‘Do not look gloomy,’ said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6.16). He was plainly on the side of cheerfulness (which is not to say that you can’t be serious if you are cheerful). True, a man may smile and smile and be a villain just as a man can scowl as he makes a generous donation. Things are not always as they seem in day-to-day life. Remember the man in Samuel Johnson’s circle who said that he had in his time tried to be a philosopher but cheerfulness was always breaking in.
It would be trite to say that Christianity is about being cheerful. The Christian faith has no monopoly in that. There are cheerful people who see themselves as making the best of a bad job and living for the moment. But if we are looking at serious interpretations of what it means to be human, we do well to recollect that Shakespeare wrote comedies as well as tragedies. A tormented being like Hamlet finds himself alongside a serene Rosalind.
William Cowper co-operated with John Newton in producing the Olney Hymns. ‘Amazing grace’ has triumphed but Cowper’s hymn ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ deserves just as much acclaim. When William Cowper wrote that hymn, he included the line ‘Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face’. The Christian faith encourages us to recognise the good that can come out of affliction. Cowper, a sensitive soul who saw himself as a stricken deer, had the right to venture this comment; he wrote out of experience.
In days when our worship-songs are often centred on the singer’s emotional well-being we do well to turn to this particular hymn by Cowper. Perhaps it is the case that we should resort to it privately rather than sing it publicly. It was inspired by Psalm 77.19. With our seafaring history we are well positioned to appreciate the heritage we have in Captain Cook, Grace Darling and others who spent their lives in close quarters with the great waters. Unlike the children of Israel who coped with the desert, our circumstances place us in the equally forbidding setting of the stormy seas.
Tommy Handley cheered up radio audiences during WW2 with ITMA. Lugubrious Mona Lott expressed her philosophy in ‘It’s being cheerful that keeps me going’. There’s more than one way of being cheerful. An important element in it is its contagious nature. The crowds who filled the streets at Tommy Handley’s funeral and at the two cathedral memorial services indicate the astonishing impact the show and its catch-phrases had during WW2. The Vicar of Dibley and HIGNFY inherit the tradition and almost match that impact. And in those days there was a C.S. Lewis to adorn the schedules with his ‘Broadcast Talks’.
If we have faith in Christ, we have good reason to be cheerful.
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