“Rejoice With Me…” | Rev. Derek P. Elphick

(Luke 15:6). No matter how far we may wander from the beaten track, no matter how bad things may get, no matter how much we may struggle or get frustrated or disappointed, discovering what’s been “lost" in our lives is not simply the "way out” from boredom or inaction - it’s a cause for celebration! Our discontent with the status quo brings the Lord and His angels more joy than we can possibly imagine (see AC 5992) and it's all that's needed to put us on the path of purposeful living again.

Readings: Luke 15, Arcana Coelestia 5992, Heaven and Hell 461

Minister: Rev. Derek P. Elphick

Delivered May 10th, 2026 at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Bryn Athyn, PA.

The Bryn Athyn Church is a congregation of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, located in Bryn Athyn, PA. We are committed to helping each other draw closer to the Lord God Jesus Christ through lives of love and useful service, guided by the Old and New Testaments and the Heavenly Doctrine for the New Church (contained in the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg). Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings; services and times can be found at brynathynchurch.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, good morning, and welcome to our eleven o'clock adult service, and welcome to those of you joining us online, and a very special happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. The topic today is loss and our experience of loss and how the Lord encourages us to interpret loss. We'll be using the three parables in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost son. What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise I say to you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Then Jesus said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But then he came to himself, and he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to the servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, and bring the fatted calf here, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And the servant said to him, Well, your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf. For he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years I have been serving you. I never transgressed your commandment at any time, and yet you never gave me a young goat that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost, and is now found. Turning to the book Secrets of Heaven, number 5992, which references these three parables from Luke 15. The angels, through whom the Lord leads and protects us, inspire charity and faith. They notice the direction in which our delights turn, bending them towards goodness, so long as our freedom is not taken away. They notice any new influence on us from the hells, and to the extent that we allow it, the angels shut off these hells. Above all, angels call on the goodness and truth that we have and use it to block the evil and falsity stirred up by the evil spirits. And so we stand in the middle and are free to turn toward one or the other. The angels are motivated to do all this by a love that they receive from the Lord, for nothing gives them greater delight and happiness than removing evil from us and leading us toward heaven. This is their joy. But hardly anyone believes it. And our last passage from Heaven and Hell 461. After death, we enjoy every sense, memory, thought, and affection that we had in the world. We leave nothing behind except our earthly body. We see the way we used to see, we hear the way we used to hear, we smell and taste and feel things when we touch them the way we used to. We want, wish, crave, think, ponder, are moved, love and intend the way we used to. We still read and write as before. In a word, when we move from this life into the next, it is like moving from one physical place to another, and we take with us everything, to the point that it would be inaccurate to say that we have lost anything of our life after death, except, of course, our earthly body. Amen. And may the Lord add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his word. We experience loss in a variety of different ways. It might be the loss of our physical strength and health, or the loss of our youthful energy and enthusiasm, or the loss of innocence and trust, or it could be the loss of a job, or the end of a close relationship. It could be the loss of optimism and hope, or the loss of loved ones and friends. And how we interpret these losses is the subject of our sermon today. Because loss, contrary to the appearance, isn't always the end, it's often the beginning and the catalyst for something deeper and more profound. Now, as we grow older, it can certainly appear as if we're losing everything that is important to us. Our bodies grow old and tired. We can't remember or do the things we once could. Those we love are suddenly, unexpectedly taken from us. And yet, in the midst of this changing landscape, something deeply profound and magical is happening inside of us. A miracle is unfolding. This miracle is our rebirth. It's the miracle of spiritual transformation that has been unfolding in us for years, slowly, imperceptibly, within our hearts and minds. This is the real person, not the person we see in the mirror. A mirror won't reveal all of the spiritual change that is happening inside of us. A mirror won't show us how our tastes and sensibilities have grown and matured over the years. It won't show us how our priorities have changed. The mirror won't show us the ways in which we've become less superficial, less selfish, and more giving. It won't reflect back to us the happy, joyful news that the Lord and this church and our friends and family have come to mean so much to us that we actually can't put it into words. This is why the Lord in his word encourages us, implores us to push past the appearance that our losses are the end, or that life in this world seems to be nothing more than a cruel sequence of events in which we gradually relinquish what we once had, and that therefore growing old is about letting go of everything we once cherished. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is what the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son seeks to explain. You see, we all start out life with one hundred sheep. Sheep represent heavenly affections, and one hundred represents a full measure of those affections. Throughout childhood and into adult life, the Lord gifts us with these sheep, these precious affections for what is good and true. Everyone receives them. They give a person the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. They open the door of the mind to the light and warmth of heaven, to the influence and guidance of the Lord and his angels, to precious states of mind like innocence and peace, to chaste, clean thoughts and feelings, to trust and faith, and mercy and compassion and love towards the neighbor, and a belief in God and the afterlife and the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. In other words, the 100 sheep represent our lifeline to redemption, to the hidden realm of the spiritual world that empowers us to think and love in the way that the Lord has created us to think and love. And then one sheep goes missing. In the parable, the man leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go in search of the one lost sheep. Now, our worldly sophisticated mind might say, big deal. One sheep goes missing, you've still got ninety-nine. But this type of reaction, this type of crude judgment, is precisely what gets us into trouble. The lost sheep represents a lost ideal. We cannot afford to lose sight of the ideals of heaven, like a belief in God, or the afterlife, or marriage, or the power of the Lord's word to save us from our own selfishness. Because these ideals are the fuel that keeps us going. And without that fuel, we will almost certainly give up. And this is why there is great rejoicing. When the man finds his lost sheep, it says, He laid it on his shoulder rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. A silver coin represents the truths of the Lord's Word, and the number ten, like the number hundred, represents a full measure of these truths. Throughout childhood and into adult life, we acquire many truths from the Lord's Word. We learn about the purpose of creation, the history of the Lord's special churches on earth, and divine providence, and freedom of choice, and repentance and charity, the doctrine of use, the true nature of love, mercy, and forgiveness. These ten silver coins, these divine truths, give us the ability to think in the Lord's light. They enable us to think like the angels of heaven, because the Lord has miraculously given us the rational ability to raise our intellect above our native will, above our ego, into the light of heaven itself. Everyone has been given this ability, this clarity of thought, this freedom, if they wish to exercise it. And then one silver coin goes missing. In this second parable, the woman immediately lights a lamp and frantically sweeps the house until she finds the one lost coin. Again, our worldly sophisticated mind might conclude that losing one coin when you still have nine left isn't a great loss. But this isn't how the Lord tells the story. It says, and when she found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I lost. There is great rejoicing because divine truth is the means of our salvation. It's the only key that can unlock the door to true happiness and peace. It's the only key that enables us to gain a sense of belonging, a true sense of community, a true sense of living for something greater and bigger than ourselves. Without it, we stumble in the darkness. In other words, we realize that if we don't light a lamp and sweep the floor of our mind in search of that one lost coin, we might as well throw away the keys to heaven. And lastly, like the prodigal son, we make mistakes and seek the Lord's forgiveness. This happens in childhood and continues on into adulthood. We go out into the world to a far country and waste our inheritance. We have our moments of arrogance, of sinfulness, when we think that we know better than anyone else, including the Lord, and let selfish material wants and needs get the better of us. But then mercifully we, like the prodigal son, come to ourselves and take responsibility for what we've done. We acknowledge the hurt that we have caused others and ourselves, and we seek the Lord's forgiveness, which is freely and generously given in the form of the new robe, ring, sandals, and fatted calf. But in this last parable, a new and important dimension is added: the presence of the older brother. Understanding the role of the older brother who was not prepared to join in the celebration, who was not prepared to join in the festivities of his younger brother who was lost and found again, this reveals an important lesson. It explains the hidden reason why we are tempted to interpret the loss of precious things in our lives so harshly and negatively. In the historical context, the older brother represents the Pharisees and scribes to whom the parable was addressed. All that they could do was find fault, accuse, and condemn. They had no forgiveness in their hearts. They didn't care one bit about who or what was lost. As far as they were concerned, the younger parable, the younger brother in the parable could stay lost. On a deeper level and in the context of our own spiritual work, the Pharisees and scribes represent the evil spirits from hell who very much seek to keep us lost and in the dark. They act like thieves in the night and try to snatch away from us the heavenly treasures that we've been talking about today. In our recitation this morning, we recited together the Lord's words from the Gospel of John. And it ended with these incredibly important words. Shall anyone snatch them out of my hand? It's useful and helpful to think of evil spirits as thieves, as being ready to snatch away from us what is represented by the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. As one teaching in our church says, the evil spirits of hell seek to, quote, break through the wall of our mind, unquote, and cast out all our knowledge of the Lord and heaven and the life of charity. This is why there is nothing more important than for us to go in search of the precious things that we lose in life and not stop until we find them again, because it is in finding them that we discover their true significance and value. Yes, we may lose our physical strength and health over time, but the Lord promises to substitute that with a new kind of strength and vitality, a strong and courageous heart that will fear no evil. Yes, we may lose our youthful energy and optimism, but the Lord is waiting to give us a new kind of energy and optimism, and one that is far deeper and richer than what we had before. And just because we lose the trust and innocence of our childhood doesn't mean that a new kind of innocence and trust won't be found if we go in search of it. Or just because our belief in God or marriage or the afterlife may get lost in the stormy seas of life, this doesn't mean that these ideals can't be rekindled again. So this explains why there is great rejoicing in all these parables. Life is about change. It's about learning from our mistakes. It's about being reborn and becoming like little children again. It's about learning to be humble enough to say, I don't know, or I'm sorry. It's about admitting that we've been lost, but thanks to the Lord and the support of loved ones and friends, we have found our way again. This explains why, as we read in our third lesson today, nothing gives the Lord and his angels greater delight and happiness than removing evil from us and leading us to heaven. This is their joy. It is their joy to do this because they see what we do not see. They work to restore what evil seeks to snatch away and hide. They see what is, in reality, the beginning. One of the most painful losses in life is the loss of a loved one. And yet the teachings of our church make it so clear that we will, in the Lord's good time, meet again. Our final lesson today said that contrary to the appearance of life, we take with us to the other side everything, to the point that it would be inaccurate to say we have lost anything of our life after death except our earthly body. So let us thank the Lord today for helping us interpret the losses we experience in life in the way that He intends and the way that He teaches us in this parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. The loss of the important things in life are not the end, but the beginning. They are the catalyst for change, the catalyst for a new and changed life, and one that is deeper, richer, and more profound. And this is why the Lord is encouraging us to say to each other individually and collectively as a community rejoice with me, for I have found what was lost. Amen.