Week 2: Discover Joy
Monday Dec 11
I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
As for me, I said in my prosperity,
“I shall never be moved.”
By your favor, O Lord,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.
To you, O Lord, I cried,
and to the Lord I made supplication:
“What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be gracious
to me!
O Lord, be my helper!”
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
Psalm 30
At Christmas, it’s easy to think of the birth of Christ as only joy. We picture red-wrapped candies, punctual dinner-dates, and Mary and Joseph young and in love. You know the familiar tune: “Joy to the world the Lord is come!”
But I bet if Christ was anything like us as a baby, then there was just as much crying as there was celebrating. When Christ was born, he probably kept everyone up well past their bedtime, wailing. Maybe complaints were even made about the howling coming from the third stall on the left. If you rubbed your eyes enough at 3am, the twinkling star likely became the blurry star. Today, we’d hope Joseph would get up to brew some coffee at some point to help everyone realize the sun was going to rise, whether they were ready for it or not. And maybe, all the weeping in the dark got some of the hay out of their eyes. Maybe it even helped them see their new king in a different light.
Jesus’ birth is not the only time we learn of Jesus weeping. In the garden of Gethsemane, the anguish of Christ brings out tears and blood. His friends have proven they are not so much “there when you need me” friends as much as they are “there if I can be’’ friends. And it is not just his friends, but his Father too. Where did God go?
Christ is shattered. He cries and prays through the night. He asks questions. But nothing changes the next day, no response. Just a slow, lonesome walk to a cross on a hill. No friends, no family, and no dancing.
On that hill, death soon awaits. When Christ is lifted up from the ground into the air, perhaps Christ prayed Psalm 30, “What will you gain if I die, if I sink into the grave? Can my dust praise you? Can it tell of your faithfulness?”
To which the answer is, of course, the dust can tell of God’s faithfulness.
One of the things I love about Psalm 30 is that the psalmist never explains exactly how God turns their shattering into joy. They ask God questions, and they pray. At the end of the psalm, the psalmist wakes up to joy rather than weeping.. And there it is – the spirit of resurrection. The psalm reminds us of Christ in that way.
If the psalmist’s and Christ’s mournings turned into dancing, then perhaps our weeping in the dark is not the end of the story. Maybe our tears have not turned into dancing quite yet. Maybe resurrection is on the horizon.
Memory Passage
The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”
— Luke 1:35
Weekly Practice
Write a list of everything—big and small—that brings you joy. Display it somewhere you will see it daily.
Reach out to someone who brings you joy. Tell them, “I appreciate you.”
Practice embodied joy. For example, cook or eat something that fills you with delight. Or listen to your favorite song and sing or dance along.