Psalm 126 Commentary

Perky.  That’s the word that came to mind after I once again read this short, effervescent psalm.  It’s perky.  It bubbles over with joy and hopefulness.  It is about a reversal of fortune that generates almost giddy happiness and joy.  It is about dreams coming true—dreams that for too long seemed to be unlikely at best and impossible at worst.

Of course, as noted in past sermon commentaries here on the CEP website on Psalm 126, historically it’s a little hard to locate the events that this poem refers to.  Yes, this appears to be about Israel’s return from exile after about seventy years in Babylon.  And also yes, it is probable that upon returning to Jerusalem and the land of Israel, these feelings were present at least briefly if not for a longer stretch of time.  But in general if we read accounts of the return from exile in books like Ezra and Nehemiah, we do not get the feeling it was all the kind of joyful party atmosphere we read in this psalm.

The reality of it all was actually a little depressing.  The land and the city and the Temple had been trashed.  Even when eventually the Israelites made a small dent in restoring the Temple, it was such a far cry from the glory of Solomon’s Temple that those present who had a living memory of that wept aloud.  The new Temple did not hold a candle to the original.  Not remotely close in fact.  And although a better Temple would be built centuries later by King Herod, the fact was that it was Herod, and not an Israelite king like Solomon, who built the thing.  And that in turn was a grim reminder of an unhappy historical reality: after the invasion by the Babylonians, Israel was never politically free and independent again.  First it was the Persians, then Alexander the Great, then the Romans, and after the Romans, it was no one really since the Jews fled into a Diaspora existence, scattered all over the earth with nothing by way of an actual nation of Israel.

Yet Psalm 126 hangs in there with a portrait of joy and laughter.  Again, probably this sentiment was true for many returned exiles, even if it turned out to be somewhat fleeting after all.  So maybe the function of Psalm 126 is as much aspirational and forward looking as it is a backward looking reflection on past events.  That is, this psalm is more about a hoped-for and anticipated future restoration and concomitant joy than about however things actually went in the long run in Israel’s post-exilic experience.

As such, this is a psalm that speaks to all of us who long for something better than what we typically encounter in this fallen, broken world.  We know all about “sowing with tears” and “going out with sorrow” to quote Psalm 126.  That part we are altogether too familiar with.  What we do not experience quite often enough to suit any one of us is the reaping with joy and returning with songs of joy parts of this poem.  More days than not those sentiments remain prospective at best.  More days than not those experiences of joy do not exactly seem like they might be just around the corner.  But we wish they were.  We pine for the day when we would actually be able to give a full-throated rendition of Psalm 126 without feeling the need for caveats or asterisks.

As mentioned above, the Jewish people did eventually get a quite splendid Temple back thanks to King Herod.  From the sounds of it, that was quite the edifice.  At one point in the Gospels Jesus and his disciples visit the Temple and the disciples are like tourists who are so excited to see it.  Had it been possible back then, they surely would have been taking selfies in front of the Temple.  Yet when they come up to Jesus breathlessly to exclaim their enthusiasm, Jesus’s reaction is most definitely along the lines of “Meh.”  He then goes on to tell the disciples “Look, this Temple is as liable to destruction as the first one and you know what: it is going to be destroyed one day in the not-too-distant future.”  Talk about pricking their balloons of their joy!

Yet Jesus was not against having hope in some ultimate Temple.  It’s just that this ultimate Temple was himself, was his own body and person as the Messiah.  Jesus would establish an everlasting Temple in which the Holy Spirit would dwell and what’s more, he would find a way to transform each one of us into mini walking and talking Temples of the Holy Spirit.  Wanting to take joy in God’s ultimate Temple was not a bad thing to long for it’s just that this would not finally be something made out of limestone and marble.

As believers in Christ Jesus the Lord, we have been given a foretaste of what the Book of Revelation will describe as the Temple of God descending to a New Creation here on this earth.  We have a Pentecostal preview of that final reality the likes of which the disciples could not have imagined—at least not on that day when they were getting all excited about Herod’s Temple.  Soon enough, though, they would come to understand this when the Spirit got poured out on them in power.

We believe in that great and coming Day of the Lord when the dwelling of God will be with us.  There won’t be a physical Temple in the New Jerusalem, John of Patmos tells us, because the Lamb of God will himself be our Temple.  And when that day comes we can be well assured that our mouths will be filled with laughter and our entire being with an everlasting joy.  There will not be any more sowing with tears or going out in sorrow.  Psalm 126 points us to that great promise and it does so with lyric power.

Illustration Idea

The kind of delirious joy and laughter that Psalm 126 describes reminds me of one of the latter scenes in both the novel and the film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.  The heroic Hobbits Frodo and Sam have finally accomplished their mission of destroying the evil Ring of Power that once belonged to the wicked and powerful Sauron.  But for the last long while before they accomplished this, they were under the impression that their one-time mentor and friend, the wizard Gandalf the Gray, had died before their very eyes in the caverns of Moria and in the clutches of the terrible monster the Balrog.  What they did not know was that Gandalf had been resurrected, restored, sent back to Middle Earth as now Gandalf the White, an even more powerful wizard than he had been before.  But it is only after Frodo and Sam are rescued from their own peril and brought for a time of healing in the city of Minas Tirith that they encounter Gandalf again, very much alive.

For Frodo, this happens when he awakens as from a long and deep sleep only to see Gandalf alive and staring lovingly at him.  The movie version skips this but in the book Frodo asks Gandalf, “Does this mean that all the sad things of this world will be unmade?”  And the answer seems to be yes.  Maybe even death itself.

Soon all of Frodo’s companions rush into the room too, all filled with joy, all their mouths filled with laughter.  Because it was a dream come true, it was too good to be true.  They survived.  The world’s darkness had lifted and the light shined once more.

You can watch the clip here.

It is a moment of sheer joy and of great laughter, like the scene depicted in Psalm 126.  Like the world made new on Easter morning.