For the Joy Set Before Him

Good morning! Today we will have a short message followed by a time remembering our Lord and Savior with the bread and cup, and then we will gather together in a circle and those who desire can share what the Lord has been teaching them. Our church service takes this format once a month, because we truly believe Scripture when it says that God desires to use all members of His body to speak into and build up and encourage one another in the Lord.

One of the many things I love about our body, that is, I love about all of you, is the freedom we give each other to try things, even to fail, because we shower one another with grace and love. Today, I am going to break some well-known rules about public speaking and read a longish passage of fiction to you because it hits my heart, and I hope, hits your heart, in a way that I know no other way to express.

The passage I am going to read to you is from the novel Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. The story is highly allegorical in nature, using a style of writing similar to that of the classic Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. I recommend both books, if you are looking for edifying things to read.

Hinds’ Feet is about a young woman appropriately named Much-Afraid who comes to know and love the Shepherd, a picture of Christ, and the book tells of her journey from her home, the Valley of Humiliation, where she formerly dwelt with her family relations, the Fearings, through many dangers and trials to the High Places. Much-Afraid was a cripple and also was disfigured in her face, yet she trusted the Shepherd to lead her to the High Places. The allegory is based on the following verse in Habbakuk 3:

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights. – Hab. 3:19

In the passage I am going to read to you, Much-Afraid has already gone through a variety of trials and disappointments, but the whole time she has been led by the Shepherd, although she often forgot this. From the beginning of the journey He had selected two companions to go with her, twin sisters, allegorically named Sorrow and Suffering. At this point in the story, the four of them have just ascended, not to the High Places, but a significant portion of the way, by taking a chairlift up over what would otherwise have been an insurmountable ridge. Here is what happens next:

When at last they stepped out of their aerial chairs they were in a place more beautiful than anything Much-Afraid had seen before, for though these were not the real High Places of the Kingdom of Love, they had reached the borderland. All around were alps with grassy meadows almost smothered in flowers. Little streams gurgled and splashed between banks of kingcups, while buttercups and cowslips, violets and pink primulae carpeted the ground. Clumps of delicate purple soldanella grew in vivid clusters, and all over the fields, glowing bright as gems, were gentians, more blue than the sky at midday, looking like jewels on a royal robe.

Above were peaks of pure white snow which towered up into a cloudless sky like a roof of sapphire and turquoise. The sun shone so brilliantly it almost seemed that one could see the flowers pushing their way up through the earth and unfolding themselves to receive the glory of its rays. Cowbells and goatbells sounded in every direction, and a multitude of bird notes filled the air, but above the rest was one voice louder and more dominant than them all, and which seemed to fill the whole region.

It was the voice of a mighty waterfall, leaping down another great cliff which towered above them, and whose rushing waters sprang from the snows in the High Places themselves. It was so unspeakably lovely that neither Much-Afraid nor her companions could utter a word, but stood, drawing deep breaths and filling their lungs with the spicy, pine-scented mountain air.

As they wandered forward, they stopped down at every other step, gently touching the jewel-like flowers or dabbling their fingers in the splashing brooks. Sometimes they just stood still amid the profusion of shining beauty around them and laughed aloud with pure joy. The Shepherd led them across meadows where the warm, scented grass grew nearly waist high, toward the mighty waterfall.

At the foot of the cliffs they found themselves standing in cool shadows with a light spray sometimes splashing their faces, and there the Shepherd bade them stand and look up. There stood Much-Afraid, a tiny figure at the foot of the mighty cliffs, looking up at the great, never-ending rush of waters as they cast themselves down from the High Places. She thought that never before had she seen anything so majestic or so terrifyingly lovely. The height of the rocky lip, over which the waters cast themselves to be dashed in pieces on the rocks below, almost terrified her. At the foot of the fall, the thunderous voice of the waters seemed almost deafening, but it seemed also to be filled with meaning, grand and awesome, beautiful beyond expression.

As she listened, Much-Afraid realized that she was hearing the full majestic harmonies, the whole orchestra as it were, playing the original of the theme song which all the little streamlets had sung far below in the Valley of Humiliation. Now it was uttered by thousands upon thousands of voices, but with grander harmonies than anything heard down in the valleys, yet still the same song: From the heights we leap and go// To the valleys down below// Always answering to the call// To the lowest place of all.

“Much-Afraid,” said the Shepherd’s voice in her ear, “what do you think of this fall of great waters in their abandonment of self-giving?”

She trembled a little as she answered. “I think they are beautiful and terrible beyond anything which I ever saw before.”

“Why terrible?” he asked.

“It is the leap which they have to make, the awful height from which they must cast themselves down to the depths beneath, there to be broken on the rocks. I can hardly bear to watch it.”

“Look closer,” he said again. “Let your eye follow just one part of the water from the moment when it leaps over the edge until it reaches the bottom.”

Much-Afraid did so, and then almost gasped with wonder. Once over the edge, the waters were like winged things, alive with joy, so utterly abandoned to the ecstasy of giving themselves that she could almost have supposed that she was looking at a host of angels floating down on rainbow wings, singing with rapture as they went.

She gazed and gazed, then said, “It looks as though they think it is the loveliest movement in all the world, as though to cast oneself down is to abandon oneself to ecstasy and joy indescribable.”

“Yes,” answered the Shepherd in a voice vibrant with joy and thanksgiving, “I am glad that you have noticed that, Much-Afraid. These are the Falls of Love, flowing from the High Places in the Kingdom above. You will meet with them again. Tell me, does the joy of the waters seem to end when they break on the rock below?”

Again Much-Afraid looked where he pointed, and noticed that the lower the water fell, the lighter it seemed to grow, as though it really were lighting down on wings. On reaching the rocks below, all the waters flowed together in a glorious host, forming an exuberant, rushing torrent which swirled triumphantly around and over the rocks.

Laughing and shouting at the top of their voices, they hurried still lower and lower, down through the meadows to the next precipice and the next glorious crisis of their self-giving. From there they would again cast themselves down to the valleys far below. Far from suffering from the rocks, it seemed as though every obstacle in the bed of the torrent was looked upon as another object to be overcome and another lovely opportunity to find a way over or around it. Everywhere was the sound of water, laughing, exulting, shouting in jubilation.

“At first sight perhaps the leap does look terrible,” said the Shepherd, “but as you can see, the water itself finds no terror in it, no moment of hesitation or shrinking, only joy unspeakable, and full of glory, because it is the movement natural to it. Self-giving is its life. It has only one desire, to go down and down and give itself with no reserve or holding back of any kind. You can see that as it obeys that glorious urge the obstacles which look so terrifying are perfectly harmless, and indeed only add to the joy and glory of the movement.”

Does this passage speak into your life as it does mine? All of us, without exception, will find that there are times in our lives when we come to a precipice, and there is nothing to do but leap. Some of you are leaping now. How does it look to you? Does it look terrible, as it first did to Much-Afraid, or like the water, is it really possible to find no terror in it after all, or even, as impossible as it sounds, to find joy unspeakable, full of glory?

Finding joy in the jump is one of the themes of Philippians, which we are in the middle of going through, and it is also a recurring theme in many other places in Scripture.

Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up. – Psalm 71:20

The psalmist goes on, a few verses later, to say:

I will praise You with the harp for Your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to You with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to You—I, whom You have redeemed. – Psalm 71:22-23

There is joy with the jump. Here is an excerpt from another psalm:

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You preserve my life; You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with Your right hand You save me. The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me; Your love, O Lord, endures forever. – Psalm 138:7-8

Some of you, I know, are in the midst of trouble. I too have experienced a degree of trials this year. Now my point is not for us to compare our troubles. Yes, sometimes it helps a bit to regain a proper perspective, but even when our troubles are extreme, you can almost always find a story of someone whose trials are still much greater than yours. I don’t think that God desires for us to simply minimize our troubles, even when they are small. I don’t think his attitude is for us to “just get over them.” I think He sees them as opportunities, opportunities to find “joy in the jump.” Whether we freak out over them or minimize them, I think we are missing out on key lessons God seeks to have us learn from them.

A great paradox is that to go on to the “heights,” as we all desire, God’s path to this place often requires the jump, the leap, the hurtling down, the feeling of free-fall, the heading at breakneck speed towards the rocks below. To go up, God often leads us down, and it is only on reaching the bottom that we find ourselves somehow higher than we were before we leapt.

How do we get from seeing the terror of the jump to finding the “joy unspeakable, and full of glory”? One thing we need to remember is that we never jump alone. Jesus Himself is there with us. Although Psalm 23 is often quoted, so much so that one can become dull to its words, it still contains wonderful truths.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. – Psalm 23:4

He is there with us. Really! Intimately. His Spirit can truly comfort us, encourage us, strengthen us. If you cry out to Him in the valley, He will do this! I also think of a verse from Psalm 32:

You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. – Psalm 32:7

Two things about this verse: First, the Hebrew word for protect does not imply that the trouble will be kept away from you; instead, it implies that it will not destroy you. The KJV, which is a little more literal, translates the word as preserve rather than protect. Second, the Hebrew word translated “songs” is more literally translated as “shouts of joy.” I go back to the picture of the water droplets plunging with joy from the cliffs. God says He will preserve you as you go over the cliff and He says He is even willing to surround or enfold you with joy! But this joy is not some abstract quality; it is the peace beyond understanding that comes from intimacy with God. If you want to find this joy in the jump, you will not find it anywhere but in God Himself, in seeking intimacy, closeness, real communion with Him.

One of the cliffs we must all jump from is the cliff of dying to self, the cliff of choosing to live for Him rather than obeying our sinful impulses and desires. The author of Hebrews implores us to do this in Hebrews 12:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. – Hebrews 12:1

The Greek word for “race” in this verse doesn’t describe a sprint, it describes a marathon. And what is this word in Greek? Agona. What English word does that sound like? Agony. Dying to self is every bit as much “cliff jumping” as enduring a painful trial.

The final thought I leave you is that not only is Christ the source of finding “joy in the jump,” He also is our example. He Himself willingly, joyfully, chose to plunge over a cliff infinitely greater than that any person has ever faced or ever will face. He chose to experience the full wrath of God for the sins of mankind, to take our place, to take the penalty we deserved, so that we could have a restored relationship with God. As it continues in Hebrews,

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. – Hebrews 12:2

Even on the cross, even enduring unimaginable agony, there was a joy there. Yes, in one sense this is talking about a future joy, but He endured the agony by finding the power in that joy promise. In a very real sense He lived that joy on the cross. He found joy in the jump. And in Him we can too.

Jesus instructed us to remember Him by partaking of the bread and cup. In Matthew 26 we read:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. – Matt. 26:27-28

Partaking of the bread and cup is a symbolic reminder of Christ’s death for us. We do it in remembrance of Him. It is an act meant solely for those who have already put their faith in Christ to save them. If you are a believer, then as the music plays, spend time individually remembering the Lord in prayer, and when you are ready, come up and take the bread and cup back to your seat, partaking of them again when you are ready.