THE PATH OF JOY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 994, 20 May 1911, Page 4

THE PATH OF JOY.

(III.) DISCIPLESHIP. (Contributed.) The call of the Master is “Follow Me,” and the disciple who obeys that call, must, like the sons of Zebedee, leave all and follow Him. The words of the Saviour arc deep searching, “So therefore whosoever be be of you that reuouuceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.” Jesus Christ asks for the whole heart, not part of it, He wants to make it His home and live in it, He cannot share it with the world. He wants to live in the disciple, so that the words that are to be spoken may be His words, the passions that are to be conquered may be conquered by Him, the kindly deeds that are to be done may be done through His indwelling grace. The disciple must be in love with Christ, absorbed, “My Beloved is mine and I am His,” then his religion will be: “1 live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me.” The Master moves about in the pages of the Gospel and there He leads His follower, “ Search the Scriptures, these are they which testify of Me,” and here the disciple learns to walk on the path oi joy, and to see clearly the living Way, “ Thy Word is a lamp unto my teet, and light unto my path. As the disciples walked to Emmaus the Risen Master joined them, and their hearts burned within them as He unfolded to them the Scriptures: “ Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory ? ” and then we are told “ beginning from Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” He taught them the joy of suffering and the glory that should follow —that there could be no crown where there was no cross.

Again He leads His servants, “ Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.’'' He calls the disciple to the mountain of prayer, to be alone with God, to seek from time to time solitude, where he may be still and learn to know God. The Master was a Man of prayer, He felt the need of it, and often we read how He spent whole nights in close communion with His Father. If he needed it, seeing what he was, how much more does the disciple need it ? As He travelled the path of joy, His greatest delight was prayer, and it must be so with the disciple, for in prayer the soul seeks the Beloved and the request is always “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant hearelh.” The study of the Scriptures and prayer are the maps that point out the path of joy hidden in the world, without these the disciple is like a ship without a compass. The Way is spiritual and so hidden in the world, because the world is material. By these aids the disciple learns that he is in the world but not of the world, and the more he studies them, he feels that longing or home sickness for that Paradise which is always open to him, and which once belonged to him. The growing joy is this: — Thou. Lord Jesus, art the living Way to the Kternal; Thou art the hidden path of joy in the world, but the world cannot see Thee because It is material and Thou art spiritual. Give me the eyes of faith to see Thee, and grace to follow Thee, even if the Way is narrow and fall of thorns. Discipleship often means self denial, “If any man would come alter Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me,” Many sharp stones will be found on the Living Way to cut the traveller’s feet—many thorns lie in the narrow path, and tear the flesh ; but these wounds of disappointment and hardships are borne with joy, because always in front is the white-robed Saviour, and the message He sends to His follower is “ In the world ye have tribulation, buc be of good cheer I have overcome tfle world.” Lite may be stormy and the struggle hard but through it shines the sunbeams ol joy : “ the Lord hath His Way in the whirlwind and in the storm.” In the severest hour of trial the disciple walks by the Master’s side, and with the eyes of faith he sees the spear-wound, and that tells him, He conquered —He carried His cross, and lay down upon it, out of love for the human race.

Again, the Way may often seem lonely, but the pilgrim is conscious that there is One who walks with him —He felt the forsakenness of friends : “Ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and vet lam not alone because the Father is with Me ” —so the disciple learns to realise day by day that he is not alone, the inward joy of his heart is, I am not alone for the Risen Master is with me.

The continual presence of Christ is the abiding hope of the traveller —nothing material matters for the spiritual is the real thing. Suffering and persecution may dog the footsteps of the Christian, adversity may make the path a Via Dolorosa, but the presence of the Master shines through it all, and He says, “Your joy no one taketb away from you.” The promise of the Master makes this quite sure : —“ My sheep hear My Voice and I know them, and they Hlow Me: and I give unto them Eternal Life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.” He made it doubly sure when he went on to say, “ My Father which bath given them unto Me is greater than all, and no man is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand —I and the Father are One.” Thus, Christ is the path of joy

leading the disciple to the Father —He through Himself to the Father, we through Him both to Himself and the Father. Only let the disciple learn to give himself up without reserve to Christ, and the path of joy is immediately opened to him. St. Francis of Assisi could say, “ There is nothing, O, my God, that I am not ready with a free heart to give up for Thee,” and so full was he with the joy that came out of a close communion with the Crucified that he sang, “The happiness that 1 expect is so great that all pain is joyful to me.” To accept Christ is to take cheerfully all that he sends and to offer Him the whole life and the whole will, the daily prayer being, “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?” Each disciple should go to Him in the spirit of the prayer of St. Ignatius ; “Receive, O, Lord, the whole freedom of myself. Accept my my memory, my understanding, my entire will. Whatsoever I have or possess, Thou hast of Thy bounty bestowed upon me. All this I restore to Thee, and surrender it to be disposed of absolutely according to Thy will. Only give me love for Thee, along with Thy grace, and lam rich enough; I ask

for nothing more.” Passing through the world, the pilgrim always pictures the Master climbing up the rocky bills of Galilee, and followed by a liul. band of men and women who bt'd given up all to be with Him. Can the disciple to-day point to that straggling band, a mere.handtul of wanderers, following the white-robed Master, and say, “ I am amongst them, often weary and fainting, often tempted to give up, but always following the Saviour, with my eyes fixed on the pierced Hand which ever points onward to the path of joy.” True discipleship is to be ever at the Master’s Side, to find out' the joy that lies beneath the Five Sacred Wounds, the joy of overcoming the world as He overcame it, and the further joy of sharing the victory with Him. “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My Throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His Throne.” The transfigured life in Jesus is the path of joy in this world for the loving disciple, and the joy is so great that the pilgrim’s lace is illumined by the rays of glory which shine from the Master’s Face, and men take knowledge that he has been with Jesus. “Into the land of righteousness I go, The footsteps thither Thine, and not my own. Jesus, Thyself the Way, alone I know; Thy will be mine, for other have I none. Unprofitable servant though I be, Gladly or sadly, let me follow Thee.”

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