Apr | 06 | Job's Jemima & The Trail of Tears

Dream Word – HAPPY

Ezra 3:11-13 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord:
"For He is good, For His mercy endures forever toward Israel." Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off. NKJV

Job’s Jemima & The Trail of Tears

The remnant have returned, the captives have recovered to build afresh the temple of the Lord, to then most wonderfully rediscover the lost and broken law of the Living God! Redemption from terrible places, is both a great and wonderful thing. Redemption from terrible places that are the result of the loss of long lost treasures, are however both wonderful and very hard things to bear. Yes, though many things can be made better than before, many other things however, are lost forever and though their substitute may be wonderful and right, they are never replacements for the wonders that have been lost. They were never intended to be! They might like Job’s Jemima, who though they may be as beautiful as the day, they shall still never be as lovely as the days gone by. 

And so, those who knew the lost temple of old, even Solomon’s most wise wonder, wept bitterly at the remembrance of that most tragic loss whilst those who knew not the loss, most greatly rejoiced.

The church of this day slowly lays its foundations and rejoices with wonder at what might be. The aged remnant among us however, looks to the mighty lost wonders of the past, even its most recent past, and weeps. Those of the now, must investigate this trail of tears which runs down old, creased and crinkled chops, that they might understand some sense of what has been done in the past, what might be done today and what will be done tomorrow! As an older man amongst the emergent, whilst others smile and sway in heartfelt joy and praise, I find myself weeping at what has gone before and has been so terribly lost to us. The sunken church, whose masthead is even now slipping beneath the foaming waves, left much to be criticised but also much more maybe that should be praised. Think about that.

In the same vein, during our personal journey of redemption, this side of heaven we shall find some lost things are restored to us and in many ways are better than they were before. There shall be however, things that can never be restored to us this side of heaven, maybe never, yes maybe even never. In some things, even though our God is so very great, there is no redemption. Selah.

So, at each new laying of fresh foundation then, the younger, and living parts of us rejoice but the older dying parts of us, weep in remembrance and wail in deep regret as this mixed cup of ours, bubbles in the continuing effervescence of the mixture of human tragedy and Divine grace. This is life under our present sun. 

 So,  I wish you well tonight. Indeed, may I wish you both tears and praise and with them both, a deep, deep and strengthening joy.

Listen: - Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemimah, Job 42:12-14a NKJV.

Pray:- Lord, if I had known it was the last time that I would hold them, see them, touch them, pray and praise with them, rejoice in them, live in them, loving all those laws, all those precepts, all those promises, all those people and all those relationships, then I would never have let them go. Yet let them go we did. Have mercy then upon us O Lord our God and with tears and with rejoicing and with deep, deep strengthening joy, help us us lay the foundations of that which is to come and in expectant hope, leave the restoration of all those former long lost things, in Your most gloriously good and most capable of hands. Amen.