The Path of Sacrifice
“There is a path which no bird of prey knoweth; and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.” — Job xxviii. 7.
I UNDERSTAND the meaning of Job’s parable to be this: “You say I must be a great sinner because I have reaped no material reward. Is man, then, a bird ot prey, a vulture feeding upon the flesh! Are there no rewards but those of the body! It so, then this world is indeed a mystery. For there is a path where material reward is unknown. The bird of prey finds no place therein, the vulture no home. It is the path of sacrifice. They who tread that way receive no outward crown. Am I a sinner because I have brought home no fleshly reward! There is a path where the rewards are all unseen; and only the highest walk in it; its name is Love. Those who travel by it get nothing in return; they bring back no sheaves, Is it because of their sin they bring back no sheaves? Nay, but because of their holiness — their love. Their joy is what they give, not what they get. They do not prey upon others; they are preyed upon. That is their glory, that is their recompense — to empty themselves, to lavish themselves, to be, not the vulture, but the voluntary victim of the vulture. Their heaven is the worldling’s hell — unselfishness.”
O Thou, who hast trod the path unknown to the vulture and the bird of prey, I bow this day to Thee! Thou, too, didst bring nothing home “after the flesh.” No visible crown rewarded Thee. No outward plaudits greeted Thee. No material kingdom owned Thy sway. Thine was the cross from dawn to dark, the dying from morn to even. Men said, “He must be a great sinner since he is so unprosperous; let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him!” They did not see Thine inward joy. Thy real prosperity. They did not see that the path of love is itself the path of self-surrender, ii6 Leaves for Quiet Hours.
that Thy cross made Thy crown. But I see it, and I come to Thee. The world will wonder; the vulture will marvel; the bird of prey will be astonished. They see only the outside, and therefore they see nothing. But my heart knows its own joy, and it is Thy joy — love emptying, love surrendering, love gathering flowers from out the thorns with bleeding hand to strew another’s way. Thy path may be wet with tears, but they are the tears of the rainbow: show me Thy path, O Lord!