Strength

"The joy of the Lord is your strength," Nehemiah 8:10.

The setting: Three generations earlier, Judah had been utterly destroyed. Forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, the captured people relocated to a distant country. And now, in fits and starts, small bands of people returned to their wasted homeland. Only a few leftover grandparents remembered former glories, most of the returnees born foreigners to the land. Through hardships they rebuilt the temple. They rebuilt Jerusalem's walls. And now, these survivors meeting as a Great Congregation in the open air at one of the wall's gates heard the Word of God read for the first time (again). The priest read the Book, the helper priests scattered through the crowd to explain the meaning, the people understood. And the people wept. And that's the place where it said: Do not mourn. Do not weep. Do not be grieved - the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Dear God, we, brothers and sisters, hear your Word convict our hearts of sin, we mourn. We weep. We grieve the loss we caused. But then, we hear your Word speak hope, redemption, forgiveness, eternity. And, as you wipe away our tears, together we confess, You are our joy! We understand who you really are! Thank you!