In Praise of Merriment

In the book of Jeremiah, we hear God saying

34 I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.

And again in Isaiah 24

The new wine fails, the vine languishes,
All the merry-hearted sigh.
8 The mirth of the tambourine ceases,
The noise of the jubilant ends,
The joy of the harp ceases.
9 They shall not drink wine with a song;
Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The city of confusion is broken down;
Every house is shut up, so that none may go in.
11 There is a cry for wine in the streets,
All joy is darkened,
The mirth of the land is gone.

In both cases, there is a correlation between God’s judgment and the ceasing of merriment, of gladness, and of feasting. For the past year now our joy has been under siege by the attack on the places of our merriment and feasting. With the scamdemic restaurants that are characterized by fellowship and laughter among friends and family have been locked down, churches, where we are specifically called to assemble with the purpose of feasting on Word and Sacrament, have been shuttered, weddings constrained as attendance is often a matter of Zoom, and even the comfort that is found in the gathering of people to sustain one another as found in the funeral service has been checkmated.

The means of expressing joy and merriment has been blanketed by the demands of clothing our smiles and dimples. The constant barrage of news reporting death rates and screaming danger has sucked the normal merriment from the body politic. Further, awareness of the planned evils as hatched by the elite has threatened to suck a resolved merriment and joy leaving in its place the broken spirit that the writer of the Proverbs writes about.

A merry heart does good, like medicine,
But a broken spirit dries the bones.

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance,
But by sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken.

We should say at the outset here that the broken spirit that is spoken of by Solomon is not the same as being poor in spirit in the sense spoken by Christ in the Beatitudes and called blessed. If we were to make careful distinctions we might say that there is an evangelical brokenness of spirit that is characterized by a heaviness that God’s truth is cast aside. What the writer here speaks of is the brokenness of spirit that bespeaks a brooding spirit of despondency which seems to believe that God has abandoned the believer.

Charles Bridges writes here,

“Too often does a mischievous gloom worm itself into the vitals of a child of God. The melancholy victim drags on a weary, heavy laden existence, clouding a distinct feature of his character and one of the most attractive ornaments of his confession.”

The Christian is told that a broken spirit drieth the bones and obviously the writer of the Proverbs is warning against the absence of merriment and the presence of dry bones. This proverb is given that the reader might resolve not to be characterized as one with dry bones and a broken spirit.

So, the Christian has to find a way to rise above all that which would suck out of us merriment and joy and find the ability to have merriment despite the presence of genuine joy sucking times as littered with professional joy suckers.

Of course, one option to resolution is to bury our heads in the sand and ignore reality as if ignorance is the path to merriment and joy. It is not for no reason that we have a maxim that teaches, “Ignorance is bliss.” But of course who could ever agree that the foundation for our merriment and joy should be set upon ignorance as a virtue?

So how should we avoid the broken spirit and dry bones? Where do we find merriment and joy in troubled times?

One way to do so is to remind ourselves that God’s judgment has already fallen on us in Christ. Those OT passages we read at the outset were indeed about God’s promised judgment upon His unfaithful people yet we need to remind ourselves that these merriment sucking times are not God’s judgment upon His Church and at worse are His discipline. We need not fear God’s judgment for it has passed in Christ and we ought to find merriment in the fact that God disciplines those He loves. God has not abandoned us. We have His favor.

Because we know that we know that we have the Father’s favor for the sake of Christ we can begin to find merriment and joy in times when it otherwise might be difficult to find merriment.

Luther occasionally fell into these kinds of fits. As a rule, he was a cheerful man, but he had terrible fits of depression. He was at one time so depressed that his friends recommended him to go away for a change of air, to see if he could get relief. He went away, but he came home as miserable as ever; and when he went into the sitting-room, his wise wife Katey, was sitting there, dressed in black, and her children round about her, all in black.

“Oh, oh!” said Luther, “who is dead?” “Why,” said she, “doctor, have not you heard that God is dead? My husband, Martin Luther, would never be in such a state of mind if he had a living God to trust to.”

Then he burst into a hearty laugh, and said, “Kate, thou art a wise woman. I have been acting as if God were dead, and I will do so no more. Go and take off thy black.”

If God be alive, why are we discouraged? If we have a God to look to, why are we cast down? Let us rejoice and be glad together and rediscover a merry heart.

Come come, my friends … if Paul and Silas as unjustly chained in stinking rat strewn and disease-ridden ancient prisons (Acts 16:16f) could find merriment and joy so that they were singing we ought to be able to find the same ability to avoid dry bones and broken spirits in times that are comparatively far less trying. I suggest the beginning of that lightness of heart is found in knowing that the favor of the sovereign of the Universe is set upon us for the sake of Christ.

Is this not, in part, what the table proclaims? It reminds us that the reasons for God’s opposition have been sunk in the finished work of Jesus Christ in our stead. The Eucharist while a time for sobriety is also a time for merriment and even laughter. As we smell and taste forgiveness and eternal life in the sacramental bread and the wine ought not our broken spirits be revived with swelling waves of mirth driven by knowing that the Father favors us?

We should be saying with the Psalmist,

Psalm 43:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

Another solution to our lack of merriment and the brokenness of our spirits is found in losing our grasp on the promise that God’s enemies will be defeated. Ought not there to be merriment found in the prospect of God’s enemies most certainly being vanquished?

This is a point that modern nice Christians have been convinced is not polite. And yet the Scripture is awash with merriment that comes with the destruction of God’s enemies,

Proverbs in 11:10

When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; they shout for joy when the wicked die.

Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has pronounced judgment against her on your behalf! Rev. 18:20

In Deuteronomy 32:43 we hear this clarion call to corporately rejoice:

Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.

And I haven’t mentioned some of the Psalms which get quite explicit on this score.

So our hearts ought to find some merriment in contemplating the end of the wicked. The end of baby murderers, mass murdering Magistrates, those who have sought to destroy God’s design for the family by the legislating of all kinds of perversion, for teachers and professors of Cultural Marxism who have poisoned the minds of our children. Yes, we pray for their conversion first and foremost but if they will not repent, if they will continue to seek to overturn the Kingdom of God why should we not find merriment and the ability to rejoice in the prospect of their utter and final defeat?

This prospect of comfort and so joy found in the coming defeat of the enemy is held out by St. Paul to the Thessalonians.

 it is a righteous thing with God to repay with [c]tribulation those who trouble you, 7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

So yes… we can find merriment and joy … a delivery from despondency by talking to ourselves reminding ourselves that God is not mocked and so those who sewed the wind will one day reap the whirlwind.

Conclusion

So let us feast and make merry. Let us laugh and rejoice without ceasing. Let merriment characterize our fellowship. As the Psalmist says, Let the high praises of God be in our mouths, and a double edged sword be in our hands. Let us ignore the storms gathered around us being confident that the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us keep before us the truth that these light and momentary afflictions are nothing as to be compared with the weight of glory that is set before us. Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy set before him despised the cross, enduring the shame. Remember the eternal joy promised us, and again I say rejoice.

Keep in mind saints that the gloom of the servants reflects poorly upon the Master as if He was a hard man. Set aside the broken spirit that can be the result of fretting and worrying over what might be and sing with Paul and Silas despite being surrounded by trouble. By faith fix your mind on Beulah land where your anticipated joy will be never ending reality.

Hab 3:17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

Hab 3:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Hab 3:19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.