How to become joyful? For some people, it seems like joy will never come again. Perhaps you are working through your sadness and depression. Perhaps you are looking for something that will help, because the medicine only works just so far and not far enough. Perhaps you have gradually let the news and the politics and the world around us bring you down into the dumps, into the darkness, into sadness, hopelessness, and into depression. This article isn't the whole answer...but hopefully, it can give you a step or two up out of the hole...
The world is falling apart around us. I’ve heard this from many people in the last year.
- You’ve heard about the tremendous death and destruction in the cities of Syria, and you wonder when that death and destruction will come here.
- You’ve told me how the jobs have dried up and those that remain don’t pay enough.
- You’ve told me how the politicians discuss each other’s sexual advances because it is simpler than talking about policies.
- You’ve told me how the Chinese and the Russians and ISIS are ready to destroy us.
- You’ve told me how our schools are becoming war zones.
- You’ve told me how our city streets are no longer safe for the police.
- You’ve told me how the police are killing all sorts of people without cause.
- You’ve told me how the drugs are killing our relatives.
- You’ve told me how less and less people attend our churches.
- You’ve told me how our television shows are no longer worth watching.
- You’ve told me how the weather is the worst it’s ever been.
- You’ve told me how people are doing terrible things to children and babies, both those who have been born and those who are still in the womb.
- You’ve told me how your life is depressing and lonely and without purpose.
You’ve heard all the world’s remedies for sadness and depression:
There are the physical causes: Perhaps we’re not getting enough exercise, we aren’t getting enough sunshine in winter, perhaps our caffeine that lifted us up yesterday has decided to let our mood fall today. Perhaps we need more sleep. Perhaps we’ve been getting too much sleep. Maybe our brain chemistry is out of whack and we need medication. Perhaps. These causes are real and affect many people. We can't ignore them or gloss over them.
All of these are real physical causes of sadness. For example, I know with me that if I have a large glass of Dr Pepper on Monday afternoon, I will drag on Tuesday morning. I have lots more energy when I’ve been to the YMCA than when I didn’t make it there. And dark, cloudy days of winter make me sad – sunshine makes me happy. And there is a sweet spot with just enough sleep. And all of this is tied into the same dopamine/serotonin system that’s involved with addiction, which is why addiction and sadness and feeling really, really good, feeling high can be so intertwined. And that’s why the anti-depression medicines and the opium-based pain relievers are so tricky to use together and to phase out carefully with medical attention.
Then, there are the event-driven causes of sadness. If you’ve lost a loved one through death or divorce or them moving away to college or work, it’s natural to feel sad. If you didn’t feel at least a little bit sad, you’d be a bit odd – even for those who wanted the divorce or wanted the child to get out of the house! We feel sad when we lose people we are used to being around. After all, How many of you went back to a high school football game after you graduated because you missed being there and the people from your class?
And why is it that some people seem to bounce right back from sad events and others stay sad and don’t see joy again?
We feel sad when we lose people because we actually have a connection, a spiritual and emotional connection with people we love, and when that cord between us breaks, that emotional energy springs back into our souls and it fries us, it injures us, and we need time and love for that burn to heal.
One day about twenty years ago, (don't try this!) I was testing a 600 amp, 480 volt electrical circuit when the circuit arced from one pole to another. A 300,000 watt heat source flashed six inches from my right hand. I was blind for a couple of minutes, my hair was crispy, my upper arm was in pain and red, I had blisters on my wrist and the back of my hand and my fingers looked like elephant hide, gray and fried. The pain was intense, a co-worker took my to the hospital where they gave me really good drugs and proceeded to remove the dead, cooked skin and then I spent three days recovering with plenty of morphine. It took six weeks for that burn to heal.
Twice a day I washed my hand in warm water with Clorox. Then I put a white burn cream on the exposed skin which sealed the skin and killed any bacteria. Then my hand was wrapped in bandages. But while I was washing my hand in that warm water, I had to carefully stretch my fingers and hand in all directions, because if I did not stretch my hand, painfully pulling apart the new skin that was growing, my hand would end up with limited movement, withered and drawn together, unable to function normally. And slowly my hand healed. And today I can play the piano even better than I did before the accident.
After we have a sad event, being loved by others is like that burn cream that heals the wounds and protects us from the bitter bacteria that would kill us. But loving others – children, friends, people through ministry – loving others, which is often a painful process - that is like the necessary stretching of the emotional skin that allows us to function normally or even better than before once again. We need to be loved – and we need to love others - to fully recover from the pain of losing someone we loved. For otherwise we will stay withered and drawn together, with limited emotional movement.
But what do we do when our sadness continues? What do we do when months and then years go by and we stay sad? I will point you to this reading from Jeremiah the Prophet, in the Book of Lamentations, the 3rd Chapter. Let’s learn from Jeremiah.
Lamentations was written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The whole city was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar by fire. Archaeological evidence shows the entire city was burned and turned into rubble. And Jeremiah was there and lived through that terrible time. Afterwards, taken prisoner by the Babylonians and forced to walk 900 miles across the Middle East from Jerusalem to Babylon, south of Bagdad, Iraq, Jeremiah wrote this book.
Lamentations is perhaps the saddest book in the entire Bible. Let’s hear most of the 3rd chapter, which, unfortunately is the most uplifting chapter of Lamentations (New International Version),
I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.
- Notice that Jeremiah is blaming God. Jeremiah has his head on straight – He knows that God is in charge of all that has happened. Jeremiah understands that God Himself is working against Jeremiah – Isn’t that enough to make you want to stay in bed all day! But it gets even worse for Jeremiah...
He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.
He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
Jeremiah points out that even his prayers are not being listened to!
He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.
Like a bear lying in wait,
like a lion in hiding,
he dragged me from the path and mangled me
and left me without help.
He drew his bow
and made me the target for his arrows.
He pierced my heart
with arrows from his quiver.
I became the laughingstock of all my people;
they mock me in song all day long.
He has filled me with bitter herbs
and given me gall to drink.
He has broken my teeth with gravel;
he has trampled me in the dust.
That hurts just hearing it!
I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
So I say, “My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
So far, I think we would agree that Jeremiah is having a bad time and is justifiably deep in depression. His bones have been broken; his teeth have been broken with gravel. He has been trampled in the dust. He’s been given gall – that is the liquid from the gallbladder - to drink. Everything has gone wrong for Jeremiah! And don’t forget that his home town, his capital city has been destroyed along with the beautiful palace of David and the even more beautiful Temple of Solomon. Everything has been burned to the ground. Jeremiah has been taken captive along with thousands of other people and marched from Jerusalem to Babylon, 500 miles if you go straight across the desert, but a 900 mile walk if you follow the rivers. From here in West Virginia, 900 miles will take you 40 miles south of Orlando, FL – how would you like to take that walk? And Jeremiah wept all the way.
And so we have come to verse 20 where he talks about the terrible things that have happened and Jeremiah writes “I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.”
And then, Jeremiah writes something truly amazing. He writes verse 21:
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Things are terrible, things have fallen apart, the city is destroyed, we’ve walked hundreds of miles as captives, our bones are broken, our teeth have been broken by gravel and ground into the dust and Jeremiah has hope?!
Is the man insane? Has the desert heat fried his brain? Is Jeremiah bonkers?
NO!
He writes:
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.
Let him sit alone in silence,
for the Lord has laid it on him.
Let him bury his face in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
and let him be filled with disgrace.
For no one is cast off
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
Jeremiah, who blames all of his troubles on God, has hope because Jeremiah knows God’s character. Jeremiah knows that God puts us through times of testing to work out the kinks in our character. Jeremiah knows that God sometimes disciplines us to get our attention. Jeremiah knows that sometimes God lets us get our teeth busted in so we will learn. But Jeremiah has hope because Jeremiah knows that God is wise, very, very wise and God loves us very, very much, and God has all the power in the Universe and therefore events will not get out of God’s control. And God has compassion for us!
And so, if God loves you and God is wiser than you and God has all the power God needs – why do you feel hopeless and sad?
For some people, a reminder of God's compassion may be all you need today to feel joy. If you are one of those people, smile, lean back, think about your life with hope and joy.
But for other people, there is something much deeper here at play. For other people, simply be reminded of God’s power and wisdom and love isn’t enough to turn us around, for there is something going on here that goes deeper than our forgetfulness about God's love. Sometimes, the very problem that lies at the root of our depression is that we have very good memories and so we have to work through some issues.
You may be one of those people or have a dear friend or relative that is one of those people. So let’s look at the spiritual causes of sadness and depression and perhaps we’ll see our way out to a joyful afternoon.
First and foremost, the world reminds us daily that we are not to believe in the Gospel. Oh, yes! Are you surprised? There are some parts of the world that insist that there is no God, and more who insist that Christianity is wrong and messed up. Jesus is said to be another man, a great teacher and philosopher, perhaps, but most of the world insists that Jesus is not divine.
And that steady drumbeat of denial of Jesus, like the wipers on your car windshield when it rains, puts you slowly, slowly to sleep spiritually. Do you realize that most people in America, even those who are Christians, have a view of God that is more Jewish than Christian? Most people focus upon the rules that we break, upon the idea that “God is going to get you!” than on the gospel message. Christianity, we say, is about living a particular way, about following particular moral and ethical standards, about treating other people a certain way specified by rules, rules, and more rules. And so we focus upon the things we have done wrong, the times that we regret, the things we have said and the actions we have done which have hurt ourselves and other people, the things we didn’t say or do that we should have done and even if we ask forgiveness from God we don’t really believe that God has forgiven us – and we don’t forgive ourselves!
Why? This is because we really believe in the Law and the Rules and how important they are to our salvation. We believe in the Law more than we believe in the Gospel! Doing the right thing is critical! At least, that’s the way we act, and so that’s what we really believe down deep in our hearts. And this is because we’ve missed the Gospel message, the real meaning of the Good News that Jesus brought us.
But Pastor, didn’t I get the message that Jesus, who was the Son of God, died on the cross for my sins and was resurrected to prove He is divine, actually is the Son of God and if I believe this I have eternal life? What did I miss?
What you may have missed are the implications of this Gospel. Have you ever noticed that the Christian in the New Testament are joyful, praising God even when they are in prison? They may be in physical prison, but they’re never in an emotional prison. Let’s look at those implications of the Gospel people often miss:
Most of us remember very well the wrong things we have done. We remember those mistakes we made, those sins we committed, those times we injured ourselves and others. And because we remember them, we have a really hard time with forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves.
Oh, we ask God for forgiveness once a month during part of the Holy Communion ceremony. But we don’t ever really forgive ourselves. We know we broke the Law, the Rules, did the wrong thing. And because we have that idea down deep in our hearts that the Law is so divinely important, we don’t forgive ourselves, because, after all, the Rules were broken and you can’t fix that!
It is as though our sin debt was $100 billion – like receiving an invoice so huge it is impossible to pay. But don’t you see, if Christ paid the price for our sins as we say, if He paid the bill in full as we say, if his credit was good enough to pay that huge invoice with His death on the cross as we say, why do you want to keep paying additional invoices every week or so as you remember your sins?
But Pastor, didn’t I get the message that Jesus, who was the Son of God, died on the cross for my sins and was resurrected to prove He is divine, actually is the Son of God and if I believe this I have eternal life? What did I miss?
What you may have missed are the implications of this Gospel. Have you ever noticed that the Christian in the New Testament are joyful, praising God even when they are in prison? They may be in physical prison, but they’re never in an emotional prison. Let’s look at those implications of the Gospel people often miss:
Most of us remember very well the wrong things we have done. We remember those mistakes we made, those sins we committed, those times we injured ourselves and others. And because we remember them, we have a really hard time with forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves.
Oh, we ask God for forgiveness once a month during part of the Holy Communion ceremony. But we don’t ever really forgive ourselves. We know we broke the Law, the Rules, did the wrong thing. And because we have that idea down deep in our hearts that the Law is so divinely important, we don’t forgive ourselves, because, after all, the Rules were broken and you can’t fix that!
It is as though our sin debt was $100 billion – like receiving an invoice so huge it is impossible to pay. But don’t you see, if Christ paid the price for our sins as we say, if He paid the bill in full as we say, if his credit was good enough to pay that huge invoice with His death on the cross as we say, why do you want to keep paying additional invoices every week or so as you remember your sins?
Only the Son of the owner of the Universe could pay that bill. So after Jesus has paid that tremendous debt for you, stamping the invoice “Paid in Full”, why do you try to keep sending $4 against the bill every week or every few days? Like any swindler who sends out fake invoices, the devil will send you invoice copies….”Remember when you…” And then the devil whispers into your ear “And you thought I’d forgotten about that time when you..." etc. But you don’t have to pay those invoices. Even if you send the money, the guilt in to pay back Jesus, the money or guilt goes to the devil and not to the Christ who paid the bill. The debt has been discharged, the bill marked “paid in full”, the mortgage has been burned. Believe that Christ has done this! There is nothing left to pay, nothing to feel guilty about!
My friends, Jesus didn’t pay for all your sins that you’d committed by the day you were baptized, He paid the price for all your sins, including the ones you committed in the last hour and those that you will commit tomorrow. And this is where we need to understand something really amazing about sin and kingdoms and how we think.
My friends, Jesus didn’t pay for all your sins that you’d committed by the day you were baptized, He paid the price for all your sins, including the ones you committed in the last hour and those that you will commit tomorrow. And this is where we need to understand something really amazing about sin and kingdoms and how we think.
We live in a republic. We live in a country ruled by Law, not men or women. The Law is higher than the President, than the Senators, than the Congressmen. And the kingdom that we are most familiar with, the English kingdom, is ruled by Parliament, their equivalent of Congress, and the Queen of England has very little real power. Parliament could pass a law and remove her in an hour if she began breaking laws. If Prince Charles stole money, he’d go to prison, just like anyone else. And so we grew up to think we are under the Law in everything.
But in a classic old kingdom where the King truly rules – like the old Russian Tsar did or the Roman emperor did. the only way a prince or princess could get in trouble was if they were in rebellion against the King, their father. A prince was trusted to have the best interests of the nation at heart and so if the prince walked into a village and said, “I need all of your sheep and cattle for my soldiers”, he was not charged with being a thief and he did not get in trouble with the King as long as he had the King’s interests at heart. The King’s family was not under the Law.
And so it is with us. When we say, “We believe in Jesus Christ”, that is shorthand for saying, “We believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, divine and part of God, and we not only believe in His existence and title, but have decided to follow Him as His adopted brothers and sisters.” You see, we are looking toward Jesus to guide us in what God the Father, our King wants. And we have accepted and are happy that Jesus has talked to God the Father about us. We have been adopted as princes and princesses and SO WE HAVE BEEN SET FREE FROM THE LAW!
We now have one guiding principle: What does God the Father want us to do? And “What Would Jesus Do?” is a reasonable way to figure this out.
It is like you lived in that destroyed city of Jerusalem, that city destroyed by God's wrath. You may have been guilty of murder – actual murder or killing someone through gossip. You may have been guilty of adultery – actual adultery or lusting with your eyes and mind. You may have been guilty of theft, of arson, of terrible sexual crimes, of slicing and dicing someone in fact or with your words. It doesn’t matter anymore.
The day you signed up for Jesus through your belief and baptism, the day you asked for forgiveness from your sins, the day you decided following Jesus was the answer, you were set free from that past and that city of destruction. God truly forgave you, you were given a special pass to leave the city, and when you listen to the Holy Spirit, God will guide you to do the right things and avoid the wrong things because you are now His son or daughter, an adopted prince or princess of the Kingdom, and nothing can change that situation except your voluntary choice to walk back into that terrible city and completely forget about God and Christ.
But pastor, I hate that I did wrong. It keeps me up at night. I feel guilty.
The very fact it bothers you is why you have hope. There was a time when your sins did not bother you at all, because you didn’t care for anyone except yourself.
Now, you care for others and you look at yourself and you look at Jesus and you see his blazing white purity and your filthiness in comparison.
But where you once wore a blood-stained robe, you now wear a robe that is clean, but dingy and worn cream and gray. Jesus still wears blazing white, but you have come so far, oh so far, my friend. Jesus washed your blood-stained robe in his blood and his blood is like full-strength Clorox bleach, undiluted, it bleaches out all the sins of the past.
And so, get this solidly in your mind. God has forgiven you. God no longer cares about your past now that you care about His Son and what He thinks about you. Forget about your past and be glad that you now ride in the company of God’s sons and daughters. Spend time with them. Don’t focus upon the past, but upon the future…And what is the purpose of this great company of God’s children, the Body of Christ on earth, the men and women who are brothers and sisters of Christ?
At one point, Jesus sent 72 people into the towns and cities to which He would go. They entered those towns, they told the people of the Kingdom of God, and they went back to Jesus with joy and He responded with joy!
He has put out a call for volunteers to us today, volunteers who are willing to walk into the dying cities which are being destroyed – the world around us - and find people covered in blood and lead them to the pool filled with Jesus’ blood, so they can wash their robes and bleach their lives. For the best cure for our sadness is helping other people. Only then can we see more realistically how well our lives are going and that brings gratitude – and joy.
The world is filled with people who are convinced, perhaps as you have been, that there is no hope, that they have no way to leave a dying, burning city, that, as with Jeremiah, the army sent by the Lord is about to grind their teeth into the dust, that everything is falling down around them.
But pastor, I hate that I did wrong. It keeps me up at night. I feel guilty.
The very fact it bothers you is why you have hope. There was a time when your sins did not bother you at all, because you didn’t care for anyone except yourself.
Now, you care for others and you look at yourself and you look at Jesus and you see his blazing white purity and your filthiness in comparison.
But where you once wore a blood-stained robe, you now wear a robe that is clean, but dingy and worn cream and gray. Jesus still wears blazing white, but you have come so far, oh so far, my friend. Jesus washed your blood-stained robe in his blood and his blood is like full-strength Clorox bleach, undiluted, it bleaches out all the sins of the past.
And so, get this solidly in your mind. God has forgiven you. God no longer cares about your past now that you care about His Son and what He thinks about you. Forget about your past and be glad that you now ride in the company of God’s sons and daughters. Spend time with them. Don’t focus upon the past, but upon the future…And what is the purpose of this great company of God’s children, the Body of Christ on earth, the men and women who are brothers and sisters of Christ?
At one point, Jesus sent 72 people into the towns and cities to which He would go. They entered those towns, they told the people of the Kingdom of God, and they went back to Jesus with joy and He responded with joy!
He has put out a call for volunteers to us today, volunteers who are willing to walk into the dying cities which are being destroyed – the world around us - and find people covered in blood and lead them to the pool filled with Jesus’ blood, so they can wash their robes and bleach their lives. For the best cure for our sadness is helping other people. Only then can we see more realistically how well our lives are going and that brings gratitude – and joy.
The world is filled with people who are convinced, perhaps as you have been, that there is no hope, that they have no way to leave a dying, burning city, that, as with Jeremiah, the army sent by the Lord is about to grind their teeth into the dust, that everything is falling down around them.
But you know better. You know that in this place, like a hospital in a war-torn city, there are many people recovering from the shock of the world, from the terrible sights they have seen, from the stories they have heard on the evening news. But you also know that in this place, just like in that hospital in that war-torn city, there are doctors and nurses who are working, there are aides and orderlies who are working, there are people who actually care and love and would do anything for you in order that you could be healed. The city is our world and this church is the hospital. The people sitting around you are the hospital’s staff.
And the treatment for all these spiritual wounds is the blood that was shed so long ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem. It is when we really, deeply grasp that Jesus didn’t die for humanity, that instead Jesus died for me and for you, and would have died for you even if no one else needed saving – that is when we realize how deeply God and Christ love us.
They have promised that soon, very soon, there will be a new Heaven and a New Earth, a New Jerusalem that will be rebuilt and replace the horrible place of death that surrounds us. And we will walk through those gates, gates which are each made of a single huge pearl, glittering in the light – not the light of the sun, but the light of God the Father.
But until that day, we have work to do. There are people who are still dying without that hope. You may not feel you can talk to anyone – that’s okay, we now have a short brochure we need distributed to homes and people in the area. You could just walk or drive up and down or pass these out to friends. There are other ways to begin to help people. Come by Wednesday evening and ask me what you can do while we share a meal at the Wednesday evening dinner. Or knock on my door or call me up and we’ll talk about it.
I’ve read the last part of the Book of Revelation. After all the destruction, after all the troubles, after all the Tribulation, the message is clear…Those who follow Jesus win in the end. And, as Jesus said, “My yoke is easy.” Our sadness comes when we look at ourselves too much, when we look at the past, when we look at the world that humans have made. Our joy comes when we-who-have-found-Jesus help our friends, our neighbors, and our family find Jesus, when we look at the future, when we look at the world the way God has promised it will be someday and we believe in those promises.
And the treatment for all these spiritual wounds is the blood that was shed so long ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem. It is when we really, deeply grasp that Jesus didn’t die for humanity, that instead Jesus died for me and for you, and would have died for you even if no one else needed saving – that is when we realize how deeply God and Christ love us.
They have promised that soon, very soon, there will be a new Heaven and a New Earth, a New Jerusalem that will be rebuilt and replace the horrible place of death that surrounds us. And we will walk through those gates, gates which are each made of a single huge pearl, glittering in the light – not the light of the sun, but the light of God the Father.
But until that day, we have work to do. There are people who are still dying without that hope. You may not feel you can talk to anyone – that’s okay, we now have a short brochure we need distributed to homes and people in the area. You could just walk or drive up and down or pass these out to friends. There are other ways to begin to help people. Come by Wednesday evening and ask me what you can do while we share a meal at the Wednesday evening dinner. Or knock on my door or call me up and we’ll talk about it.
I’ve read the last part of the Book of Revelation. After all the destruction, after all the troubles, after all the Tribulation, the message is clear…Those who follow Jesus win in the end. And, as Jesus said, “My yoke is easy.” Our sadness comes when we look at ourselves too much, when we look at the past, when we look at the world that humans have made. Our joy comes when we-who-have-found-Jesus help our friends, our neighbors, and our family find Jesus, when we look at the future, when we look at the world the way God has promised it will be someday and we believe in those promises.
Be joyful! All is forgiven! You are free of the city of death and now live in the beautiful land. It's time to look around and see God.
No comments:
Post a Comment