The Life and the Joy
W. Carl Ketcherside
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Do you know how a toothpaste tube looks when someone has flattened and pressed it in an attempt to extract from it the last quarter inch of flavored dentifrice? Or a football which has been punctured by a spike when it accidentally lands on top of the iron fence? Or a ripe tomato in the street which has just been run over by a passing garbage truck? Then you know what happens to some words when they are put through sectarian wringers and the idea-content is squeezed from them leaving them limp and flabby. This can happen to words that are rich and full, words that are plump and rounded out with meaning intended to cheer and comfort, to stimulate and encourage.
I'm thinking of such a word right now, a word which came straight from the throne of God, filled with promise and vibrant with hope. Men have taken it and pounded and pummeled it, and forced it into their little peculiarly shaped partisan moulds until it no longer shouts with the joy of heaven, but speaks with the raspy voice of theological politicians. All of the grace and glory have been mashed and ground out of it in sectarian vices and it whispers now of manipulation and maneuvering by usurpers who despise the conscience of others and play God with their fellows.
A few years ago the glorious thought exploded inside my heart with a burst of light that God really wanted me, and that he was willing to go to any length to make it possible for the two of us to be together and share with one another. When the message finally got through to me (it wasn't easy because I had been preaching so long) I could not figure out why. I still do not know. I've wrestled with the problem until I have just about decided to accept it as a fact, like I do the Milky Way or the love of my grandchildren, and wait until I can talk with Him face to face about it. Probably when that happens I'll not have to even ask Him. I have an idea that the minute I see him I'll know perfectly all that has been hidden. The most astonishing thing will be that there is no more mystery, no darkness. I'm fully aware that the word "minute" has no place in the Great Event, for there will be no measurement of time or length. I use it here merely because it hasn't happened yet!
The word about which I am thinking is connected with joy, actually with fulness of joy. There's a difference between joy as I use the term (and as the Spirit also used it), ind being glad or happy about things. It is much more than laughing at good fortune, or at a clever joke, or at seeing a pompous banker slip on a banana peel. The joy of which I speak may know acute suffering from cancer, or teeth-gritting pain. It may know hardship, privation, cold, hunger, or imprisonment. I'm not so sure but what it might actually thrive better under such circum-
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This was the outstanding attribute of this joy! When you had it nothing else--absolutely nothing else--really mattered. I do not like that sentence because I rather think that one did not have this joy at all. It had him! It moved in and took over and when you were in its grip you were surprised to find that your life was completely changed and transformed. It was as if another person had moved in and nudged the old "you" out and had taken possession. You couldn't really tell the difference when you looked in the mirror while shaving. There was the same scar in the eyebrow that resulted from the fall from the bicycle when you were a boy. There was the wart on the lower jaw and you still had to steer around it with the razor. Yet you had the impression that you were looking at a new person, a stranger, a calm and unperturbed stranger who probably wouldn't make a lot of mistakes such as you had made, or if he did make them would know Who to go to about them. And there was joy, unmistakable, unmitigated, genuine joy in knowing that Who.
The joy (sometimes I think it ought to be spelled with a capital "J", it is so personal) may come and identify itself, and move in and take possession, under all kinds of varied circumstances. No two of us are alike. No two of us have identical experiences in the same event. Even if we are sitting in the front seat of a car which starts to skid and goes out of control and rolls over down an embankment, our reactions are different. That is why, if we live, each of us must recount it for himself. And each of us gets bored with the other's account. We can be in the same place and go through the same experience, and still it is not the same at all. Joy--the joy--comes only to you as it comes to you!
You are sitting with head bowed and scalding tears running down your cheeks, almost oblivious of those around you as you think of the loved one lying cold and stiff in the sepulcher. You are bowed in grief at the thought that the eyes which once looked at you with love are sightless. Death has blown out the candle and pulled down the shades. The light that once gleamed through the soul's windows is extinguished. You are left lonely and in the dark. Then you feel a hand touching your shoulder and a voice whispers in your ear, "The Master has come and calleth for thee," and you arise and go to Him, and he speaks just to you, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die!" Joy!
You are on the sea in a small boat, and darkness has fallen swiftly and silently, as the moon and stars are blotted out by the ominous clouds. The wind ceases to moan and begins to shriek through the rigging. The waves increase in height and you are tossed from side to side, fighting to keep your balance and knowing that this time the fight is vain. Then you see Him coming, walking as calmly as if he were in a quiet country lane. The towering waves which seemed so frightening, rush toward him and become like frolicking puppies playing about His feet! Joy!
It isn't always that He comes. Sometimes you have to go. He has come often and you laughed at the thought that He could give you anything you needed or wanted. You had everything. And you thought you had joy. Then you awaken one morning with a bursting head and a thick dark brown taste in your mouth. The room is untidy. The empty bottle is turned over on the night table. Cigarette ashes bestrew the floor. You have a momentary thought between the throbbing splitting pains that the place looks like the pigpen down on the farm when you were a boy. You think of the old place again sheltered under the large maples. You think of the neat room you shared with your older brother. And then you think of yourself--of the parties, the flasks, the tantalizing women, the sordid
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Of a sudden you feel dirty, loathsome, foul. You lie back down on the rumpled bed and start shaking, crying, sobbing, with uncontrollable grief. You remember what you said when you left three years ago, "Give me my share. I'm getting out of this dump!" What a fool I All of a sudden it bursts in upon you what you should do. Why didn't you think of it before? It is so simple. "I'll arise and go to my father and say, I'm no longer worthy. I'm not asking for anything. Really I'm not. I'll be a servant. I just want to come home, that's all, just come home!" And you get up and begin getting ready to go. As you walk toward the shower you find yourself humming a tune. What are the words? It's been years since you heard them. Ah, there they are. "Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me!" Joy!
In every instance joy is associated with being with someone, or with the prospect of it. It is having someone share your grief, not merely cry with you. There's a difference. It is having someone share your danger, someone who can do something about it. It is the prospect of being under the same roof with those you love, sharing at the table, sharing in the pleasantry and small talk, sharing in the intimacies of the family. It is association, but it is more than that. It is belonging!
And now we come to that word to which I alluded when I began this article, the word that has been crushed and cramped and strangled by sectarians and schismatics, until now it is more frequently associated with narrowness and littleness than with joy--the joy! The Christian Pharisees have squeezed the life out of it. Remember that expression. It is very vital. The word has had the lifechoked out of it. And when the life went the joy fled with it.
The Greeks spelled it koinonia. The English call it fellowship. It means "sharing," but do not jump to conclusions. It does not refer to the mere sharing of things, tangible or intangible. It is not simply sharing your lunch, or your car, or your ideas, with someone else. Koinonia is the sharing of a common life. Whatever creates that common life creates fellowship, for fellowship is that life! When we come into that state of life with God, joy overtakes us, captures us, enters into us and radiates through us. That is what God's word says and I believe it! And ever since I began to believe it I have been a willing captive. Thank God for fellowship! Thank God for joy!
The apostle of radiant love, John, in his first epistle writes about the wonderful word of life and the life of the wonderful Word. He declares that "this life was made visible; we have seen it and bear our testimony." He identifies the life. "We here declare to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us." You must distinguish between the word of life which was made visible and the words which John writes in description of that life. The word of life dwelt with the Father from the beginning.
There is a difference between a person and the testimony of another about that person. An individual is never the same as a declaration about him. We will become guilty of a tragic error if we equate the apostolic account with the word of life. It would be like mistaking a history book for George Washington, or a cookbook for a cake. John says, "What we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a common life, that life which we share with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we write this in order that the joy of us all may be complete" (I John 1:3, 4).
It takes five words--"share in a common life"--to translate the one word koinonia. Fellowship is sharing in a common life. The common life is "that life which we
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It at once becomes obvious that it is silly to talk about this fellowship as something we can extend or withdraw. It is quite as absurd and asinine to think of it as merely a mutual relationship to things. Fellowship is not, for example, allowing someone to share in the use of your lawnmower. "Yes, you may use my mower but if you do not treat it with proper concern I'll withdraw your privilege." Fellowship is related to life and it hardly seems quite as rational for a mother to say, "Yes, I bore you into this world and if you do not behave as you ought to do, I'll withdraw you and put you back where you came from." One cannot even put a living chicken back into an egg. How can he think of putting a child of God out of the divine family.
The expression "withdraw fellowship" is not in the Bible and for a very good reason. Fellowship is a state created by God. One enters it by the new birth exactly as he begins to share in the family life by his original birth. Anything which men can extend or withdraw is probably not too important spiritually, and could be merely the result of human whim or caprice. One does not enter life by vote of his fellows, and as long as he is living with joy) whether they recognize him or not, does not necessarily affect either his origin, destiny or wellbeing.
All history attests that generally those who have been put out of synagogues are the purest and best, far better than those who remained. Heretics are simply heroes ahead of their time. Saints are "cannoneered" in one generation and canonized in the next. The monuments we behold above the bodies are frequently made of the same stones hurled at them by our fathers.
To be excluded by the smug and self-righteous who consider themselves the favorites of God and the pets of heaven, may actually be the best thing that can happen to a genuinely spiritual person. If a plant starts growing -until it fills the solarium it will always be stunted at that level unless it has the good fortune to be placed (or thrown out) in the yard where heaven becomes the limit of height.
Of course this is not intended to offer comfort to cranks and eccentrics who suffer from a martyr complex and exert every effort to make their presence a bore so they will be evicted and can complain of mistreatment and persecution of "pseudo-saints." This is often a case of the pot and kettle calling attention to the darkened condition of each other. Most of us will be difficult enough to get along with at best and we will gain little by specializing in the art, or making a science out of it. We should heed the admonition to "aspire above all to excel in those gifts which build up the church" (I Cor. 14:12).
To "share in a common life" does not mean that all participants will have the same degree of knowledge or understanding because then we could never be in the fellowship with the Father and Son. It does not demand that all be equally perfect. Those who predicate fellowship
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Those factions and parties which have pressed the life out of the sharing always suffer from the same delusion. They think that by an act of providence they have been allowed to find the key to the mystery of divine affection and because of their use of it have become the chosen people. They have the right combination, they have stumbled upon the secret code. Standing with God depends upon being correct about the one thing that really counts. That one thing differs with each party. That is why there are so many of them! It's a little like a jigsaw puzzle. You can never see what it looks like because every one has his own part, and all stubbornly refuse to lay theirs down until every one else does first. In some cases there are those who think they have the whole puzzle. To them the kingdom of heaven for which Jesus died and over which he resigns is a very small territory.
Sometimes the partisan test relates to what you are for. More frequently it has to do with what you are against. A man is not loyal because he loves Jesus with all his heart and seeks to surrender wholly and unreservedly to him. He must also have the right quirk to be recognized by other members of the family. He cannot be saved by grace through faith. He must have something else, something of his own, if he is admitted to the inner circle and allowed to participate in the party conclaves. It is not sufficient to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, to pray without ceasing and to bestow all of your goods to feed the poor in deep love and affection. You are still a "brother in error" unless you can parrot the party line and give the right answer when asked for the password. Then you are no longer in "error" for to be in error means to be in Christ with all of your heart, but without the identity card certified by the "powers that be" to whom every soul must also be subject. You must not only know the Savior of all men but the shibboleth of some men, for to be right is to be endorsed by the right people!
The sad thing about all of this is that it leaves the devotees of the party always hungry, emaciated and starving. And they are like all who are hungry with a gnawing at their vitals--snappish, quick-tempered, ready to take offence. They crave something but they cannot define it. Like a sick man who dreams of some tantalizing food which he cannot describe) they realize that despite all of their protestations of loyalty their lives are vapid, vacuous and vain.
They must be always alert that they do not walk into a trap. They must be fearful, frightened, suspicious of their brethren who make overtures of goodwill. They must never associate with one of another party enough that they get to liking him. When they demonstrate some growing sense of true bigness of spirit they must always go back and cover their tracks, like a fleeing criminal or fugitive from justice who scatters pepper along his trail to elude the bloodhounds. For the hounds of the heretic detectors bay relentlessly at the heels of all who seek to escape from the shackles of the schismatics. And it is not pleasant to be torn and ripped to bits in bloody jaws before you reach the higher ground, when your longing eyes see the hills of freedom beckoning. It is especially ironic when the hounds are the ones you trained yourself to overtake others who once sought to escape.
I can tell you what is lacking in the lives of all of these. No partisan, no sectarian, no factionalist, no front man for any cult on earth, can have it in its fulness. It is joy-- the joy! And it comes from sharing the common life with the Father, the Son, and all of the saints. To think you can experience this by being a member of a faction with its artificial,
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To all who have been feeding upon the dried and shriveled husks of partisan antagonism, whose lives have been circumscribed and throttled by the party spirit instead of enriched and ennobled by the Holy Spirit, whose only associates are those who agree, whose only companions are those who conform, we issue an invitation to join the whole family of God and share in the reunion of all of the saints. Do not forget that those who band together because they share in the same knowledge actually stay together because they share in the same ignorance.
Break the lock on the party door which keeps you confined to your little room and move out into the Great Hall with the rest of the family. Free yourself from the uncommon life and start sharing in the common life. Fill your spiritual lungs with the tingling air of fellowship in Christ and see what happens as your heart beats faster and you fill up with joy! Not the false joy that things bring but the real joy the Savior shares. Joy! The Joy!
(This is one of a series of articles titled "Deep Roots" which will be presented in this paper during 1966, and which will be gathered into a 192 page book at the close of the year. Advance orders are being taken for "Deep Roots" for delivery on March 1, 1967, at the pre-publication price of $2.49 per copy. Reserve yours now by writing to Mission Messenger, 139 Signal Hill Drive, St. Louis, Mo. 63121).