Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 126: Joy and Tears

The analogy: sowing with tears, reaping with joy

Part of a continuing series on selected psalms.

Trapped.  Unappreciated.  Ignored. Rejected. When we experience emotions like this, we’re apt to think that God has forgotten us. Maybe we think our faith has failed us. Ancient Jews, exiled to Babylon, certainly did. The Jews were known for loving their music, but in their misery as exiles they refused to sing for their captors, hanging their harps in the local poplar trees (Psalm 137:2).

In such times, Psalm 126 comes to teach and encourage us. The setting is the release of Jews from captivity in Babylon, with permission to return to their homeland. Never before had a captive people been allowed to relocate “back home.” But not all returned—according to Ezra 2:64-68, about 50,000. That’s a sizeable number, but was only a portion of those taken as spoils of war. Those who opted to leave faced an arduous desert journey of hundreds of miles. Once back in their destroyed homeland, they were on their own.

Psalm 126 replays both ecstatic joy and tearful hope in these circumstances—emotions that we, too, may experience when life takes an unexpected, positive turn, or when life tries to drain us of hope.

ECSTATIC JOY

Several decades ago, while working at the headquarters of an international mission, I witnessed a dramatic re-enactment of the opening verses of Psalm 126. For nearly eight months—232 days—we’d prayed for a missionary couple and their small daughter, captured by rebels who herded them through the jungles of Southeast Asia. As the months dragged on, we gathered regularly to intercede for their safety and release. Then one morning, a special chapel meeting was called. It could mean only one of two outcomes: death or release. The mission’s Southeast Asia director began the meeting by reading from Psalm 126, his voice choked with emotion:
When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. (vv. 1-2)
By then we knew they had been released!  He continued:
The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. (v. 3)
Newer translations clarify verse 1: “When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.” The prophet Isaiah had foretold this, even down to the name of the yet-unborn leader, Cyrus, who’d buck custom and release them (Isaiah 44:28). Having this actually happen was like their wildest dream coming true. They probably retrieved their harps from the trees to celebrate this amazing turn of events! Our cultural lens makes it hard to understand the intense emotion of being able to return to one’s historical homeland, steeped in the history of the patriarchs.

The glad declaration of verse 3 is how we should respond to God’s amazing blessings. It’s a witness to those around us (as is was to neighboring nations, v. 2c).  In her book The Satisfied Heart (Waterbrook, 1999, p. 171), author Ruth Myers remarked how it’s refreshing to be in the company of a “glad person.” Such a person can brighten an entire room. Likewise, it’s discouraging to be around someone who regularly gripes, complains, and seems trapped in a gloomy mindset.

TEARFUL HOPE

Upon learning of our colleagues’ release, tearful prayers of thanksgiving flowed freely during that chapel hour. Though thin and sick, they were still alive. But they’d face many adjustments plus the grief of losing their precious manuscripts of the New Testament in a tribal language—the reason they were in that country. This was the ‘70s, when “saving” information in an internet “cloud” was the stuff of dreams. It was all on paper. As I recall that loss, I think of another couple I know who have devoted their entire adult lives—almost half a century—to translating the New Testament into two dialects of a South American tribal language. They endured deprivation, serious illness, cultural issues, government pressure, apathy and the plain hard work of learning an unwritten language. Recently I watched a video they sent of their second New Testament dedication. As I watched them join their joyful tribal friends, holding their New Testaments aloft as they did a celebratory dance, I thought of this portion of Psalm 126:
Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (vv. 4-6 KJV)
 

Jews who returned to their homeland faced great hardships. The land was in shambles, the temple burned, and the left-behind occupants hostile. No wonder they prayed, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord” (v. 4, NIV, ESV). They had to build homes and plant crops, using the precious seed they brought from Babylon. If they scattered generously, there would be less to grind into flour for bread for their families, and even less later if those crops failed. No wonder the farmer wept as he planted. He had no guarantee of a crop, only trust in God to provide.

No doubt they remembered that God had covenanted to provide adequate food for His people (Deuteronomy 28:1-14), and were claiming that promise in the midst of uncertainties. They were counting on God’s abundance to be as remarkable and refreshing as the rare downpours in the desert of the Negev (v. 4), which temporarily produced torrents that greened up nearby land. They were also trusting God for the time when a heavy heart of uncertainty would become the light, glad heart of joy as they gathered a harvest.

Beneath this picture of sowing and reaping actual food is the spiritual picture of sowing and reaping for God’s kingdom. Spiritual crops take waiting and tears. I try to remember that when I open my prayer notebook and pray again, and again, for loved ones who have rejected Christ or His better plan for their lives. Tears may come as my intense desire to see them spiritually whole overcomes me. Nineteenth century preacher Charles Spurgeon remarked, “Winners of souls are first weepers for souls.  As there is no birth without travail, so there is no spiritual harvest without painful tillage.”

Besides starting over with life’s necessities of housing and crops, the returned exiles faced rebuilding their temple. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell of the opposition and disappointments they faced, and how steadfast trust that God got them through it all. A lesson from that for us if that if things came too easily, we wouldn’t feel our need of God.  Perhaps that’s why we need the balancing exultation and agony of Psalm 126. True joy—deep, hard-won joy—comes from acknowledging that every good gift comes from God.  We sow daily through diligence in our work or studies, building good friendships, parenting the best we can for God, and staying faithful in prayer and Bible study. The journey may bring disappointment and tears. But as Psalm 30:5 reminds, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” As we sow in God’s strength, we’ll reap in joy, and give Him the glory for it. Songs of joy, says the psalmist. Or to use the more recent lyrics given us by Fanny Crosby: “To God be the glory, great things he has done!”

 

Next: Psalm 130

 

Gold, frankincense, and more



A friend brought me this carved wooden
box from Uzbekistan. Could a "wise man"
 have come from that part of central Asia?

 Have you ever thought about, “why” myrrh? Yes, at Jesus’ birth, wise men from the East brought him royal gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh (Matt. 2:11). No doubt Joseph later sold those gifts so he and Mary had something to live on when they fled to Egypt with the infant Jesus. Two millennia later, we hear sermons on the gifts’ symbolism: gold to befit a king, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh, for the One to die.

Hold those thoughts and consider this from Puritan preacher Thomas Watson (c. 1620-1686). In discussing Matt. 5:6 and one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, Watson said, “He can feed upon the myrrh of the gospel as well as the honey.”

The “honey” part makes sense. Passages like Psalm 19:10 say God’s Word is sweeter than “honey from the comb.” Indeed, we all cherish scripture passages of comfort and hope, our “spiritual honey.”

But what’s the “myrrh of the gospel”?

First, myrrh was a pricey aromatic, extracted by scoring a small tree to tap its resin, similar to rubber. Its smell has been described as a warm, comforting resin, deeper in aroma than frankincense’s more pungent balsamic odor.

Most are familiar with how myrrh was used to mask the death odor as a body was prepared for burial. Nicodemus lugged 75 pounds of a myrrh-aloes mixture to a freshly-hewn cave tomb to help wrap up Jesus’ corpse (John 19:39).

But myrrh was also a perfume for the living. In a rather steamy portion of the Song of Solomon, myrrh graced a cleavage (1:13). Psalm 45:8, a king’s wedding song, extols the royal’s garb as fragrant with myrrh, aloes and cassia. No doubt that’s what Henry Barraclough had in mind in 1915 as he penned the lyrics to “Ivory Palaces.” That old hymn speaks of Christ in garments scented with myrrh and other fragrances welcoming the believer to Heaven.

In Bible times, mixed into wine, myrrh was used to dull the senses. The soldiers crucifying Jesus offered Him the concoction before they nailed Him on the cross, but He refused it (Mark 15:23). He experienced the full horror of the dying process.

So how can the gospel be “myrrh”? Perhaps these point to the answer:

*The gospel is Christ coming to earth, but more than sweet babies in fresh hay cooing, angels singing, shepherds awing, and foreigners of high birth gifting.

*The gospel is the gift of eternal life through God’s Son, refusing a primitive sedative, groaning on a splintered cross groaning, beseeching, dying, buried with spices to cover the stench.

*The gospel is also that provocative little verse in Song of Solomon 1:13, Christ as the myrrh over one’s heart spreading its precious perfume obtained through a pierced tree.

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) said of this: “Myrrh may well be chosen as the type of Jesus on account of his preciousness, its perfume, its pleasantness, its healing, preserving, disinfecting qualities, and its connection with sacrifice.”

And what of those whom Watson said would seek the myrrh of the gospel? Bible teacher William MacDonald (1917-2007), in his commentary on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5, said such people have a passion for personal righteousness that seeks honesty, integrity, and justice in society and practical holiness in the church.

Thus, the “myrrh” of the gospel is dying to self so that the lovely righteousness of Christ—our King, Priest and Redeemer—spreads through us to a world suffocating in sin’s death stench.

Yes: gold, frankincense, and more--lots more.