Tears of Joy and Tears of Sadness

Scripture: Psalm 126; Ezra 3: 10-13

Sermon: Tears of Joy and Tears of Sadness

Topics: joy, sadness, gladness, tears, bountiful, estrangement

Preached: April 2, 2017

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble: The Jews lived in exile for 70 years.

Then things began to change.

There was a new empire —

Babylon was done

Persia now ruled.

There was a new ruler —

Nebuchadnezzar was gone

Cyrus now reigned.

And Cyrus allowed the first wave of exiles to return to Jerusalem.

The book of Ezra recounts the story of this first wave of exiles.

The first year back it was simply getting oriented.

But in their second year back

they began to lay the first foundations of a rebuilt Temple.

Listen:

Ezra 3: 10-13

10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the Lord with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, according to the directions of King David of Israel; 

¹¹and they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord,

‘For he is good,

for his steadfast love endures for ever towards Israel.’

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 

¹²But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house,

though many shouted aloud for joy, 

¹³so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.

And now a Psalm which, in all likelihood, arose out of those early years of the return from exile — Psalm 126.

A Song of Ascents.

¹ When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

   we were like those who dream. 

² Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

   and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

   ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ 

³ The Lord has done great things for us,

   and we rejoiced. 

⁴ Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

   like the watercourses in the Negeb. 

⁵ May those who sow in tears

   reap with shouts of joy. 

⁶ Those who go out weeping,

   bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

   carrying their sheaves.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL

Do you know the story “The Trip to Bountiful?”

It started as a play by Horton Foote.

Then in 1985 it was made into a movie starring Geraldine Page.

The Trip to Bountiful is a story set in southern Texas in the 1940’s.

Mrs. Watts is an elderly woman living in Houston

with her son and her daughter-in-law.

Mrs. Watts has a weak heart,

but all that heart wants to do

is to return home one last time:

home to the small town of Bountiful;

home to the farm she was raised on ;

home to the house her father was born in.

It has been years and years and years since she returned,

and that is all she wanted – one last trip.

So Mrs. Watts keeps asking her son and daughter-in-law if they would take her.

But the son and daughter-in-law keep giving reasons why she shouldn’t go:

her heart is too weak;

the trip would be too long;

their lives are too busy.

So one day, Mrs. Watts escapes.

She sneaks off and tries to catch a train to Bountiful.

But there are no trains to Bountiful.

So she goes to the bus station and tries to take a bus to Bountiful.

But buses don’t run there either.

The best she can do is take a bus to a town close to Bountiful.

So she takes it.

On the bus trip she sits beside a younger woman.

All she can do is talk about how excited she is to be going home to Bountiful,

and what a beautiful place it is.

When her stop finally comes, it is already late at night

and Bountiful is a good 12 miles further.

So Mrs. Watts falls asleep on a bench in the bus station,

dreaming of Bountiful.

In the morning, she is woken by the local sheriff.

The sheriff tells Mrs. Watts that he is there because he received an anxious call from her son and daughter-in-law.

The Sheriff says he will stay with her until the son and daughter-in-law can come and pick her up.

Mrs. Watts is beside herself.

She begs the Sheriff to take her that last 12 miles to Bountiful.

She had come so far. She was so close. Please. Please…

The Sheriff, being a kind man, agreed.

They head to Bountiful in his car.

As they are driving through what was Bountiful,

all Mrs. Watts sees are

boarded up buildings,

and closed down stores.

“What happened to this place?” she asked.

“Oh, this town’s been deserted for years now” said the Sheriff.

Mrs. Watts grew quiet.

Driving through the countryside

with beautiful fields of grass,

and birds singing in the trees,

they arrive at an old run-down farmhouse.

It is Mrs. Watts’ childhood home. Finally.

Mrs. Watts goes inside the old house.

It is empty. Abandoned.

Mrs. Watts walks out of the house.

She sinks to her knees on the grass.

She weeps, and weeps.

The Sheriff asks, “Are you okay?”

Weeping, Mrs. Watts says,

“I’m sorry. I just had half a feeling that my father and my mother

would come out of this house and greet me,

and welcome me home.

But they’re gone. Everyone is gone.”

The Sheriff asked, “Are you glad you came?”

Mrs. Watts, still weeping,

breaks into a smile, said, “Oh yes.

I am so very glad I came.

This is the best day I’ve had in a very long time.”

Here are tears of sadness and tears of gladness all at the very same time.^[1]

TEARS OF GLADNESS AND TEARS OF SADNESS

We see this same curious combination of tears in both our passages this morning.

First, in Ezra.

The exiles have just returned to Jerusalem, or what is left of Jerusalem.

The younger ones are excited simply to be back.

When the worship begins,

and the first foundation stones are moved into place

for the rebuilding of the temple

they shout loudly, and joyfully, and weep tears of gladness.

But the older folk,

the ones who knew what the Temple used to look like,

the ones who remembered how active, how busy, how full of life

the city of Jerusalem used to be,

they weep tears of sadness.

What Ezra describes as different reactions

from two different groups — the young and the old —

Psalm 126 combines into one Psalm.

The Psalm opens with Tears of Gladness:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion

We were like those who dream.

Our mouths were filled with laughter

Our tongues with shouts of joy.

Praise the Lord. He has done great thing for us.

But the Psalm ends with a lament and Tears of Sadness:

Please Lord, restore our fortunes,

Like a river restores a desert.

May all of us weeping tears of sorrow

Reap a harvest of joy.

May all of us weeping tears of sorrow

One day come home with shouts of joy.

FULFILLMENT OF THE STORY

What do these passages, in Ezra and this Psalm, tell us?

They tell us that,

Yes, the exiles returned,

But no, that return did not lead to a full restoration.

They tell us that,

Yes, their 70 year exile was payment for their sins,

But no, their payment was not enough to cover all their sins.

These passages remind us

that yes, they were home, sort of,

But no, their exile, their estrangement from God, did not end.

That estrangement from God

Only ended when God decided to end it;

Only ended when God decided to intervene;

Only ended when God decided to arrive in person.

And what do we see when God arrives?

We see Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one.

And we see that Jesus is forced to

walk the same path that Israel walked;

He was forced to live

the same story that Israel had lived.

For Jesus endured all the estrangement of exile:

He was rejected by his own people;

He was abandoned by his own disciples;

He was forsaken by his own heavenly Father.

In other words,

Jesus was exiled to hell for us.

To that harsh truth, what can we do but weep tears of sorrow and sadness?

But the story of Jesus has a fuller ending than the story of Israel.

Where what Israel endured could not pay the full price for their sins,

what Jesus suffered did pay the full price –

not just for the Jews,

not just for some people,

but he paid the price for all people.

He paid the price to redeem all things.

He paid the price to restore all creation.

Only in the death of Jesus, and then in the glorious resurrection of Jesus,

could the exile finally end,

and the restoration project of all people and all creation fully begin.

And now, everyone who believes in Jesus Christ,

whose hope is anchored in him

is a living stone in the New Temple.

This New Temple is just like that song says,

It is not a building,

It is not a steeple

It is Christ’s Spirit-filled people.

That is what the New Temple is.

To this glorious reality,

that we, through the death and resurrection of Christ,

are part of this glorious restoration project,

to that, what can we do but weep tears of joy and gladness?

CONCLUSION

In a moment we,

as God’s People

as his New Temple

are going to gather around the table.

Right in the middle of that table sits a loaf of bread.

If I don’t say so myself, it looks like a pretty nice loaf –

it is round and has 4 different sections

representing that God’s people are gathered

from the east and west, the north and south

into one body.

In many ways that loaf, that whole, round beautiful loaf

can be seen as a sign of God’s presence with us his people.

But here is the thing.

That loaf is not going to stay whole much longer.

It will be torn – so that we can partake.

It will be broken – so that we can be made whole.

That bread is Jesus

who was crucified, dead, and buried,

so that we might be made new, and fully restored.

That bread is Jesus

who fully emptied himself on the cross

so that we might fully share in his bountiful grace and mercy.

So here is the great question when it comes to communion,

the Lord’s Supper:

How are we supposed to feel?

Should we have tears of sadness and lament,

weeping as we remember his suffering, his sacrifice, his death?

Or should we have tears joy,

knowing that what Jesus did accomplished a great victory —

and removed all that separated us from God?

Tears of sadness or tears of gladness?

The truth is, both kinds of tears belong at communion.

That is partly why we celebrate communion

both on Maundy Thursday evening

and on Easter morning.

On Maundy Thursday, we have communion,

remembering mainly his painful death,

but we always do so in the light of his resurrection.

On Easter morning, we have communion

remembering Christ’s glorious resurrection,

but we do so never forgetting the cost of his sacrifice.

The tears of sadness and the tears of gladness.

The tears of lamenting and the tears of laughing.

The tears of dying and the tears of rising.

Of course, our tears mirror the tears of God himself.

For God has wept many tears over his wayward children —

their sins, their separation, their suffering.

And God has wept many tears over

all those who

through his Son

are able to come home, come home at last

and receive what their hearts have always yearned for.

Amen

1. The Trip to Bountiful, 1985 movie starring Geraldine Page as Mrs. Watts, and with the wonderful soundtrack of the old hymn “Softly and Tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling for me and for you….” ↑