By the time we reach the Fifth Sunday in Lent each year, I generally observe either despair or weariness in the congregation (and myself). For some, the initial fervor of “giving something up” or “beginning a new spiritual practice” faded about halfway through week two. Others who have stayed the course, done the work, and dove deep into prayer and repentance. Both groups are longing for Easter, for church life to return to normal, for a sense of relief. And so, for many encountering Psalm 126 on the Fifth Sunday in Lent can feel like a scandalous interlude of joy. Haven’t we buried the alleluias for this season? What is this psalm about laughter, shouts of joy, restoration, and rejoicing? Did the lectionary get this one somehow wrong? It may be that a psalm about longing for joy is precisely the psalm we need on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. I am reminded of how C.S. Lewis, in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, describes joy as a particular kind of longing. In his early years, Lewis was awakened to joy through the music of the German composer Richard Wagner and then the tales of Norse and Celtic mythology. Yet the more music he listened to, the more myths he read, the more he realized he had accumulated knowledge, but had lost his joy. All his attempts to “recover the old thrill” proved fruitless. But then, when he felt all hope was lost, there arose “the memory of a place and time at which [he] had tasted the lost Joy with unusual fullness” as he had walked on a morning of white mist, anticipating reading new volumes he had received as a Christmas present from his father. ...
Thank you to this week's guest writer Matthew A. Rich.
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