Zephaniah 3:14-20, Philippians 4:4-7
When I was a campus minister, there was a brilliant young black preacher at one of the Baptist churches in town who died suddenly. His congregation, his friends, and his wife and two young children were understandably distraught. This young brother was a rising star in the church and in the community -- he was destined for greatness -- but was felled by illness before his prime. I went to his funeral, and sat in the gallery overlooking the sanctuary. The service was moving and powerful, a great witness to this young man's brief impact on his church. At the end of the service, the congregation stood as the casket was carried out of the church, preceded by the clergy and followed by the widow and children. The organist launched into a song I had never heard before, but will never forget. As this young man's body was carried from the church, the congregation sang in full voice,
My God is a good God; He's a great God.
He can do anything but fail.
He can move any mountain out of my way.
My God is a wonderful God.
How could a young widow and her children, and a grieving congregation and friends sing such a song in the face of the enormity of their loss? As the congregation sang the song over and over, it became an affirmation of faith and life. In the midst of that bottomless sorrow, there was joy.
The prophet Zephaniah writes during the reign of the great reformer king, Josiah. The book of Deuteronomy had been found deep within the basement of the Temple, and upon its reading, Josiah had commanded a radical reform of the Temple and the nation to be in harmony with God's law. Rejoice and exult with all your heart, Zephaniah cries. The Lord, your God, is in your midst . . . he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on the day of festival. I will remove disaster from you. . . I will bring you home.
Paul's letter to the Philippians is a letter from a founding pastor to a church he loves more than life. Again and again in the letter, Paul tells the church to rejoice, because the Lord is near. On one hand, Paul believes that Christ will return soon and change the world forever. But it's also clear that Paul understands the nearness of the Lord in a more existential sense: in his great hymn in the second chapter, Paul describes how Christ emptied himself of all divine privilege so he could take on humanity, thereby raising humanity with him in resurrection. That is a future hope, but it is also a present reality: we are united here and now in Christ's death and in his resurrection. All the privileges and joys of heaven are ours right here and now. Rejoice, Paul says, because the Lord is near.
Have you grown exhausted by the commercials, by the ads in your mailbox, by the internet advertising for just the right gift that will make you or someone you love happy forever? I remember the Christmas that my mother hounded my father for what seemed like months for a Stieff sterling silver rose pattern bacon server. Her life just could not be complete without that bacon server. It was a wonder that we had ever been able to eat bacon without it. So, on Christmas morning, there, under the tree, was a box with the silver bacon server. What's the bacon server that you, or someone you love, are searching for this Christmas? Maybe it's something as important as a job. Maybe it's healing for you or someone you love. Maybe it's enough money back in your pension to retire. Perhaps it's someone to love you, or someone to love. Maybe it's a new video game, a new piece of clothing. Maybe it's a letter of acceptance to a college. Or maybe it's a silver bacon server.
I only remember my mother using it once, and it's not in the box with the rest of her silver that I inherited. My mother wasn't any happier after she got that piece of silver than she had been before, because there's no present that comes under the tree that addresses the deeper hunger in every one of us of which unhappiness is only a symptom.
The great British writer C.S. Lewis entitled his autobiography Surprised by Joy because he had searched ever since his childhood for a feeling of wholeness he had known fleetingly as a boy, and had missed for years afterward. His happy childhood had been shattered by his mother's death and by his being shuttled to a series of boarding schools. In his search for joy, Lewis meant not pleasure, but an experience of the transcendent -- something beyond himself and ordinary life -- a glimpse of the eternal that is only partially glimpsed in earthly loves and aesthetics. Lewis sought joy in all the places an adolescent and young adult does -- in art, in literature, in fantasy, in sexual pleasure, in war -- but at best caught only momentary glimpses of the joy he sought. Raised in the church, he became an atheist, then a theist, then, thanks in large part to fellow scholars J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, finally returned to faith in Christ while on a train trip. Lewis said all he knew was that he got on the train an unbeliever and got off believing, but in surrendering his life to God, he rediscovered the deep joy he had been seeking since childhood.
What is this joy that the Bible talks so much about. Jesus says in John 15 that he has given us the commandment to love each other so that his joy would be in us, and our joy would be complete. The German theologian and preacher Paul Tillich had a famous sermon about joy:
Joy is more than pleasure; and it is more than happiness. Happiness is a state of mind which for a longer or shorter time and is dependent on many conditions, external and internal. . . Happiness can stand a large amount of pain and lack of pleasure. But happiness cannot withstand the lack of joy. For joy is the expression of our central and essential fulfillment. No peripheral fulfillments and no favorable conditions can be substituted for the central fulfillment. Even in an unhappy state a great joy can transform unhappiness into happiness . . . For joy has something within itself which is beyond joy and sorrow. This something is called blessedness.[1]
The reason that church in Charlottesville could sing joyfully in the face of death is because they knew that even this young man's tragic death could not separate them from God. Their hearts were completely broken; that young family's life was in pieces; that congregation was a flock of sheep without a shepherd. They were filled with grief and sorrow, but the joy that lay under all their sorrow could not be taken away. That's the joy that Zephaniah and Paul point to -- a confidence that knows, no matter what darkness we face at the moment, even the darkness of death, God is in our midst, and will bring us home. That's the peace that passes all understanding, and the joy that never ends.
My God is a good God; He's a great God.
He can do anything but fail.
He can move any mountain out of my way.
My God is a wonderful God.
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