Psalm 126
For the last two weeks of Advent, we have been following a theme: the first three psalms before Christmas … 80, 85 and 126 … because these three psalms all contain the verb "to restore." Therefore, I thought we would take the opportunity to explore what "to restore" may mean as we prepare for Christmas.
Advent celebrates the "Word-becomes-flesh" God that is coming and will soon be with us....to restore the light. Advent announces that God was not willing to have a distant, arms length relationship with us who are God's beloved creatures formed in God's image. Rather, advent is all about God's willingness --- even insistence --- to come forward and to become vulnerable, accessible, reachable and attainable... to restore a relationship with his people.
Let us pray....
Have you ever lost or had stolen your wallet or purse? It is hard to imagine something more traumatic. Our wallets contain the proof of our identity, tell others we are licensed to drive a car and get on a plane, carry our cash and credit cards -- in other words, just about everything we need to move about in the world. A man by the name of Bill Fulton lost his wallet, but he did not seem to be as panicked as the rest of us. Maybe that is because he lost it in 1946, and 63 years later he had pretty much forgotten about it.
Bill's not sure exactly when or under what circumstances he accidentally dropped his smooth leather wallet behind the wooden bleachers at Baker Middle School in Baker City, Oregon. It was probably during a game in the gym. How it happened is not as important however because the wallet sat for 63 years until a worker found it in 2009. While tearing out old pre-World War II era bleachers during a renovation project at the school, a worker found the wallet right where Bill had dropped it; along with stuff other students had dropped back there during the school's history: some old homework, lost library books, and a program from the 1964 talent show.
The next day, the school secretary located Bill on the internet and found out that he still lived in the community. So, later that day she brought the newly found wallet to Fulton's home in Baker City. "He was pretty much amazed," said the secretary. "He just kept saying, 'Thank you. Thank you so much.'" In response, Bill is quoted as saying, "After that long, my gosh, it stayed in good shape. It's hard to believe."
As you can imagine, Bill was overjoyed to have it back, but not necessarily because of what was still in it. His Social Security Card was still tucked in its usual place. He didn't have any cash to begin with, so none was missing. His bicycle license was in there, bearing the address of the house he lived in at the time. Bill remembers that he needed the license because of his job at that time delivering medicine for a Drugstore. While all those things were important at the time, the real value of the wallet for Bill was the memories it brought back of a period in his 78 years of life.
After high school, Bill served in the Korean War and was stationed in Berlin, and then returned to Baker City where he worked for a local lumber company for 30 years, retiring in 1994. Now Bill spends his days hiking in the mountains with his dog Smokey. To use his own words, Bill has "covered a lot of country" since 1946. So the return of the wallet provoked feelings of nostalgia. "Where did all the time go?" Bill is quoted as saying. "It's hard to believe that the times have gone so fast." With the return of the wallet, if only for a moment, the feel of the leather reminds Bill of a segment of his life.
That brings us to our lesson because finding something we have lost --- especially something as valuable as a wallet that reminds us who we are --- is cause for both relief and joy. On this third Sunday of Advent, as we light the candle of joy, we celebrate the fact that God exposes our lost and hidden identity and, to borrow the words of the psalmist restores our "fortunes" (Psalm 126:1).
Now let me be clear, unfortunately for some people, a cursory reading of the phrase in Psalm 126… to restore our fortunes… seems to suggest a return of wealth. But that is not the case for a variety of reasons. For example, if you are poor and have been, what relevance does restoration of "fortune" mean? Rather this Psalm is one of the psalms of "ascent," or a musical piece that pilgrims would sing on their pilgrimage up to Jerusalem -- to Zion and the temple. Jerusalem is a city in the hill country and for many pilgrims, to get to Jerusalem meant a walk uphill.
So instead of a restoration of wealth, what does the phrase "restore our fortunes" mean? First it is difficult to translate verbatim from Hebrew, says OT scholar James Mays, but this combination usually is used to mean the radical change between the conditions that existed before and the conditions that result from God's restoration, forgiveness and divine favor. It means the restoration of the situation between God and God's people that existed before.
For example, if you were to turn to Amos 9:14 in your Bibles you would see this phrase describe the rebuilding of ruined cities and the restoration of prosperity as symbolized in the planting of vineyards. In Jeremiah 29:14, the "fortune" is the return from exile as God gathers his people from "all the places where I have driven you." The people who were once lost, scattered and forgotten would now be found, brought together and remembered forever for what God had done for them.
What does this phrase mean for us in this season of Advent? I would suggest that like the reaction of Bill at the return of his wallet, humans have a tendency to remember "the good old days" with fondness, and something like recovering a wallet or finding a photo from a bygone era makes us nostalgic. Maybe it is part of our healthy defense mechanisms to dwell on good things, but the psalmist on the other hand seems to imply that the passage of time and the painful remembrance of sin can turn the good old days into a memory. In other words, "the good old days" are never really a time of honest reflection but one of selective memory.
The psalmist, however, doesn't dwell on selective memory, the "good old days" but invites God to restore the people's memories by giving them a vision of the future.
"Restore our fortunes, O Lord," the psalmist prays in the present tense. It is a prayer in the present because the psalmist equates God's forgiveness and reconciling love to the way water flows in the desert -- a vision of refreshment and sustenance in the middle of the harsh and brutal reality of sin (v. 4). Such a vision turns tears and weeping into shouts of joy and the seed of hope can grow into a harvest that will sustain the people forever (vv. 5-6).
The psalmist thus teaches us that joy isn't just a good feeling that arises spontaneously or by selectively remembering and forgetting the past. Instead, we feel joy most intently after reconciliation … after a period of distress. It is one thing to be happy to be carrying around a wallet that we take for granted, it is quite another to find that wallet after a long period of searching for it frantically or after resigning ourselves to its being lost forever.
It is true for our lives in Jesus Christ. Its one thing to live in God's grace when everything's going well, but it's quite another to experience the reality of that same grace after a period when we ourselves have been lost, or feeling lost, or when someone we love is lost, searching or distant from God. So, "a restoration" is not just something we nod and smile about but, like the psalmist says repeatedly, it is something we have to shout about! (vv. 2, 5, 6).
As many of us know, the culture around us celebrates the "joy" of Christmas, but it's really more a general sense of warm and fuzzy feelings connected to holiday memories with family and friends. For example, while shopping yesterday a woman that I passed in the aisle was humming and smiling to the Christmas music. Although certainly nice, the real joy of Christmas comes after we have been willing to allow God to deal with the brokenness in our lives. We cannot really express the joy of being found, in other words, unless we are first able to name the fact that we've been lost, our identity compromised, and our fortunes squandered on things that have no ultimate value.
Bill Fulton could only keep repeating "Thank you, thank you" when that long lost wallet showed up at his door in the hands of a caring school secretary. Let us prepare for the opportunity that will be coming for us to say "Thank you" to God. At Christmas God restores our ability to discover our true identities, to redeem our selective memories, restore our fortunes and to shout with joy! Amen.
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