# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Juni 1948_S51 # AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Number 6 June 1948 Page 51 Genuine Joy of Youth "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth. Walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes, and know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." Eccl. 11:9. In these words it is laid upon our hearts that we should recognize and enjoy as a gift of God what belongs to every genuine and healthy youth: cheerfulness of heart. This gift does indeed seem to have been lost today amid the gravity of the times and under the oppressive cares of the present; and yet — even in serious times — it is a privilege and a precious gift of youth to live cheerfully and freely. The cares and troubles of life all too soon come upon young people as well. Thus King Solomon speaks, shortly before our text, of the evil days, "for they are many." And therefore he calls to us here: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth," because precisely the time of youth, according to God's will, is meant to be a time of joy. So rejoice, with a whole heart, in the things of life that are given to you in your youth — such as singing, play, sport, hiking, learning, and craftwork, and whatever else there may be. "And let thy heart cheer thee in thy youth!" — A well-known proverb says: "A sapling bends, a tree no longer." That means: what has become a habit for a person in youth, he cannot give up in old age, for then he is no longer "pliable." Many a person who in his youth did not let his heart be "of good cheer" has ended up before the judge and in prison. — Let us look at the streets and squares of the cities and at the railway stations, where, more or less hidden, the dark dealings of the "black market" are carried on. Let us look into the faces of the hundreds and thousands of young people who loiter about there. The pure joy of youth is no longer to be found in their faces; we see in their eyes only the feverish greed for money and cigarettes and the lust for profit in their forbidden, shady trade. Aversion to work and the bad example of adults, together with a certain love of showing off, are added to this and lead this youth — one even finds ten-year-olds among them! — inevitably onto a crooked path. Black-marketeers of today — career criminals of tomorrow! — But it is not only on the "black market" that we find such young people whose hearts are not "of good cheer." Let us only look properly around us. Many things that we consider "harmless trifles," or even good and worthy of genuine joy, lose a good deal of their luster upon closer examination. Does not every object of human joy lose the character of goodness when it becomes a passion? Let us look around! And not only that. Let us look searchingly into our own hearts. "Let thy heart cheer thee," Solomon admonishes. In our own heart there lurks sin, which spoils everything, which even lets many a thing that is in itself good become a passion, and misuses it. Consider play! Something precious, when cultivated for joy and relaxation. But all pure joy in play is stifled where lust for gain and passion dominate and inflame the mind, and the heart can no longer be "of good cheer." — Sport! A noble exercise of human strength and skill from ancient times. But woe, when the young person no longer engages in sport, but sport has become a passion that drives him, and over it all other things — even God's Word and truth — are forgotten and neglected. So it can go with all things that give young hearts joy. They serve genuine and healthy youthful joy only when they are rightly used and do not become a passion. Be masters, then, over your youthful joys. "Let thy heart cheer thee in thy youth." "Walk in the ways of thy heart!" See, God's Word goes even further. But how are we now to understand this? Is free rein hereby given to the unrestrained willfulness of youthful passions? Does not God's Word also say elsewhere: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth"? How then can it say here: "Walk in the ways of thy heart"? The following words teach us the right understanding. "And know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." Thereby the joy and all the thinking and doing of youth are placed under the seriousness of divine judgment. "For all these things" means nothing less than all our doing and refraining in our youth. Before God's judgment, minority age is no excuse. Before God's judgment, the Ten Commandments apply without distinction to old and young alike; for "there is no respect of persons with God." So we cannot, then, in unrestrained willfulness and self-assumed freedom, do and pursue whatever our natural heart desires. Whoever acknowledges God's judgment over himself will rather know that, in constant self-examination and honest self-knowledge, he must plead with David: "LORD, remember not the sins of my youth." Yet how can we then still do what our heart desires? And from where are we then still to draw joy — untroubled, pure youthful joy? Not from ourselves, but "remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth," says Solomon immediately after our text. God himself wants to become for us the source of all joy and, as the giver of every good gift, our dispenser of joy, so that we learn to say: "In thy presence is fullness of joy." Therefore he has sent his Son to us, that he might redeem us from his divine judgment of wrath and turn all our sorrow into joy, and faith in Christ, our Savior, purifies our impure hearts, that they may become a holy vessel of genuine and deep youthful joy. "Wherefore let us look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame" — for us, "that we might have peace." And where there is peace, there is also joy. Where "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus," there Christ's promise to us is also fulfilled: "Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." And if this joy of faith, this joy "in the LORD," is the sustaining foundation of our youthful cheerfulness, then we know and experience what genuine, deep youthful joy is, and we can sing and rejoice with Paul Gerhardt: "My heart leaps up in gladness and cannot know despair, it's full of joy and singing, sees naught but sunshine fair. The sun that smiles upon me is my Lord Jesus Christ, what makes my heart go singing is what is found in heaven." Kanzow. Calendar Corner On June 5, 1493, Justus Jonas, one of Luther's closest co-workers, was born. Paul Gerhardt, the great hymn writer of the Lutheran church, died on June 7, 1676, in Lübben on the Spree, where he had been called as archdeacon after being driven out of Berlin because of his Lutheran confession. On June 15, 1520, the Roman church issued against Luther the bull threatening excommunication, which banned a number of his writings and demanded the burning of all the others. Luther's opponents Eck and Aleander were able to enforce the publication of the bull in only a few places in Germany. The painter Ludwig Richter, well known to us all, died on June 19, 1884. Among many other works, we have from him the pictures for the Lord's Prayer. On June 25, 1530, at the Diet of Augsburg, the Augsburg Confession was read before the Emperor and the German princes by the Saxon chancellor; it had been composed by Melanchthon, Luther's closest co-worker. On June 27, 1519, the Leipzig Disputation began between the Roman theologian Dr. Eck and Karlstadt; from July 4–19 there followed a debate between Luther and Eck, in which Luther firmly upheld his faith against the Roman church. Schneider.