic.
Our wallets contain the proof of our identity,
They tell others we're licensed to drive a car,
We carry our cash and credit cards in them,
just about everything we need to move about in the world can be found in our wallets.
You can tell a lot about a person by what they have in their wallets.
A few years ago as Linda and I were flying to China we lost Linda’s Passport.
Panic.
Fear.
I could imagine either being sent home or going to jail when we arrived in Bejing.
Relief.
Joy—when the flight attendant found it among the purses on the floor of the plane.
It was a man named Bill Fulton who lost his wallet in 1946, and 63 years later he'd pretty much forgotten about it. Bill's not sure exactly when or under what circumstances he accidentally dropped his smooth leather wallet behind the wooden bleachers at Baker Middle School in Baker City, Oregon.
It was probably during a basketball game between the Baker Bulldogs and some long forgotten opponent.
There it sat for 63 years until a worker found it in June 2009, while tearing out the old bleachers at the school.
The wallet was found right where Bill had dropped it; along with stuff other students had dropped back there during the school's history:
some old homework,
and lost library books. The next day, the Baker Middle School secretary brought the newly found wallet to Fulton's home in Baker City and reported, "He was pretty much amazed.”
"He just kept saying, 'Thank you. Thank you so much.'" Bill was overjoyed to have it back, but not necessarily because of what was still in it. His Social Security Card was still tucked in its usual place. He didn't have any cash to begin with, so none was missing. His bicycle license was in there.
While all those things were important at the time, the real value of the wallet for Bill was the memories it brought back of a wonderful period in his 78 years of life. After high school, Bill went off to the Korean War, then to Berlin, and back to Baker City where he worked for a lumber company for 30 years.
If only for a moment, feeling the leather of that long lost wallet reminded Bill that life has all been worth it, and reminds him of who he is. Finding something we've lost—especially something as valuable as a wallet that reminds us who we are—is cause for both relief and joy.
On this Sunday during Advent, as we light the candle of joy, we celebrate the fact that God exposes our lost and hidden identity and, to borrow the words of the psalmist, restores our "fortunes". Psalm 126 is a musical piece that pilgrims would sing on their pilgrimage up to Jerusalem—to Zion and the temple.
Like an ode to a lost wallet, the psalm is divided into two parts, each beginning with the restoration of the "fortunes" of Zion and God's people.
The phrase "restore our fortunes" is difficult to translate but it's usually used to denote the radical change between the conditions that existed as the result of the exile and the conditions that result from
God's restoration,
forgiveness
and divine favor.
It means the restoration of the situation between God and God's people that existed before the people's apostasy or rebellion. The people who were once lost,
scattered
and forgotten
would now be found,
brought together
and remembered forever. Notice, however, that the phrase is used as a past-present contrast between the two parts of the psalm. The first section brings up memories of the past. Back in the good old days, the psalmist seems to be saying, things were great, "dreamy," if you will.
Back then, he says, everyone laughed and shouted for joy.
Humans have a tendency to remember "the good old days" with fondness, and something like recovering a wallet or finding a photo from a bygone era makes us nostalgic.
Maybe it's part of our healthy defense mechanisms to dwell on good things, but the psalmist seems to imply that the passage of time and the painful remembrance of sin can turn the good old days into only a memory.
Reputations can be lost,
good memories clouded by hard truths,
and joy squelched by the realization of what we've lost.
From the moment of our birth, life is a series of loses! The psalmist, however, doesn't dwell on the past but invites God to restore the people's memories by giving them a vision of the future. Those shouts of joy whose echoes have long faded can be lifted again if we return to the Lord. "Restore our fortunes, O Lord," prays the psalmist in the present tense. What good things the pilgrims remember about the past they pray for in the present.
Zion can be restored,
sins can be forgiven,
new life can emerge
and a fresh start can be embarked upon.
The psalmist equates God's forgiveness and reconciling love to the way water flows in the desert—a vision of refreshment and sustenance in the midst of the harsh and brutal reality of the pain of life.
Such a vision turns tears and weeping into shouts of joy and the seed of hope can grow into a harvest that will sustain the people forever. The psalmist thus teaches us that joy isn't just a good feeling that arises spontaneously.
Instead, we feel joy most intently after the resolution of a period of distress.
It's one thing to be happy to be carrying around a wallet that we take for granted, it's quite another to find that wallet after a long period of searching for it frantically.
It's one thing to live in God's grace when everything's going well, but it's quite another to experience the reality of that same grace after a period when we ourselves have been lost,
searching
or distant from God.
It's not just something you nod and smile about but, it's something you have to shout about! Like Lent, Advent is a season of preparation,
self-examination,
repentance
and restoration.
The culture around us celebrates the "joy" of Easter and Christmas, but it's really more a general sense of warm and fuzzy feelings connected to holiday memories with family and friends.
The joy the Psalmist feels is not the warm and fuzzy feeling I have for Pixie, either!
Real joy only comes after we've been willing to allow God to deal with the brokenness in our lives,
which is what the season Advent is designed to do.
We can't really express the joy of being found unless we are first able to name the fact that we've been lost—that we need God!
We light the candle of "joy" during Advent because we want to recognize that the coming of Jesus is the climax of all of history.
That's why the babe in the manger is the ultimate discovery. When we were lost, God himself came to find us! Bill Fulton could only keep repeating "Thank you, thank you" when that long lost wallet showed up at his door in the hands of a caring school secretary.
The third Sunday of Advent is an opportunity for us to say "Thank you" to God for giving us the ability to discover our true identities as children of God and to shout with joy! You’ve heard the phrase, ‘Naughty Or Nice?’ If you've been naughty we are told that Santa may skip a nocturnal visit to your house.
This week I discovered that if you're not sure, you can go to http://www.santaclaus.net/Naughty.asp and type your name into a box, and Santa will do some research and let you know how you're doing.
When I typed in Mike Fillmore the naughty/nice meter went up to green which meant, “Great job, you are perfect!”
When I typed in— Norm Mowery, ops; I better not tell you any more!
The fact is you can't teach happiness.
You cannot earn it, buy it or deserve it.
It is a divine gift to receive rather than a goal to pursue. The opposite of joy is not sadness or sorrow but anxiety.
Jesus encouraged his followers, "Do not worry about your life. Consider the joy of the birds in their morning songs, or the flowers in their springtime glory.”
"Happiness is a warm puppy" is one of the most famous quotes by Peanuts comic strip creator, Charles Schulz.
Schulz is a man who, by every ordinary standard, should have known what happiness is. At the height of his success, in the 1980s, he was one of the 10 highest-paid entertainers in America. A not so recent biography of Schulz presents a different picture of this beloved figure's inner life. He was a tortured soul, troubled by frequent bouts with depression. In fact he was lonely and unhappy.
When Schulz was pulling in the unprecedented sum of over a million dollars a week from his comic strip and its merchandising empire he built an ice-hockey rink outside his family's home in Santa Rosa.
Schulz's hockey rink includes a fully-equipped snack bar. It is called, "The Warm Puppy Snack Bar."
It's almost as though Schulz knew that happiness was not to be found in earning and spending millions, or in being world famous.
The truest happiness is found in small, ordinary experiences: like sitting quietly at home with a sleeping dog on one's lap.
That is what I intend to do this evening with Pixie!
The truest happiness is found, in other words, in simple gratitude for the goodness of God's creation.
Today, let God’s joy find you!
Will you please excuse me? I must go home and walk Pixie.
Prayer
O Creator, promise for the world, hear our prayers during this time of wait-ing. We hear your call to journey toward the light, and yet we stumble. Our journey toward your promise of Christ's coming is filled with doubt, pain and often despair that there is meaning in the waiting.
Our losses, our worries overtake us, so that we dwell in darkness rather than moving toward the light.
[silent prayer]
Create in us the thread of hope that pulls us forward from promise to the miracle of new life.
Create in us a clean spirit so that our journey is no longerweary, but filled with the energy of adventure!
As the Christ child comes, so we, too, come back to you this day and we join disciples of all ages in praying your prayer saying…..
