Turn Again Our Captivity: An Advent Meditation on Psalm 126

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion,

we were like them that dream.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter,

and our tongue with singing:

then said they among the heathen,

The Lord hath done great things for them.

The Lord hath done great things for us;

whereof we are glad.

 

 Turn again our captivity, O Lord,

as the streams in the south.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth,

bearing precious seed,

shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,

bringing his sheaves with him.

 

Our Hebrew forefathers knew a thing or two about captivity and freedom.  There had been over a thousand years between Abraham and the writing of this Psalm, and nearly another thousand would come between it and the time of Jesus.  The Hebrews knew the bitterness of being taken captive, having faithless and traitorous leaders, of being punished for their collective rejection of God’s Law and Gospel to chase after other gods.  They had their captivities set to writing, together with the words of the Prophets, so that they might be a continuous living testimony to the judgment and redemption of the Living God.

 

When Jesus came as God Incarnate to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, to give His life as a ransom for many, substituting His righteousness for our evil and paying our debt of justice before Almighty God through His suffering and death on the cross, the Hebrews had carried the testimonies of God for thousands of years already.  They knew through the revelation of God’s Word that their captivity and oppression among the nations, be it by the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, or the Romans, was a type and shadow of their spiritual captivity to sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  When Jesus came to free them of their spiritual captivity, He did not immediately free them from their captivity to foreign tyrants which was a temporal punishment for their sin of rejecting Him.  Instead, Jesus freed their bodies and souls from the tyranny of death and hell, liberating them from enemies who would enslave and torment them forever.  The Hebrew people, together with their Christian brothers and sisters, would know the rising tides of another two thousand years of captivity, persecution, and tyrants, down to our present day.  However, the Word of the Lord remained among them, calling all to faith and repentance, and offering the free gift of forgiveness, grace, and eternal life to all who would follow Jesus, no matter the social or political calamities of various times and places.  The liberation of Jesus’ people by grace through faith in His Vicarious Atonement meant a freedom which earthly tyrants could not conquer, and which spiritual enemies could not take away.  It is a victory written in the shed blood of the Son of God, testified by the Holy Spirit, and received by the Father, so that every name of every repentant sinner written in that Book is saved forever.

 

And so we come to our day, and our place in a land once established in righteousness and liberty, with the ascent of mind and spirit to the eternal principles of God written in the fabric of the created world.  This land, this people, once affirmed that man was created by God with unalienable rights and obligations to one another, reflected in the divine image God has placed upon them.  They set down their convictions in words and documents which framed our nation, making America a land free to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and all men free to follow their conscience in their pursuit of God.  Knowing that our nation would only survive and thrive by Divine Providence, and that such providential grace in the affairs of nations was predicated on the virtue and faith of her people, churches were protected and held sacrosanct against the meddling and perversion of secular leaders, with the unfettered preaching and teaching of God’s Law and Gospel ringing from pulpits, schools, and civic institutions.  As any survey of our history will reveal, calls to faith and repentance were once as common in our churches as they were in our public square, calling our people to return to God that they might live free in both body and soul, now and in eternity.

 

Yet here we sit at the turning of our age.  Churches are attacked both physically and legally in an effort to silence the preaching of Jesus’ Law and Gospel.  Politicians arrogate to themselves the power to regulate the worship of people, and to moderate their preaching to conform to political norms.  Atheists, Anarchists, and Marxists roam the streets, proclaiming godlessness through violence, and seeking to overturn the Constitutional Republic once formed on the conviction that man lives as beneficiary of Divine Providence through faith and virtue, where government is endowed by God only to preserve the rights of man He has given them.  Today, our politicians and leaders sell influence to foreign powers, collude with oligarchic captains of industry, undermine the divine rights of mankind, and pollute the minds of the young with corruption, vanity, and wickedness.  We stand at the precipice of our age, and those with eyes to see and ears to hear know the Eternal Word of the Lord endures forever, that the great abyss of our calamitous judgment yawns before us should the Lord God Almighty withdrawn His hand of Providence from us as punishment for our sins.  We see ourselves once again heading into temporal captivity, a fate we have earned because our people have grown wanton after secular gods with self-centered passions, and our churches have failed to preach and teach faithfully while this generation learned instead to despise the gifts of God.

 

Even so, the Lord Jesus comes into the darkness of our captivity to bring us His Living Word once again.  His Incarnation meets us anew in our sorrow, in our judgment, and in our misery justly earned, to offer us the free gift of His grace and salvation which He earned for us on His Cross.  His calls comes with the power of His Holy Spirit to enliven and enlighten the fallen hearts of men, to give new birth from above by Water and Spirit, that all who repent and believe in Him might live free forever.  This is the Gospel which our people once knew, and which they must learn again, if we will be free from the tyrants of soul and body.  The Lord of Glory has shown from the beginning of time His grace and providence for all those who put their trust in Him, and His judgment upon all those who refuse and repudiate Him.  Hear the Word of the Lord come to you again this day, that you might rise once again in His grace and mercy by faith, living in Jesus’ life, victory, and love, rebuilding brick by brick and soul by soul the families, churches, schools, and civic institutions now teetering upon ruin.  And as that Word enlivens your heart and frees you from your enemies, speak it forth to all those around you, that together living free, we may sing once again with the ancient Hebrews:

 

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion,

we were like them that dream.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter,

and our tongue with singing:

then said they among the heathen,

The Lord hath done great things for them.

The Lord hath done great things for us;

whereof we are glad.

Amen.