I’m not sure what to do with the preposition “of.” It’s so ambiguous. Nehemiah says, “The joy of the Lord” is your strength. But what exactly does he mean? Does he mean that the “joy from the Lord” is your strength? Is he talking about a joy that’s yours? A joy that is aimed at you that he wants you to have? Is he telling you to be joyful?
Or is he talking about something else?
Is he talking about joy that belongs to the Lord? The “Lord’s joy?” In this case, he is talking about the things that give God joy, things like forgiving sins, things like delivering people, things like giving strength. Is that the joy that gives us strength?
That word “of” is so ambiguous. But maybe that’s just the point. It’s left ambiguous so that we can think about both. Perhaps Nehemiah wants to give us joy from the Lord so that we are full of joy and that our days of mourning and grief end. Perhaps, at the very same time, he wants us to lean into the things that give God joy. He wants us to hold both in dynamic tension and to gain strength and refuge from that joy.
A huge part of the Israelites' lives before the Lord and their commitment to him grew out of their attention to the Lord. We cannot rally the family or set out on any journey together unless we are giving our full attention to the Lord and his Word. Our festival joy doesn’t just grow out of finishing projects, but from the Lord and in his Word, where we find that “the joy of the Lord is our strength.” We’ll be looking at Nehemiah 8.
Take a look at this week’s “Mount Weekly” for information about “Commitment Sunday” (February 11).
See you Sunday! It’s going to be a special day!
Pastor Nate