— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —
I am a big fan of P.G. Wodehouse. I have recently been reading one of his books that features Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. As the two are chatting in the car, there’s a moment when Bertie Wooster tries to recall a comforting bible passage about joy. “Something about joy doing something,” he says. Jeeves, with his usual calmness helps immediately: “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning, sir?” The phrase, taken from Psalm 30:5, has stuck with me all week.
It’s a promise that, no matter the depth of sorrow we experience, it will, sooner or later, come to an end. Yet, while we wait for the sun to come up, we often find ourselves questioning how, when and even whether joy will arrive.
In our daily lives, we often view joy and sorrow as opposites, like two separate and opposing forces. We think of joy as a result of our problems being solved; something that comes when all is right, and when everything is peaceful. Sorrow, on the other hand, is perceived as something we must endure until joy returns, as though the two are mutually exclusive.
Psalm 30:5 acknowledges that sorrow has its place in our lives, and can stick with us. However, I find it interesting that joy does not replace sorrow but somehow comes in spite of it, even on top of it. A new beginning rooted in something positive, not the absence of something negative. The night ends not because the darkness has run out, but because the morning has arrived.
But how can joy emerge in the midst of sorrow? The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard might be able to help us here. For Kierkegaard, faith was not the absence of doubt; rather, it is the capacity to believe in goodness in spite of doubt. He spoke of the “leap of faith” as a response to pain, not as a cure for it. In his view, joy arrives when we choose to hope, to trust, and to live with faith in God, even when our circumstances don’t seem to warrant such trust. Joy is a gift: the fruit of our faith. Joy need not only exist after the storm, but can also be with us in the middle of it.
So we are left with a paradox: joy can be found within our suffering. If we can somehow keep hoping, what Kierkegaard called holding a passion for the possible, we are promised that joy will come, not as an escape, but as a transformation.
The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.
Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.
We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.
Freiburg Anglican Church 