How well did you sleep well last night? Were you interrupted by some unexpected “visitor”? Someone or something came to you in the early hours of the morning. You tossed and turned, and sleep become a distant memory, even a stranger to you.
This nighttime intruder is sinister. He wakes you up and worms his way into your head. He dredges up past events and fills your heart with anxiety and worry. He comes, skulking to you, sneaking under the cover of darkness and the quiet of the night.
So, who is this visitor? You may call him by many names: Sorrow, Pain, Stress, Worry, Depression, or Fear. He barges in, unwanted, keeping rest far from you. You would banish him, but he’s stubborn and refuses to leave. He stays the night.
David was well-acquainted with worry and sleepless nights. He is the David, who wrote Psalm 30. He wrote the psalm for the ceremony of dedicating the land for the Temple in Jerusalem. But more is hidden behind the story, as is often the case.
1 Chronicles 21 tells us that toward the end of his reign, King David built up a large army to defend the land—and himself. Even so, David still worried about his enemies. This concern began to consume him. We might even say David was getting paranoid. So, he commanded a census so he could gauge the size of this enemy he feared.
God was not too pleased with David doing this. Nothing was wrong with taking a census, but the reason behind it revealed his lack of faith in God. David looked to human strength for his security and protection, not the power of God working through people in His chosen ways.
So, the Lord let a plague come to Israel, and 70,000 people died! David’s standing army was bereft of its power. He realized God was calling him to repent. So, in faith, David repented. He even bought some land and built an altar, offering a sacrifice to the Lord at the place where, one day, the Temple would stand.
For this occasion, to earmark the future home of God’s Temple, David wrote Psalm 30. Talk about sorrow lodging for a night. The deaths of 70,000 weigh you down. Grief fills your every moment. But when the Lord took away the plague, relief and joy now flood your heart. Yes, joy came in the morning!
Yes, “weeping may stay for the night.” The Hebrew for that verse goes something like this: “Weeping may come in at evening to lodge.” We picture a guest who comes to your house and stays for a night. When we know that someone is coming over to spend the night, we can prepare. We get the house ready, which means cleaning, and having a bed with clean, washed sheets.
Sometimes, however, a guest might stop in, without warning, to spend the night at the house. At those times, we aren’t prepared for an overnight guest. We scurry at the last moment, with anxiety and distress, getting a room ready.
Sometimes, we know that the death of loved one is coming. He is sick and suffering, and not getting better, but only worse. We’ve spent many hours and days in grief, weeping his loss from our lives even before it comes. Other times, death comes unannounced. We were unprepared. In either case, the tears of grief flow.
The pang of sorrow and weeping has come to us all. Daylight seems forlorn and distant. Sleep becomes the stranger and grief your companion—but the morning does come. The nighttime worries and restlessness give way to the sunrise of a new day.
Maybe, you wept for a night. Perhaps, your “night” was a dark time in your life. For Israel and King David, it was a three-day “night.” Over the course of three days, this plague killed 70,000 in Israel.
1 Chronicles tells us:
God sent an angel to ravage Jerusalem, but as he was about to do so, God relented from his judgment. He said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Stop what you’re doing!” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite.
David looked up and glimpsed the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, with a sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown to the ground. [1 Chron 21:15-16]
David confessed his sins, built an altar, offered a sacrifice, and dedicated land for the Temple.
What darkness of night intrudes in your life? What darkness are you enduring, even as you sit here this morning? Is some chronic illness afflicting you, or someone you love? Is an unrelenting challenge now part of your life and you are unsure how to resolve it? Like David, is a weak faith causing you to look to the world for security and not to God?
We need light and the forgiveness that comes with the Light. We need hope, a Savior, who will give us a future where all such anxiety will be forgotten. We need joy from God, who sends us rejoicing in the morning—and in the morning following a time of darkness. Yes, “weeping may lodge for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
In English, we might express what David said by referring to the “light at the end of the tunnel.” The tunnel is our night. The sunshine greeting us at the tunnel’s end is the morning. After you are through with what the “night” brings, joy now comes. It may not be happiness, which is a fleeting emotion, but an inner joy. You grew, survived, and joy comes with the light—or should we say THE Light?
THE Light is the key. Scripture calls Jesus the “Light of the world” and the “Bright Morning Star” (John 8:12, Revelation 22:16). He brings a new dawn into the world—and our lives. The key is to remember that the joy our current creation gives you is temporary, for our world is temporary. Jesus will call forth a new heaven and earth when He returns, one which will be eternal.
Our earth-born joy is as temporary as the dawn, lasting a moment, and gone. Not so with the Light, Jesus Christ. He is eternal, bringing the brightness of true hope into the world. Even the darkness is as light to Him. The night shines like the day (Psalm 139:12). His Word is a lamp to our feet and light for our path (Psalm 119:105).
Why is Jesus this light? Here’s why. He faced, and endured, the deepest darkness of death for us. The night entered on a Friday afternoon, Good Friday, as the Light of the world went dark in death. But morning came with the Son’s rising on the third day.
In this world, we only experience momentary joy. No so with Jesus, for within Him lives eternal joy. The Apostle Paul tells us, “Our light and momentary troubles are producing an eternal glory for us, far beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Jesus also speaks of weeping and rejoicing:
You will weep and wail while the world rejoices. You will be sad, but your sadness will turn into joy. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. [John 16:20, 22]
Scripture describes living in the Kingdom of God as “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). The Apostle Peter wrote: “Even though you have not seen [Jesus], you love him. Even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8).
How can this be true? Jesus gives us such joy, the joy of sins forgiven. Happiness lasts only for a moment but forgiven sins last forever. When He returns, our eyes will take in Jesus, and we will experience true eternal joy. Our current circumstances do not define us. Jesus does.
Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism to make the sign of the cross each morning and say, “In the name of the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit.” Why? To remember our baptism. Our conscience is now clean before God (1 Peter 3:22). We’ve received God’s forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Being baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, forgiveness, life, and light come new every morning (Romans 6:3-5). In Christ, even our fleeting happiness will turn into eternal joy.
Our lives take place in time, living between Good Friday and Easter. We died with Jesus in baptism, but the resurrection is not yet here. When it does arrive, we will wake up on the Last Day; our bodies will rise from death into a new dawn, unending. It will be a new morning where the shining sun will be Jesus Himself. A new day will be before us, where our lives in eternity will become praise for God’s deliverance, brought to us through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.
With our Jesus-colored glasses on to understand the Scriptures as we should, Psalm 30 becomes even more astounding. “The sorrow of death may lodge for a night, but joy comes in the morning light of the new heaven and earth.” Joy comes from the Lord with sins forgiven, and we respond in such joy during the Divine Service and even share it with others.
When that sinister visitor comes to you in the night, remind him of the Morning Star. He, Jesus, brought, and brings, light into your life through the forgiveness of sins. Yes, “weeping may lodge for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Because of Jesus, everything is now changed. Amen.
