Dreaming of Laughter: The Great Reversal Text: Psalm 126:1-3
Introduction: The Eucatastrophe
The word eucatastrophe was coined by J.R.R. Tolkien. It refers to a sudden and miraculous grace, a deliverance when all was thought to be lost. It is the unexpected turn in a story that snatches victory from the jaws of what appeared to be certain defeat. It’s the moment the eagles appear over Mordor. It’s the moment the stone is rolled away from the tomb. It is the deep grammar of the gospel. Our God is a God who specializes in eucatastrophe. He writes stories where the plot seems to have gone entirely off the rails, where the people of God are in exile, in prison, in pain, or in some other dire circumstance, and then, just then, He turns everything right side up.
This psalm, one of the Songs of Ascents, is a psalm of eucatastrophe. It is a song for those who have known the bitterness of captivity and are now tasting the unbelievable sweetness of liberty. It is a song for those who have been walking uphill, on a hard pilgrimage, and have finally come to a vista that takes their breath away. This is a psalm about the Lord’s turnings. When God acts, He doesn’t just nudge things along. He reverses them. He turns captivity into liberty, sorrow into laughter, and weeping into shouts of joy.
We live in an age that has forgotten how to laugh. We live in a cynical, jaded, and joyless time. Our mouths are filled with complaints, with bitterness, with sarcasm, but not with the deep, gut-level laughter that comes from an unexpected deliverance. The world thinks that Christianity is a grim affair, a religion of dusty rules and sour-faced prohibitions. They could not be more wrong. True Christianity is the most joyous religion in the world because it is the only one with a genuine eucatastrophe at its center. This psalm teaches us where true gladness comes from. It does not come from ignoring our troubles, but from having God intervene in the middle of them. It is the joy of the pardoned prisoner, the healed patient, the rescued exile. And God wants us to know this joy, not just as a historical artifact from ancient Israel, but as a present reality and a future certainty.
The Text
A Song of Ascents.
When Yahweh returned the captive ones of Zion, We were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter And our tongue with shouts of joy; Then they said among the nations, “Yahweh has done great things for them.”
Yahweh has done great things for us; We are glad.
(Psalm 126:1-3, LSB)
The Unbelievable Reversal (v. 1)
We begin with the central event, the great turning that frames the entire psalm.
"When Yahweh returned the captive ones of Zion, We were like those who dream." (Psalm 126:1)
The historical setting is most likely the return of the exiles from Babylon. For seventy years, the people of God had been in a foreign land, their temple destroyed, their king deposed, their city in ruins. They were a people with a past, but it seemed, no future. Their captivity was a direct consequence of their covenant rebellion. And then, God moved. He stirred the heart of a pagan king, Cyrus, and the prison doors swung open. The long journey home began.
And the response of the people was sheer, dumbfounded astonishment. "We were like those who dream." This was not the mild surprise of finding a twenty-dollar bill in an old coat. This was the kind of shock that makes you question your senses. Is this real? Can this possibly be happening? It was too good to be true. The deliverance was so out of the blue, so far beyond any strategic plan they could have devised, that it had the quality of a dream.
This is how God loves to work. He delights in getting His people into situations that are utterly impossible from a human perspective, so that when the deliverance comes, no one can take the credit but Him. He wants to leave His children gobsmacked. He wants to hear their disbelieving laughter as they walk out into the sunlight. This is not because He is a sadist who enjoys our troubles, but because He is a loving Father who enjoys our relief more than we do. He wants us to see our troubles as a staging platform for Him to show off His power and grace.
The Eruption of Joy (v. 2)
This dreamlike state of shock quickly gives way to an explosion of joyful noise.
"Then our mouth was filled with laughter And our tongue with shouts of joy; Then they said among the nations, 'Yahweh has done great things for them.'" (Psalm 126:2)
Notice the progression. The dreamlike state gives way to laughter. This is not a polite chuckle. The Hebrew indicates a mouth filled with laughter. It is spontaneous, uninhibited, uproarious laughter. It is the laughter of Sarah, who first laughed in unbelief at the thought of a child in her old age, and then laughed in pure joy when she held Isaac in her arms, saying, "God has made laughter for me." This is the laughter of pure, unadulterated relief. It is followed by "shouts of joy," or ringing cries. This is loud. This is public. This is a people whose emotions have been uncorked.
And this joy is so potent, so undeniable, that it becomes an evangelistic event. "Then they said among the nations, 'Yahweh has done great things for them.'" The surrounding heathen, the Gentiles, the very nations that had held them captive or mocked their God, they see this and are forced to draw the right theological conclusion. They don't say, "My, what a fortunate turn of events for the Jews." They don't say, "Their political maneuvering finally paid off." No, they become theologians. They confess that Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, has done great things for His people.
Our joy is meant to be a witness. A church that is filled with this kind of laughter is a powerful apologetic. When Christians are delivered from the captivity of sin, when their lives are turned around by the power of the gospel, and their response is this kind of unfeigned joy, the world takes notice. They see something supernatural, something they cannot replicate with their empty entertainments and fleeting pleasures. Our gladness points them to the source of our gladness.
The Personal Confession (v. 3)
The testimony of the nations is then picked up and affirmed by the people of God themselves. It moves from "them" to "us."
"Yahweh has done great things for us; We are glad." (Psalm 126:3)
The people of God hear the pagans getting the story right, and they say, "Amen! That's it exactly." They take the pagan confession and make it their own personal testimony. It is one thing for others to observe God's work, but it is another thing entirely to own it. "Yahweh has done great things for us." This is the heart of worship. It is the personal, corporate appropriation of God's mighty acts.
And what is the result? "We are glad." It is a simple, profound, and powerful statement. The Hebrew is simply, "we were glad." Our gladness is the direct and necessary consequence of recognizing what God has done. This is not a joy that we have to work up. It is not the result of positive thinking or trying to find a silver lining. It is the fruit of a great deliverance. The reason so many Christians lack joy is that they have a small view of what they have been delivered from, and consequently, a small view of the God who delivered them.
If you understand that you were a captive to sin, spiritually dead, an enemy of God, and under His righteous wrath, then the news of your redemption in Christ is not just a nice theological point. It is a eucatastrophe. It is a jailbreak. It is a return from the deepest exile. When the reality of that great turning dawns on you, your mouth will be filled with laughter. When you see that Yahweh has done great things for you in Jesus Christ, you will be glad.
The Gospel Dream
This entire psalm is a picture of the gospel. Every deliverance God grants His people in this life is a foretaste, a shadow salvation pointing to the ultimate reality. The return from Babylon was a great thing. But it was not the greatest thing. The greatest captivity was not in Babylon; it was our captivity to sin and death. The greatest exile was not our banishment from Jerusalem; it was our banishment from the presence of God.
And the greatest return was accomplished by Jesus Christ. He is the one who journeyed into the far country of death and the grave to bring us home. He is the one who, through His cross and resurrection, turned our ultimate captivity. And when we are first converted, when the Spirit opens our eyes to this reality, we are like those who dream. Can it be true? Can all my sins be forgiven? Can I, a rebel and an enemy, be adopted as a son? It is too good to be true, but it is.
And the result is laughter and shouts of joy. The Christian life is to be a life of gladness, because we serve the God who has done great things for us. He has rescued us from the pit, set our feet on a rock, and put a new song in our mouths. And this is not just a one-time event. This psalm is also a prayer for God to "do it again." As we will see in the second half, the initial deliverance becomes the basis for praying for future deliverances. We who have been saved by the great eucatastrophe of the cross can now face every lesser trouble, every smaller captivity, with the confident expectation that God will act again, turning our sowing in tears to a reaping in joy. Because He has done great things for us, we are glad. And because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we know He will do them again.