1 When the Lord restored the people,
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.
Imagine this with me. You get up and get ready for your day. You head out to pick up some groceries before doing whatever else you have planned for the day. You don’t have a mask. You don’t go back to your car to get a mask; you don’t have one there either. You don’t go all the way back home; you have no idea where one might be there even though not long ago you had 2 or 3 readily accessible everywhere. You don’t have a mask. You don’t know where you might find one. But here is the thing – imagine this: You don’t need a mask. You don’t have to look for one because no one asks for you to wear one.
Imagine then that you go for brunch with a friend. The is no hand sanitizer at the door. There are no directional arrows on the floor or the wall. No one meets you at the door or at your table asking to see your papers or scan your vaccine passport. Imagine that the table next to you is full of your friends. Imagine that you shake hands with your friends or even –if you are a hugger – hug. Imagine your friends ask you to join them. Imagine that the waitstaff pulls a table up to theirs for you and your friends to all sit down together. Imagine that you go up to the counter to pay the bill when you are done and there is no plexiglass separating you and the host or hostess.
Imagine then that you go to a coffee shop with a friend later in the day. You drive there while listening to the radio and you don’t hear about any new covid-19 cases. You get to the coffee shop early so you check your phone or a newspaper while you are waiting and you see no news of a pandemic. You wait in line and are so close that you accidently touch the person in front of you – and neither of you notices! Imagine that as you stand in this line while people are talking all around you and you don’t hear anyone complaining about daily or weekly changes to the rules that guide our society. Your friend arrives, the two of you have a conversation and out of nowhere Covid-19 does come up in the conversation but neither of you can remember the names Dr. Bonnie, Dr. Tam, or Dr. Fauci or Dr. whomever else.
Imagine then that you go home at night – you are afraid to go to sleep because you may wake up and realize this is all just a dream. You wake up the next morning... and... it’s true. Covid-19, the pandemic is just a memory. People’s fear and anguish about the virus is just a memory. People’s confusion and anger about what to do about it is just a memory.
This Psalm is very much like that. It was probably written either while or just after the people of Israel were in exile or when they were in some other significant predicament. The people of Israel were experiencing or anticipating a ‘new normal’ with all of the challenges that that inevitably held. Not everyone survived the exile. People in subsequent generations suffered and died. Individuals never saw their homes again. It got to the point where people thought that the time that they were going through was never going to end – and then it did. They got through it.
God got them through it. This was very likely a psalm that was sung regularly by pilgrims as they approached Jerusalem remembering and praising God for seeing them through this time. When people did return it was not the same as before. There were many challenges ahead. But today in this psalm there is much celebration! God has delivered them just as God is delivering and will deliver us through the pandemic
Just like we can imagine the joy in our lives when this pandemic comes to an end, the author of this psalm captured the moment of excitement for the people. It is like the end of a war or the end of a plague, a global pandemic. We are in that moment now of dreaming of times to come, like many did in the Bible and many have done since and before. It is important that psalms like this are recorded and repeated (as they were) because soon people forget about all the things that people suffered through and in times of prosperity people forget about all that God has brought us through – how faithful He is to us. It doesn’t take long to forget. But we need to remember because remembering is hope for we know that just as God has got us through predicaments in the past, He will get us through predicaments in the future and He will get us through this one now. He is faithful!
Picture yourself in the hopefully very near future, months from now even when this is all over. Now imagine a year or two down the road. Imagine explaining to someone a few years from now about what it was like when the whole world once-upon-a-time had a lockdown. Imagine explaining to them how people had to isolate for two weeks if they went to certain places or saw certain people. Imagine explaining that all school was homeschool or online from Spring break until the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Imagine explaining to people how churches, restaurants, businesses, and many other things were actually forcibly shut down for months. Imagine explaining to people how you weren’t allowed to visit your parents and grandparents in seniors’ homes for months on end. Imagine explaining that some people were actually denied their last rites (or equivalent) by Health Authority staff or administrators. Imagine explaining to people that you weren’t even allowed to visit your sick and injured children in the hospital. Imagine explaining that there were actually many people who never or very rarely even left their homes for the better part of a year or more. Imagine explaining to someone that many people stopped going to work and either quit, went on leave, or worked from home for a long time, a year or more without going into the office. Imagine trying to explain to people that after the businesses slowly opened that your friend lost their job because they couldn’t actually get a government approved injection. Imagine telling someone how you personally were turned away from a restaurant once because your phone died and you forgot your laminated version of a vaccine passport. Imagine explaining to someone a few years from now what a vaccine passport even is! Imagine explaining to someone that feeling you have when you walk all the way across a parking lot to the store only to get to the door, realize that you don’t have a mask, and have to walk all the way back to your car. Imagine explaining to someone that – yes – you actually did have a facemask in your car. Imagine showing someone pictures of the different masks and visors we wore. Imagine Covid-19 as a distant memory. Imagine being able to gather and celebrate and enjoy life without so much of a thought to any of these things. Imagine the pandemic as a memory that fades so much that we actually have to strain to remember the details of the plague! Imagine! Imagine when we will say:
Psalm 126
1 When the Lord restored us,
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.
Let it be, Lord; Let it be. Verse 4ff:
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.
Let us pray.
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