From the UCC Network: Devotional for 11/30 "Rejoice"

Rejoice!

Excerpt from Psalm 96

“Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice.”

Martin B. Copenhaver

This psalm issues a call to rejoice.  It is a common theme in scripture.  Over and over again we are enjoined to rejoice, instructed to rejoice and, indeed, we are commanded to rejoice.  Obviously, someone thinks this rejoicing business is pretty important.

It’s interesting that these injunctions to rejoice are offered in passages of scripture associated with Advent and Christmas.  Is that because this is a season when we rejoice so fully and naturally?  If that were the case, then why would we need the command to rejoice?  That would be like commanding someone to smile when she feels happy.  My hunch is that those who suggested these texts for this time of year were wiser than that.  It seems to me that many of us need to be told to rejoice in this season perhaps more than in others.  After all, it is a dark time—in the world without, to be sure, but sometimes in the world within, as well.

We are reminded to rejoice, not because this is a bright time, but because it is dark, and yet, even here, in the darkness, the light of the world has come.  Our God does not shrink from our darkness, but enters it fully and shares it completely, so that we, in turn, might be ushered into the light.

And that is cause for great rejoicing, indeed.

Prayer

Dear God, we join the heavens and the earth in our rejoicing, for you have come to us in this dark time and infused it with the light of your love.  Amen.

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. His new book, This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers, co-authored with Lillian Daniel, has just been published.