"Sovereign of the Heart"
by Lloyd Newell

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her King!”¹ Those words resound in the hearts of all who seek real peace, abiding love, and true joy.

In a quiet village in the meridian of time, lowly animals welcomed the King of Kings to an obscure cave-stable. Joy came to the world that silent, holy night. Joy comes to the world every time an infant is born, but that night in Bethlehem was unlike any other. Joy enters our hearts whenever we hear good news, but the heavenly news the shepherds received changed the world. Choirs of angels sang “good tidings of great joy . . . to all people” and proclaimed to those who had ears to hear, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”²

In the gospel of Luke we read that Mary and Joseph had gone home to Bethlehem, to Joseph’s “own city,”³ but found no welcome there. Then, as now, the real problem was not one of space. Room might have been found for someone else. But the King of Kings did not need a palace, pageantry, prestige, or possessions to define His kingdom. He was, and ever will be, sovereign of the heart.

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”⁴ No matter what He did not receive, He still freely gives. He rescues those of us who are lost. He welcomes the outsider. He invites the unwanted, the lonely, and the afraid. He brings the light of life to the darkest caverns and the coldest hearts. We need only prepare Him room. “Rejoice! Rejoice in the Most High . . . like stars that glitter in the sky, and ever worship God.”⁵ May joy fill the farthest reaches of our hearts as we contemplate that night of nights when joy came to the world.

1. “Joy to the World,” Hymns, no. 201.
2. Luke 2:10, 11.
3. Luke 2:3.
4. John 1:11.
5. “Joy to the World.”

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