The Joy of Thy Lord

Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’

Matthew xxv. 21.

^HOSEjoy? ‘The joy of thy Lord.’ But I thought He was ’ a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ I thought His face was ’ marred more than any man’s,’ worn and furrowed by pain. ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, And yet here is the word, ‘Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’ He was the Lamb of Calvary, and yet within twenty-four hours of the crucifixion, with His face steadfastly set towards death, and His feet already treading the grim and darkening way, He spoke of ‘My joy.’ ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy may be in you.’ A Man of sorrows — ‘My joy?’ Are they contradictory? Nay, they are supplementary. Each interprets the other. The sorrow

explains the joy. Unless we share in the sorrow, we cannot partake of the joy.

What is the joy of our Lord? In one of His most beautiful parables, the Lord gives us a glimpse of one of His joys. A shepherd has lost a sheep. It has wandered on to the wilds, and has missed the flock. The good shepherd goes in search of it. He roams over the storm-swept, rain-beaten moors. He peers into precipitous ravines. He descends into valleys of shadow, where the wild beast has its lair. He trudges high and low, far and wide, gazing with strained vision, and at last he finds his sheep, maybe entangled in the prickly brushwood, or bruised and broken by the rocky boulders of some treacherous ravine. ‘And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulder, rejoicing.’ That is one of the joys of the Lord — the finding of the lost! ‘Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, Can we do it? Stay a moment. Let us follow the shepherd home. ‘And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost, Could they do it? I know that they could come to his house, and sit down to the feast, and enjoy the good things provided, and fill the house with music and ioo QTUMaftone for Qutef QHotnente

song. But could they really enter into his joy? Suppose that among his neighbours there were some who had been with him upon the wilds, who had dared the dangers of the heights and the terrors of the beasts, who had trudged with tired feet far into the chilly night — would not these be just the neighbours who would be able to enter into the shepherd’s joy? To enter into the joy of finding, we must have entered into the pain of seeking. To enter into the joy of my Lord, I too must become ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’

How clearly the Master unfolds the principle in the parable of the prodigal son! Day by day the father expectantly awaits the prodigal’s return. He stops every traveller by the wayside, and inquires if in distant parts they have seen his son. He is up with the dawn, and watches till the sundown, if perchance he may catch a glimpse of his home-sick child. Every day he retires, to toss and plan, and cry, and dream. And one day his eyes discovered a shadowy figure which love at once interpreted as the returning child. ‘When 1 e was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him.’... That is one of the joys of the Lord.... ‘Bring hither the

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fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry.” Now the elder son was in the field,’ and he had never mourned, and he had never prayed, and he had never sought a vantage-ground from which he could command wide visions, in the hope of seeing the returning brother. ‘Thy brother is come — rejoice with me.” He was angry, and would not go in.’ He could not enter into his father’s joy, because he had never entered into his father’s pains. He had no delight in the finding, because he had not shared the agony of the seeking. And so it is in the entire circuit of our relationship to the Lord. We are qualified to share His joys as we have shared in His sorrows. ‘If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.’ ‘Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me.’