#
"All the people assembled [men, women, and children old enough to understand] with a unified purpose … They asked Ezra … to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses … From early morning until noon he read aloud and all the people listened closely … The Levites then instructed the people … and clearly explained the meaning … helping the people understand each passage."
"Then Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites said to the people, 'Don’t mourn on such a day as this!' for the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. 'Go and celebrate … Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!'" (Neh. 8:1-12)
What was being referred to by the words "on such a day as this"? It was "a sacred day before the Lord"; that is, a holy day. The words that go most naturally with 'holiness' are not only 'justice and righteousness' but 'glory', 'beauty' 'strength' and 'joy' (See Ps. 96; 99; Isa. 35). "The temple had been rebuilt and the city wall completed, but it was the people responding with repentance to the reading of God's Word that made the occasion" (Derek Kidner).
We are to briefly visit repentance on a daily basis (Mt. 6:12); to acknowledge any guilt and disobedience and change our thinking and our behaviour, but we are to live and move and have our being in the joy of the Lord; to abide in his glorious presence! It is a choice. The Father dances with joy before the angels when even one sinner repents (Lk. 15:7). Our sinfulness no longer separates us from God. In an instant, godly sorrow moves us from sadness back into the experience of the joy of our eternal intimate relationship with the Father. The joy of the Lord enables us to appropriate God's abundant provision of love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, hope, and a multitude of other breath-taking blessings.