Are you feeling happy?

Are you feeling happy?  I hope that some of you could say ‘yes!’ without any hesitation. But I know that many of you would find it hard to say it truthfully. The fact is that for many of us the past eighteen months have been the hardest time we’ve ever known – and the clouds haven’t yet cleared.

Troubles and fears

Some of you have struggled with illness. At any time that would have been hard. But it’s been much harder this time round. You’ve had to wait – sometimes for hours on end – in order to get through to your GP on the phone. And then you’ve been told there are no appointments available for a week or more. You’ve had hospital appointments cancelled, procedures delayed. You’ve had to cope not just with the illness but with fear and frustration.

Some of you have faced heartbreaking situations in your families. Yes, such situations have arisen before. But in the past, you’ve been able to spend time with relatives whose lives are in crisis. But this time you’ve been forbidden to travel, forbidden to visit, forbidden to see grandma in the nursing-home or your sister in hospital. Perhaps you’ve found ways of evading the regulations and you have managed to be with the people who needed you, but that’s added its own stresses. You’ve felt nervous, afraid that you could be reported, and worried that even your friends might disapprove of what you’re doing.

Some of you have attended funerals. Half a dozen mourners, socially distanced from each other. Silent. Wearing masks. And when the fifteen minute service is over, you’ve gone your separate ways with hardly a word to each other. Forbidden to sing, forbidden to comfort each other, forbidden to share even a cup of tea with each other afterwards.

Some of you have felt very lonely at times. There were those weeks when you were forbidden to leave the house except for stated purposes – necessary shopping, exercise, work. And you were told that if you were out for those purposes, you mustn’t stop and chat with anyone. You longed for time with friends, an outing to a coffee-shop, an invitation to dinner, a family get-together. Sometimes the rules were stricter, sometimes more relaxed, but nothing seemed natural. Even when you were allowed to stroll round the park with a friend, it felt as if you were only doing it by permission of the authorities. What would once have been the most natural thing in the world had become subject to rules and regulation. You were a prisoner who’d been let out of your cell for a short time.

Some of you have been laid off from work. Some of you had to cancel holidays you’d been looking forward to for ages. Some of you have weren’t able to sit exams for which you had spent years preparing. Friends of ours had their wedding cancelled twice. They were due to fly abroad for their honeymoon. They will never get back the money they had spent. And with all these things, the uncertainty has added to the stress. Will it happen? Won’t it happen? Will we be allowed to go? Won’t we?

Most of us have had to adapt to new technologies. And some of us have hated that. We’ve hated Zoom conversations and meetings. We’ve hated having to download mysterious apps which are supposed to track us and tell us if we’ve been in close contact with anyone who’s infected. We’ve hated having to try to steer our children through on-line lessons or exams. We’ve been baffled by the technology and infuriated when it fails at crucial moments.

Living with the virus

And then there’s the actual virus. Some of you have found it terrifying as you’ve listened to the daily reports and statistics. “A thousand deaths in a day”. “NHS at breaking-point”. You’ve not been allowed to forget for a moment that “we’re facing a deadly disease”; “we’re in the grip of a pandemic”. Every time you’ve gone into a shop, you’ve been reminded to sanitise your hands. And you’ve stood 2m away from the others in the queue, all in grim silence with face-masks covering mouth and nose.

You’ve worried every time you’ve coughed or had a headache. “Could this be it?”. “Should I get a test?” And you’ve been aware that even if you never cough or have a headache you could still have the virus and pass it on to others. You could be a “symptomless carrier”.

You were told that even the most everyday activities involved risk. So everything became nerve-racking. When you opened your mail in the morning, you felt a pang of worry – what if an envelope was carrying the virus? When you brought in your wheelie-bins after they’d been emptied on collection day, the thought crossed your mind – what if the binmen have left traces of the virus on the handles? Every item you picked up off the shelf in the supermarket, every conversation, every trip on a bus was a risk. You were never allowed to relax your guard for a moment. If you did, you worried that you could be putting yourself, your family and others at risk.

What sort of future?

Some of you look to the future with dread. You can imagine the covid crisis going on and on. And you wonder if we will ever get back to the life we knew – a life where you could just get on with things without having to calculate the risks or check the regulations. You thought that once a vaccine had been found, life would return to normal. But somehow that doesn’t seem to have happened. You thought that once “Freedom Day” had arrived, we would all feel free. And that hasn’t happened either. And now you wonder if there’s any light at the end of the tunnel. The thought of life carrying on like this leaves you feeling hopeless and depressed.

For some of you, the fear you’ve felt has not been so much about the virus itself. It’s been about the way it is changing the world. Some of you wonder who is actually making the decisions. Is it the government? Or is it that mysterious body of scientists referred to as SAGE? Or are there shadowy figures in the background pulling the strings? Whom can we trust? Can we trust the statistics that are pumped out so regularly? Or are they deliberately manipulated? Have government measures all been put in place with our health and safety in mind or are they part of a sinister agenda? Are we being deliberately reshaped into a society where every action will be monitored and controlled? Are we moving towards 1984? You feel sick when there’s talk of vaccine passports without which we’ll be unable to travel, to attend a concert or to have a meal out. You hear that we’re moving towards a cashless society and you’re bewildered. “How would that work?” “But I always pay the window cleaner in cash!” You dread the thought of the new society that could emerge from the crisis.

And not just the covid crisis. So many other frightening developments in society. You hear about “culture wars”, people being “cancelled”. You watch film footage of BLM protests and police officers “taking the knee”. You’re aware of the sudden explosion of transgender activism – people being arrested for saying that a woman is a woman. You’re told that from now on men who have decided to identify as women will be allowed to use the changing rooms in your favourite clothes shop or at the gym you go to. You read almost unbelievable stories of what’s happening in schools and what children are being taught. You hear via your ten year old children or grandchildren that one after another of their friends has decided that they’re “bi” or “fluid”. And you wonder if you are going mad.

Life in the church

And on top of everything there’s the church. At other times of confusion and unhappiness you’ve found comfort in the fact that you’re a member of this church and that at least life there is steady. The same faces, the same hymnbook, the same orderly routines, the same great truths preached from the Bible week by week. But it’s not been like that for these past eighteen months, has it? There were months when we didn’t meet at all; when we did, the services were so contrived and unnatural – sitting at a distance from each other, singing at a whisper, the preacher behind a plastic screen, and wearing masks. Some familiar faces missing and not expected to return. Others expected to return but no-one knows when. Others coming intermittently as health or work commitments allowed.

For some of you, coming to church has felt more of a strain than a comfort. An added weariness instead of a happy relief from the grimness of the world around us.

So no, for many of us, the last eighteen months have not been a happy time. And no, some of you would find it hard to say that you are happy today.

Words from the prison cell

Well, it’s now that we need to take seriously the words that Paul wrote from his prison-cell, to the believers who made up the church in Philippi. He was in chains, unsure what the future held for him. They were facing relentless persecution:

“it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have” (Philippians 1: 29-30).

Yet Paul wrote to them, “… you also should be glad and rejoice with me” (ch 2: 18) and again “Rejoice in the Lord” (ch 3 vs 1) and again, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice” (ch 3 vs 4).

Some preachers have emphasised that these are commands and have told their hearers that if they’re not rejoicing, they’re breaking God’s commands so they’re sinning. Well, preachers who talk like that have obviously not realised that a sentence may have the form of a command without being one. If I say to a friend, “Have a nice holiday”, that sentence has the form of a command but I’m not giving an order. “Get well soon”. “Stay in touch”. “Look after yourself”. None of these are commands. If my friend doesn’t get well soon, I’m not going to tell him he disobeyed my order!

Paul isn’t ordering his Philippian friends to rejoice. But he is saying that he hopes they will be able to rejoice. He’s encouraging them to focus on happy things, rather than the heartbreaks. He’s telling them that they have good reasons to rejoice. They can rejoice in the Lord always. In the midst of the most tragic and painful circumstances, if they can rejoice in nothing else, they can still rejoice in the Lord to whom they belong.

When Paul speaks about the Lord, he means the Lord Jesus (chapter 2 vs 11: “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”). Paul is encouraging these believers to think about the Lord Jesus and to rejoice in Him – in who he is, in what he’s done, in what he has promised to do. Yes, the painful things will still be painful. The frustrating things will still be painful. But they must not let those things stop them from thinking about the Lord Jesus and finding joy in him.

Count your blessings

This is something we must do quite deliberately and consciously. It can be part of your regular “quiet time”. As you read a passage from the Bible in your quiet time, you ask, “what does this passage teach me about Jesus Christ?” and then, “why is that good news for me? Why should I be glad about that”. Before you come to prayer, make a list of facts about Jesus Christ for which you’re glad, and give thanks for each one in turn.

But don’t restrict yourself to your QT. When you’re feeling dreary, weepy, down, get out that list and go through it again, and add to it. Think of the good things that have happened to you personally, or in the church, or that have been in the news. Remind yourself that every single one of them has been from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. They are his gifts to you, tokens of his love for you. Count your blessings – and remember that they are from Him.

Once you start thinking about the Lord, who he is, what he’s done for you, you’ll find it hard to stop. Because more and more things will come into your mind. Big things. Little things. Things that are just for today. Things that are forever. And as you think on these things, who knows? Maybe the stream of joy will begin to flow again in your heart.

Rejoice in the Lord always! And again, I say, rejoice.

Unless otherwise stated, Bible quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, published by HarperCollins Publishers © 2001