As I was praying the liturgy yesterday, I prayed the 126th psalm during midafternoon prayer. God really spoke to my heart in the last verse:
They go out, they go out, full of tears,
carrying seed for the sowing:
they come back, they come back, full of song,
carrying their sheaves.
Or as the RSV-CE translates it:
He that goes forth weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.
The same thing that brought the sower sorrow and misery is the very thing that will bring the sower great joy when its course and purpose has been completed.
We all have things in our lives that bring us great misery: illness, poverty, unholy passions, broken relationships. But these are the things that will one day bring us home with shouts of joy. The virtue gained from a cross borne well is a great cause for joy.
Jesus stumbled and bled his way to Calvary, where the cross was firmly planted in the ground and he was crudely nailed to it. At his death, the sorrow and despair that Jesus felt was intense as he cried aloud to the Father, asking why he had forsaken him. But today, Jesus lives in victory over the death he suffered. What he planted has blossomed into his joy. We are his sheaves.
Jesus was and is victorious through the tears he shed, and through him we will be too.
The Lord has done great things for us; he is the source of all our joy.
