With palpable darkness descending over Middle-earth, and the splintered fellowship driving east toward Mordor, the hobbit Pippin observes in Gandalf a glimpse of deep, stabilizing joy—joy characteristic of good wizards and good pastors alike:
In the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently, he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.
Under all there was a great joy. Yes, indeed. Just as there had been, every step of the way, for the Man of Sorrows. Or, as the apostle Paul says, “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). And not faint joy, but a fountain. Great joy.
Christian pastors carry great sorrows. Not that others don’t. But to be a pastor means to answer the call to bear more weights, more burdens, more cares, more sorrows. Yet the work is also not without its multiplied joys. And not just joy that is icing on the cake, but an unshakable, subterranean joy that is essential for the work of the ministry, for keeping one’s balance in the most disorienting of days.
So, elders
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