A
few weeks ago a woman was baptized in our ward after her adult
daughter had been a member for a few months. The mother started
attending and meeting with the missionaries because she wanted to see
what it was that was making her child so happy with life, and she
caught the light and felt the Spirit herself. She found the gift of
testimony, and we made her welcome with gladness.
In
the next sacrament meeting the priesthood formed its circle around
her to perform the ordinance of confirmation. After confirming her a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ and saying to her, “Receive
the Holy Ghost,” the bishop’s young counselor paused.
Then clearly and deliberately he told her, “Kathryn, Jesus
Christ has found you.”
Jesus
Christ has found you! In the quiet, respectful waiting of the
congregation to hear the blessing that would be given on this
occasion, that startled our attention. Don’t we talk about
“finding Christ?” Isn’t our image of missionary
work an image of leading them by the hand and drawing them to where
He is? Telling them who he is and why it matters?
He’s
waiting for them to come to him; he invites all to come to him, the
scriptures say. Doesn’t he already, always know where we are?
(Which is, often, not where we should be.)
Yes,
he does, but as surely as our Father in Heaven knows each one of us
perfectly and sent us off to mortality with all the preparation He
could give us, His Son wants to gather us in to safety and promise in
his own perfect love for us.
It
shot into my heart, and I wasn’t the only one. This is the
image of the sheep who doesn’t know where the flock is, where
it needs to have warmth and pasture and safety. This is the good
shepherd who goes and finds the one who isn’t in the right
place yet, who needs to be with the rest.
How
think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone
astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the
mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
And
if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of
that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
(Matthew 18:12-13)
This
shepherd isn’t just holding tight and hoping the lost sheep
lucks into the right path. Nor is he the one calling out into the
night and simply hoping it’s still within earshot. Neither is
he sending someone else, maybe less familiar or less invested, to go
out calling for the sheep.
In
this description, the shepherd knows which ones should be there but
are not with the flock, and hurries before some tragedy can strike
and lose him his numbered, valued, loved sheep. He knows the sheep
will answer his call in his voice, and be happy.
A
pair of songs came to mind as I thought about this through the day,
different settings in paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm. I was
thinking that they were two different musical settings of the same
words, but I realized that they were in fact separate origins. One*
is a setting of words by Isaac Watts, “My Shepherd Will Supply
My Need,” written in 1719 and married to an Appalachian hymn
tune, first printed in 1835, in pentatonic (five note) plainsong,
very simple and eloquent. I met it later in life. The first verse:
My Shepherd will supply my need:
Jehovah is His Name;
In pastures fresh He makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
When I forsake His ways,
And leads me, for His mercy's sake,
In paths of truth and grace.
The
other, “The King of Love My Shepherd Is,”** is a
stirring choral anthem which I have sung many times in choirs over
the years. (There is also another version set to an Irish melody.)
It begins:
(verse 1)
The
King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.
That
is a sure promise and a sure truth. But what if we wander away or
get turned around or just forget where our true help comes from? If
this is us, the music rises:
(verse 3) Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
That
is an image of forgiveness and redemption. Plucking us out of
danger, he doesn’t berate, but rejoices that he has saved us
from harm. He is always watching over and searching for his sheep.
Who are us.
“Jesus
Christ has found you.”
It’s
not that he doesn’t know just where we are; we don’t need
finding in the same sense that we can recognize as mortal searchers,
panicked and fearful — have you ever turned around and didn’t
know where your child had disappeared to in a store or a park, or
standing right by the car as you were ready to load up?
But
he knows his sheep, those who left our heavenly home so anxious to
make the right choices and find the path that would bring them back.
The ones who already love him but can’t remember. He asks us to
bring souls to him, but he also is actively seeking after us. We
turn to where he waits for us, and he runs to meet us and gather us
into his embrace.
Then,
we find the conclusion of Isaac Watts’s hymn. We are:
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.
Because
Jesus Christ has indeed found us, and “then through all the
length of days,” we can find rest in the arms of his love.
*Here
are two settings of the Appalachian hymn, “My Shepherd Will
Supply My Need”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmCd_cGsWyE
(Here it’s played with a bowed dulcimer, much as it might have
sounded at the time it was written, with the images of a shepherd’s
care.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMeUFQPCbuQ
(Here, a rendition by the MormonTabernacle Choir.)
Marian J. Stoddard was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in its Maryland suburbs. Her
father grew up in Carson City, Nevada, and her mother in Salt Lake City, so she was always
partly a Westerner at heart, and she ended up raising her family in Washington State. Her family
took road trips all over the United States and Canada, so there were lots of adventures.
The adventures of music, literature, and art were also valued and pursued. Playing tourist always
included the local museums as well as historical sites and places of natural beauty. Discussions
at home, around the dinner table or working in the kitchen, could cover politics, philosophy, or
poetry, with the perspective of the gospel underlying all. Words and ideas, and testimony and
service, were the family currency.
Marian graduated from Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland, and attended the
University of Utah as the recipient of the Ralph Hardy Memorial Scholarship, where she was
graduated with honors, receiving a B.A. in English. She also met the love of her life, a law
student, three weeks after her arrival; she jokes that she had to marry him because her mother
always wanted a tenor in the family. (She sings second soprano.) They were married two years
later and have six children and six grandchildren (so far). She treasures her family, her friends,
and her opportunities to serve.
Visit Marian at her blog, greaterthansparrows. You can contact her at
bloggermarian@gmail.com.
Marian and her husband live in Tacoma, Washington. Together they teach those who are
preparing to go to the temple for the first time, and she also teaches a Stake Relief Society
Institute class.
