Advent 2   December 6, 2020

Mark 1:1-14, Isaiah 40  

Comfort for God’s People

INTRO

** There is no doubt that there will be a veritable stream of Victorians Heading north on the Hume in summer– that straight highway which heads through some rugged, dry, isolated and summer bleached pastureland… reminds me of this passage from Isaiah which also headlines Mark’s Gospel.

What a fascinating array of metaphors in this pivotal text.

It combines images of

·        comfort with declarations of sin,

·        the fragility of grass on the steppe with the enduring power of the divine,

·        road-making in a desert wilderness, and, my favourite juxtaposition,

·        a warrior God who holds lambs tenderly against the divine chest.

BACKGROUND

This evocative poem opens the second part of the book of Isaiah, which contains poems reflecting the impact of Persian expansion under Cyrus the Great on the peoples living in exile after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.

Cyrus, who is explicitly named three times in Isaiah 44-45, ruled more than 150 years after the historical Isaiah served as an advisor to king Hezekiah during the Assyrian defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel. The oracles of condemnation in Isaiah 1-39 reflect this period of destruction, while the poems in chapter 40-55 are filled with hope and joy because Cyrus allowed the exiles to return home.

>>> These past couple of weeks it feels like we are reclaiming Melbourne as ours once again.  We can certainly identify with this sense of returning home as we take some faltering and as yet uncertain steps out of lockdown and our own period of exile and isolation…

Isaiah 40:1-11 provides a joyful refrain that introduces their unexpected reversal of fortunes. To be sure, Persia maintained colonial control over the peoples in the ancient Near East, but people were to be allowed to live in their native lands as long as they remained loyal to the Persian government. Isaiah does not hesitate to attribute this foreign policy to the workings of their God, Yahweh, who now chooses to change the status of the displaced Jews. The poem opens with a messenger crying out the unexpected message.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

 “Comfort! Comfort!” rings not as command but rather as joyful astonishment. The path home becomes a level highway at the sound of the messenger. This will be no forty years trudging through a desert. The return will be a pilgrimage along a well-kept thoroughfare.

And yet, Isaiah boldly speaks his words of comfort at a time of great calamity, loss and chaos. The way things had been were now changed and gone forever, and the future was bleak and unknown.

>> How these words resonate in our own world with the ravages of Covid-19… We can find the same comfort in these uncertain time with an uncertain future@!

Isaiah speaks words of comfort NOT because PEOPLE are resilient, strong, courageous, resourceful, hard-working, dedicated, etc. Indeed, Isaiah reminds us of an inescapable reality – people are like flowers and grass that wither and fade. And so too our resilience, strength, courage, resourcefulness, hard work, dedication, etc. also wither and fade with us. No. Isaiah finds comfort only in the one thing that does not wither and fade – the word of promise from God.

But wait, there’s more!  Because the focus of the poem quickly turns to the God who doesn’t just promise, but delivers!

God commands the querulous messenger to proclaim God’s entrance onto the scene in Isaiah 40:6-9.

⁶ A voice says, “Cry out.”    And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.  Surely the people are grass.
⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.”

The contrasting images serve to highlight the chasm between Yahweh and the people.

·        They have sinned, but God has stayed true.

·        They are fragile, but God is powerful.

·        The poem focuses on the declaration of the human condition (we know all too well): grass withers, flowers fall, a reality too well known by the ancient audience.

·        Their own inter-generational experience of exile has demonstrated that God does not seem to care whether they live or die. They are no more than blades of grass crushed by the warrior rushing to glory.

In the Bible, the word of God is also God’s action. And so the word "Comfort" in Verse 1 becomes God’s action in verse 11.

You who bring good news to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,^[c]
    lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
¹⁰ See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
    and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.
¹¹ He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young.

It is crucial to note that the arm of God which "rules" in Verse 10 is not used to punish and smite, but to comfort. The strength of God is always used to restore relationships and make the whole earth harmonious.

Here is Comfort. That’s what this poem is about. That divine warrior, with arm outstretched to slay an enemy, instead bends down and scoops the little lambs into the divine bosom. If only lambs could purr.

So… Why is This Passage important at Advent?

This poem is often read in the second week of Advent in part because the gospel writers used it to convey what was in their time a similar instance of wholly unexpected, unearned and unprecedented divine compassion: i.e.

The entrance of Jesus onto the world stage.

Advent is not just about waiting for a baby. It’s about waiting for a whole new reality which takes hold of us by first taking our hearts and souls hostage to its justice and grace. And then, because we cannot help but live by its magnetic force, it lays its claim on the whole world through us!

The evangelists identify John the Baptist as the messenger, and Jesus as the one who comes with power and tenderness, with comfort and justice. In trying to describe the indescribable, they turned to this passage from Isaiah as a way to illustrate their experience.

Mark 1

You get the feeling as you read the opening verses of this Gospel that Peter is dictating to Mark in a terrible rush, that he can't wait to reach the place where he feels the Gospel really begins.

·        He says absolutely nothing about how Jesus was born.

·        He gets through the baptism in no time at all.

·        He barely mentions the temptation in the wilderness.

And only then, after racing through those first fourteen verses, does he get where he seems to have been racing to--the real beginning as he sees it--and that is the opening words of Jesus himself. Up to that point it has all gone so fast that hardly anybody except John the Baptist knows who Jesus really is yet, (just as it might be said that most of the time hardly any of us knows who Jesus really is yet either.)

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God…

Jesus is destined to have a greater impact on the next two thousand years of human history than anybody else in history--we know that now--but here at the beginning of Mark nobody knows it yet. Not a single syllable has escaped his lips yet, as Mark tells it.

The ant lays down her crumb to listen. The very stars in the sky hold their breath. Nobody in the world knows what Jesus is going to say yet, and maybe it's worthwhile pretending we don't know either--pretending we've never heard him yet ourselves, which may be closer to the truth than we think.

"The time is fulfilled," he says, "and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." That is how he launches the gospel--his first recorded words. There is a kind of breathlessness in those three short, urgent sentences. The question is, what do they urgently mean to us who know them so well that we hardly hear them anymore? If they mean anything to us at all, urgent or otherwise, what in God's name is it?

At least there is no great mystery about what "the time is fulfilled" means, I think. "The time is fulfilled" means the time is up. That is the dark side of it anyway, saving the bright side of it till later. It means that it is possible we are living in the last days. There was a time when you could laugh that kind of message off if you saw some bearded crazy parading through the city streets with it painted on a sandwich board, but you have to be crazy yourself to laugh at it in our experience though this Pandemic...

In other words, a lot of the kinds of things that happen at the ends of civilizations are happening today in our civilization, and there are moments when it is hard to avoid feeling not only that our time is up, but that it is high time for our time to be up. That we're ready to fall from the branch like overripe fruit under the weight of our own decay. Something like that, I think, is the shadow side of what Jesus means when he says that the time is fulfilled.

But Jesus says something else too. Thank God for that. He says our time is up, but he also says that the Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom of God is so close we can almost reach out our hands and touch it. It is so close that sometimes it almost reaches out and takes us by the hand. The Kingdom of God, that is. Not a human kingdom or any of the kingdoms that worry like us about counting calories while hundreds of thousands starve to death. Bur God's Kingdom. Jesus says it is the Kingdom of God that is at hand. If anybody else said it, we would boo him off the stage. But it is Jesus who says it. Even people who have long since written him off can't help listening to him.

What he seems to be saying is that the Kingdom of God is the time, or a time beyond time, when it will no longer be humans in their lunacy who are in charge of the world but God in his mercy who will be in charge of the world. It's the time above all else for wild rejoicing--like getting out of jail, like being cured of cancer, like finally, at long last, coming home. And it is at hand, Jesus says.

SO WHAT?

What does startling and unexpected comfort look like today? How do these prophetic words of Isiah, echoed in the gospel resonate and reveal in our world today?

** News of an potentially effective vaccine has brought a renewed sense of hope and comfort to many…

Like a vaccine, this the Prophet’s poem does not promise that all suffering will cease. It does not deny or change the brokenness of the human condition. It suggests that some of us may be called to be messengers of a declaration, which others may find hard to fathom. But no matter where we locate ourselves in this poem, it ultimately reminds us that the unexpected can happen: God still sends comfort into our short and frail lives.

It is God alone who brings about his Kingdom. Even with the best will in the world and out of our noblest impulses, we can't do that. But there is something that we can do and must do, Jesus says, and that is repent. Biblically speaking, to repent doesn't mean to feel sorry about, to regret. It means to turn, to turn around 180 degrees. It means to undergo a complete change of mind, heart, direction. To individuals and to nations both, Jesus says the same thing. Turn away from madness, cruelty, shallowness, blindness. Turn toward that tolerance, compassion, sanity, hope, justice that we all have in us at our best.

We cannot make the Kingdom of God happen, but we can put out spring-like shoots of compassion as it draws near. We can be kind to each other. We can be kind to ourselves. We can drive back the darkness a little. We can make green places within ourselves and among ourselves where God can make his Kingdom happen. That slowly rejuvenating city. Whose people of every colour, class, condition, can eat their sandwiches together in a quiet place. The clown and the child. The antipodean bright sunlight that lights up everybody in those teeming streets like a superstar. The hopeful Christmas traffic surging all around us and the beautiful things that we can feel surging inside ourselves, in that holy place that is inside all of us. We can Turn that way. Everybody. While there is still time. We can Pray for the Kingdom. Watch for signs of it. Live as though it is here already because there are moments when it almost is…

And finally"Believe in the gospel." That's the last of those first words that Jesus speaks. Believe in the good news.

The power that is in Jesus, and before which all other powers on earth and in heaven give way, the power that holds all things in existence from the sparrow's eye to the farthest star, is above all else a loving power. That means we are loved even in our lostness. That means we are precious, every one of us, even as we pass on the street without so much as noticing each other's faces. Every city is precious. The world is precious. Someday the precious time will be up for each of us. But the Kingdom of God is at hand. Nothing is different and everything is different. It reaches out to each of our precious hands while there's still time.

Repent and believe in the gospel, Jesus says. Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all.

Amen, and come, Lord Jesus.

 

The Hour of the Unexpected

Nov 29^th, 2020

1 Cor 1:1-9

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

² To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴ I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. ⁵ For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— ⁶ God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. ⁷ Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

^{Mark 13: 24-27}

²⁴ “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
²⁵ the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’^[a]

²⁶ “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. ²⁷ And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

²⁸ “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ²⁹ Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it^[b] is near, right at the door. ³⁰ Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³¹ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The Day and Hour Unknown

³² “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Be on guard! Be alert^[c]! You do not know when that time will come. ³⁴ It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

³⁵ “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. ³⁶ If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. ³⁷ What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”

Isaiah 64 

 

^[3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
    you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
⁴ Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
⁵ You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
    who remember your ways…

⁸ Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
    We are the clay, you are the potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.
⁹ Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
    do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
    for we are all your people.

 

 

** 30 Doughnut Days later…

·        We are fully aware of the dangers and implications in not being watchful – our lockdowns and restrictions have been lessons in patient endurance –compliance and non-compliance!

·        We now have our masks ever at the ready and our awareness of social distancing is built in to our everyday behaviour

·        The unenviable alternative is fully obvious in other places where infection rates are out of control…

 

Today is the first Sunday of Advent – a season of preparation and watchfulness, of hope and expectation.  Beginning the season of Advent with passages about the second coming reminds us that the work of the first advent (coming) of Jesus is not complete. The risen Jesus instructs (and empowers) the church to continue its witness until the second coming (Matthew 28:16-20).

The Gospel writers had an end-time (apocalyptic) orientation, believing that history is divided into two ages -- a present, evil age that God would soon replace with a new age (often called the realm of God or the realm of heaven). The old age is marked by the presence of Satan and the demons, and by idolatry, sin, injustice, exploitation, sickness, enmity between nature and humankind, violence, and death. The new age will be characterized by the complete rule of God and the angels, and by authentic worship, forgiveness, mutual support, health, blessing between nature and humankind, and eternal life.

For Matthew & Mark, God is acting through Jesus Christ to effect the change. The birth, life, and resurrection are the first phase of the transformation, with the complete fulfillment arriving with the second coming. The theologians call this A fully realized kind of eschatology.  Meanwhile, the early faith communities lived in a kind of conflict zone between the ages. Again, the Apostles called their communities to follow the instruction and model of Jesus.

Some scholars believe that many amongst those fledging congregations were losing confidence in the coming of the Realm. The apocalypse was delayed. Their witness was fading. Mark wrote to encourage them to continue.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Be on guard! Be alert^[c]! You do not know when that time will come. ³⁴

We are reminded that neither the angels nor even Jesus can know the precise time the apocalypse will occur. Only God knows.

Mark reinforces the idea that the community must “be ready.” In this context, to “be ready” is to continue to do what Jesus taught his disciples. The community is to prepare for the final advent less by doing special things and more by living and witnessing as Jesus instructed.

Our liturgical season of Advent is an annual reminder of the importance of faithfully doing what Jesus said... to Be Ready

Jesus calls the disciples, and empowers them, to witness faithfully to God’s ultimate purposes of love, peace, joy, and abundance. Coming to such clarity of thought and action is a powerful way to prepare through Advent.

It’s about being watchful…

If we aren’t watchful, if we aren’t paying attention, we will be taken by surprise when something happens.

** Driving on Advent Roads can be fraught!  Constant Vigilance is needed as traffic assumes a kind of ‘manic’ quality from here to Christmas – it’s even more needed on the bike as Christmas shopping-distracted drivers rarely notice the lone cyclist!

Constant vigilance in our lives too!  This doesn’t mean we can anticipate every difficult event—accident, illness, loss, financial or political upheaval. However, being watchful means being ready, awake, prepared.

** We are certainly grateful for the preparedness and watchfulness of our governments, our health workers and our border security personnel as they have helped navigate the country through these difficult days – they have paid attention and kept watch for us

>>> Paying attention is one of the main Advent challenges and raises questions for us:

·         How can we best Pay attention to the people closest to you. How will you give and receive love in those relationships?

·         How can we best Pay attention to the people you encounter. How might your interactions aim toward being holy moments?

·         How can we best Pay attention to the people least like you. This may be more difficult, but how will you learn from them?

·         How can we best Pay attention to God and to what God is doing in the world. How can you awaken your senses to notice goodness and peace?

·         How can we best Pay attention to yourself. Self-awareness is highly underrated. How will you be awake to your body, soul, spirit, and values during Advent? How will that self-awareness translate into how you spend your time?

We never know what’s going to happen next, but faithful watching can help us be prepared for both the good and the bad, the delightful and the challenging.

Pay attention. And be ready.  John Shea writes in The hour of the unexpected…

Many other things that happen to us in this life are unexpected… First something happens.

 A friend dies; a child smiles us into wonder; an old lady refuses to be old; an adolescent finds a way out; a secret weakness is painfully exposed; we are unexpectedly kissed.

 First something happens.

 A short fall is suddenly without bottom; an expectation is reversed; a comforting self-image is shaken.

 First something happens.

 At the center of our best effort we discover our worst motive. Our perfect plot fails and their sloppiest plan succeeds. In single-minded pursuit of one goal we blithely achieve the opposite. When all retreat at the sight of the dead, we stay and stare and do not know why. First something happens.

 In these moments, and many more, we are thrown back on ourselves. More precisely, we are thrown back into the Mystery we share with one another. These moments trigger an awareness of a More, a Presence, an Encompassing, a Whole within which we come and go. This awareness of an inescapable relatedness to Mystery does not wait for a polite introduction. It bursts unbidden upon our ordinary routine, demands total attention, and insists we dialogue. At these times we may scream or laugh or dance or cry or sing or fall silent. But whatever our response, it is raw prayer, the returning human impulse to the touch of God.

 This is how it was for Jesus. The Kingdom of God which he preached came as a gift, suddenly overtaking the weariness of the soul.

 ·        In farming a barren field, a treasure is stumbled upon; a corner is turned and the perfect pearl is for sale;

·         out of nowhere an invitation to the King's party arrives.

·        The advent of God, even when we are looking for it, is always surprise and any encounter with Jesus always holds the unexpected.

·        To the lawyer who wished justification Jesus gave challenge. The rich young man wanted advice and received an unwanted suggestion.

·        Zacchaeus merely hoped for a glimpse of a prophet yet dined with his savior. The woman at the well came for casual conversation and went away with self-revelation. With Jesus people seldom got what they asked for. They always got more.

 We pray out of more, when our emptiness is suddenly brimming, when our ravaged lives are called to greatness, when we crash into limits and recoil.

 We pray out of our experiences and the Christian Scriptures.

 We place our personal stories within the Spirit-created story of Jesus.

 In this placing, in the interaction of the two stories, the deepest meanings of our lives unfold. We discover ourselves in dialogue with the events generated by Jesus, with the personalities who preceded him in faith (Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah) and those who drew faith directly from him (Peter, Mary, Paul). Like all who encounter the Christian story we are spun around. Old worlds are subverted: new worlds rise from the ruins. We are touched by Love beyond love, aware of life within Life. We are timid people suddenly filled with daring.

 Every word is prayer.

 And we remember… remember the courage of Mary, the betrayal of Peter, the abandonment of Magdalene, the fidelity of God, and the compassion of Christ. At times these prayers directly address God; at other times they do not. Yet all are witnesses to grace, stuttering accounts of the God whose ways are not our ways.

 In the end there is only one justification for these prayers.

 When God either muscles or smuggles his way into our activities, we know all words are betrayals; yet we speak. At that moment prayer is neither guilt nor task but just the word that is there.

And Finally this… in Beyond Words, Frederick Buechner writes:

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton.

In the silence of a mid-season dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.

You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you've never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.

The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment…

But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of yourself somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath.

 

Psalm 100 1Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. 2Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. 5For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. 

Not been a lot to laugh about in lockdown ! ** Here’s a few covid-cartoons that only resonate because of 2020! 

We’re going to dip into the Psalms today… our first day for a long time of broadcasting from this sacred space – a place that hold a special place in the hearts and faith lives of many who have inhabited this space over many years… it has been a sacred, worshipful and even sacramental space – where lives have been transformed, hearts changed and faith discovered and renewed… 

Commentators also talk about “the sacramental nature" of the Psalter, with its "ability to mould and transform the believer." Others have spoken of the importance of the Psalms in community as they remembered and as they prayed… it seems appropriate that as we emerge from lockdown that we can once more hear these well-known and richly-filled words. The ancient psalmists remind the community to praise God with song, shouts, musical instruments, raised hands, loud voices, dance, twirling, and in silence. Worship throughout the ages affirms that integral connection between God and humanity. Worship hold a unique place in our experience… 

You can almost hear the outbreak of jubilation described in this summons to praise in Psalm 100. This psalm calls the entire community to lift praises to God. On this, Christ the King Sunday, This psalm is the last of a group of what are known as enthronement psalms (93, and 95-99). These psalms celebrate with an understanding that the LORD (Yahweh) is God. The psalm begins with a note that this is a Psalm of Thanksgiving. In ancient Israel, the thanks offering was a voluntary offering given as a sign of gratitude to God. Worshippers are admonished not just to praise God, but to offer praise in a spirit of thanksgiving. 

The psalmist uses seven different verbs to call to the community to worship: make, serve, come, know, enter, give thanks, and bless. Although there are moments when we need to be still and quiet in the presence of the LORD, this is not one of them! Surely the psalmist was imagining what it might sound like when all the earth is praising the LORD at the same time. What a joyful sound, indeed, that would be!

 ** I can remember years ago when we invited the local Pentecostal congregation to join us for a prayer meeting… As we started, all the Baptists were seated around the circle, and all the Pentecostals immediately got up out of their seats and began praying loudly – and all at once!! ** This psalm resonates with sound! This is the kind of praise that so frightened an attacking army it began attacking itself instead of attacking Israel during the reign of King Jehoshaphat. (See 2 Chronicles 20.) On this occasion, the choir was in front of the army. What an awesome reminder of the power of praise. What an awesome reminder of the responsibility of the worship leader for the Church! The psalm reminds us that the sound of joy that arises from deep within cannot be stifled. This is the sound that conveys the wonder of simply being alive.  

The four verses which make up this little psalm, pack a punch. And, because these four verses are so rich and deep, there are so many things that can be said about them. 

The Psalm begins: 1Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2Worship the Lord with gladness 

Affirming this sense of joy, the psalmist encourages those assembled to worship and serve God with gladness. (In Hebrew, “worship” and “serve” are the same verb.) This is the gladness that breaks forth fully aware of the realities of life. This is the gladness that enables one to come into God’s presence with a voice raised to sing praises to our Creator. Just as there is time for silence before God, there is also time for lament, but this is not it. The praise of this psalm reminds us of a familiar spiritual which says, “If I don’t praise him the rock’s gonna cry out glory and honor, ain’t got time to die!” 

When I hear the word gladness, I cannot help but think of the gift of LAUGHTER I can’t help but wonder if laughter - in church, in conversation or even in private -part and parcel of making a joyful noise unto the Lord? We need to laugh! Laughing is honest in the sense that it's so natural, physiological, as if reminding us that laughing is supposed to happen. When we laugh we our mind has been somehow jostled into clarity. When we smile, our muscles loosen and our mood lifts. When we laugh, we feel the physiological results of it. Without a disclaimer about how we ought not anthropomorphize God, I'd like to imagine God's response to our laughter quite similar to our response to our kids and grandkids… 

 Here's the thing - to get a giggle out of us sometimes takes a lot of work. We are fortified against laughter sometimes, the fort built up by disappointment, disease, and daily news. (or lockdown, isolation and loneliness) Sometimes we think we must first get through the serious stuff before we can laugh (Baptists were once described as God’s Chosen Frozen!) -

** Living in USA – I used to make the mistake that people my age would love Monty Python as much as I do! I found it that much of the satire went straight to the keeper! 

** Characters like Barry Crump (Search for the wilderpeople) gave rise to comedians like John Clarke aka Fred Dagg, who was another of my early formative influences… I can still hear the quirky “If you ain’t got your gumboots… where would you be! If you think about it, we as a culture are often looking to satire to give us a lighter take on the news these days… Clark and Dawes, The Office and other classics appeal to our antipodean sense of humour – we like to take to see the funny side of ordinary situations… Of late we’ve been starved for laughter amidst the disappointment, disease and daily news. During Lockdown Stand-up comedians were more appreciated than ever… 

• I wonder if the psalmist would find his or her rank alongside these satirists? 

 • I wonder if the psalmist was surrounded by laughter? 

• I wonder if the psalmist wished to be surrounded by laughter? 

 • I wonder if you wish to be surrounded by laughter? And I wonder what might happen if God attempted to get a giggle out of you sometime this week? …come into his presence with singing 

The other gift embedded in this Psalm is SONGS OF JOY 

When we come before God in worship, why do we sing rather than merely think or talk with one another? 

 • singing can lift our hearts to adore God, 

 • awaken and engages our emotions 

 • and inspires us as we remember God's transforming love for the hurting world. 

This great psalm calls upon us all—all lands—to approach God. We’re to come near. And, we’re to come near with joy. With a song. Kids often like to sing for no other reason than they want to make a song, and make a song for us. They want to bring us joy, and they want to experience the joy on our faces. 

** Our youngest, Jonathan, loves to sing… we’d often hear him through his open windows (as would our neigh bours!) He doesn’t always sing exactly in tune… and it doesn’t really matter!! Not to him , nor to us!! 

I think that’s very close to what the psalmist is getting at here. We’re to come before the Presence of God—who has made us, and we are his—and we’re to sing him a song. Maybe it’s a song we know. Maybe it’s another psalm. Maybe it’s one of the great hymns of the church. But…maybe…it’s one we just make up on the spot. That barely rhymes. A song that doesn’t even fully resolve. And is out of key. But, nonetheless, a song that is sung with pure joy by a sheep of the pasture of God—in His Presence, square in the middle of one of his courts. 

Now, that’s good stuff! THAT’S what a relationship with God looks like—a relationship full of self-abandon and joy. 

FINALLY… This threefold call to praise (make, serve, come) is followed by an explanation of the reason behind this outburst of praise. The community is to give praise to God simply because God exists, simply because God is. 3Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. With this reminder, the psalmist acknowledges that life begins with God. God created us. God is to be worshipped because God is the Creator who calls Israel into covenant. In other words, God is to be worshipped for who God is, not just for what God has done. God is a powerful God! The psalmist is glad to be counted among God’s people. The reference to sheep conveys an assurance that not only is God present, but God provides for His sheep, including the psalmist. In other words, God is to be worshipped not just for what God has done, but for what God will do for humanity now and into the future. And why? 

For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his faithfulness endures from age to age.