God was calling his people to grieve with him but instead they indulged in joy and revelry. It is not that there is any virtue to solemnity. God is not advocating a life of sadness here. On the contrary God wants us to know true joy, and the only way to know true joy is to face reality. You cannot rejoice in the goodness of God until you are prepared to see the sad realities of life. The reality is that there is much in the world and in our lives that grieves God. You can’t selectively dull your emotions. If you are unwilling to feel sad over what warrants sadness, then you will be unable also to feel joy over that which warrants joy. If you don’t let yourself grieve, then you also deprive yourself of joy. You can’t choose joy without sadness. The promise of Psalm 126 is that ‘those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy’. If you are empty, let yourself feel the emptiness. If you are guilty, let yourself feel the guilt. If you are alienated from God, let yourself feel the alienation. There is great joy on the other side of the valley of reality. Many people, like those that Isaiah describes here, try to create their own joy. But such joy is empty and fleeting. There is a great and unshakeable joy of salvation available to you. But, to enter this joy, you must open your heart to recognise the saddest realities about yourself. Are you willing to enter reality? That is where God is encountered.
Ask God if there is anything in your life that grieves him.
Read Isaiah 22 and 23
