Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1571
Delivered on Sunday Morning, December 5, 1880
“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things are delivered to Me of My Father: and no man knows who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son and He to whom the Son will reveal Him.” Luke 10:21,22.
LAST Lord’s-Day morning we considered the lamentations of Jesus. [#1570 - The Lamentations of Jesus.] We will now turn our thoughts to the joys of Jesus. It is remarkable that this is the only instance on record in the Gospels in which our Lord is said to have rejoiced. It stands alone and is, therefore, the more to be prized—“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit.” He was the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief for our sakes and, therefore, we are not astonished to find few indications of joy in the story of His life. Yet I do not think it would be fair to infer from the fact of a solitary mention of His rejoicing that He did not rejoice at other times. On the contrary, our Lord must, despite His sorrow, have possessed a peaceful, happy spirit.
He was infinitely benevolent and went about doing good—and benevolence always finds a quiet delight in blessing others. The joy of the lame when they leaped and of the blind when they saw must have gladdened the soul of Jesus. To cause happiness to others must bring home to a sympathetic bosom some degree of pleasure. Sir Philip Sydney was known to say, “Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man’s life,” and assuredly it is hard to see how the love of Jesus could refrain from rejoicing in blessing those around Him. Moreover, our Lord was so pure that He had a well of joy within which could not fail Him. If it is, indeed, true that virtue is true happiness, then Jesus of Nazareth was happy. The poet said—
“What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul’s calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy, Is virtue’s prize.”
Such calm and joy must have been the Savior’s, though, for our sake, He bowed beneath the heavy load of sorrow.
The perfectly holy God is the perfectly happy God and the perfectly holy Christ, had it not been that He had taken upon Himself our griefs and sicknesses, would have been perfectly happy. And even with our griefs and sicknesses there must have been a deep peace of soul within Him which sustained Him in His deepest woe. Did not the Father, Himself, say of His beloved Son, “You love righteousness and hate wickedness: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows”? Nor is this all, for our blessed Lord lived in unbroken fellowship with the Father and fellowship with God will not permit a soul to abide in darkness for, walking with God, He walks in the Light as God is in the Light. Such a mind may, for certain purposes, come under clouds and glooms, but the Light of God is sown for the righteous and it will speedily break forth as the dawn of day.
Those nights of prayer and days of perfect service must have brought their own calm to the tried heart of the Son of God. Besides, Christ Jesus was a Man of faith—He was faith’s highest exposition and example. He is “the Author and the Finisher of faith,” in whom we see its life, walk and triumph. Our Lord was the Incarnation of perfect confidence in the Father—in His life all the histories of great Believers are summed up. Read the 11th chapter of Hebrews and see the great cloud of witnesses and then mark how, in the 12th chapter, Paul bids us look to Jesus as though in His Person the whole multitude of the witnesses could be seen!
He it was, who, “for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame.” His faith must, therefore, have anticipated the reward of His passion and have brought the joy there home to Him even while He sorrowed
here. His joy was a light from the lamps of the future which were to be kindled by His death and victory! He had meat to eat that His disciples knew not of for His long-sighted eyes saw further than they and while they mourned His departure, He saw the expediency of it and told them that if they loved Him they would rejoice because He was going to the Father! Be sure of this, that our Lord felt, beneath the great floods of outward affliction, an under-current of joy, for He said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.”
What did He mean by this if He had no joy in His people? Could He have spoken so many happy words and so often have said to His disciples, “Be of good cheer,” if He had been always downcast? But it is still remarkable that our text should be the only recorded instance of His joy, so far as the Evangelists are concerned. It is clear that joy was not a distinguishing feature in our Lord’s life so as to strike the beholder. Peace may have sat serenely on His brow, but nothing of the exuberant spirits which are seen in some men, for His countenance was marred with lines of care and grief.