There was a whole bunch of big things my heart was feeling all day last Sunday -- the feelings kept pinging again and again. I tried over and over to wrap my head around the feelings, and while everything felt absolutely beautiful, it was (and still is) a difficult task to try to explain in words. But even now I feel like I still need to try to put it all into words. I don't know how successful I'll be, but here goes:
Early Sunday morning, most other people in the time zone are still fast asleep in their beds while I and approximately 400 other musicians are working hard on prepping songs for a television broadcast to be held mere minutes away. This is every week. This most recent Sunday, we worked on and performed an amazing arrangement of the Scottish Christian hymn "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go," by George Matheson. I'd sung this song with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir a couple of times before. It had always been a pleasant, mild-to-moderately-moving experience, and it had always "spoken to me" somewhat. But this time it was an entirely different "speech." The song never talked to me the way it did last Sunday.
Early Sunday, first-things-first, right out of the bullpen, we began our first run-through of the song that morning. The first verse was the men's verse. In lovely unison, the basses and tenors melodiously uttered the first line: "O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee..." And that's all it took. That alone is what got me going.
Instant reaction - my brow involuntarily furrowed in deep thought (probably that "angry" look that people say I sometimes pull when I'm reading uplifting literature) and it seemed to stay that way for a while. That initial lyric I had just heard the men sing made me do it. The poem was written from the perspective of a mortal man who is enduring life's twists and turns and is putting his faith in God. But in this particular furrowed-brow moment, I wasn't thinking solely of a regular mortal's tests. Mostly what I was thinking about was Jesus Christ's ultimate test, in the Garden of Gethsemane.
I was contemplating how Christ's faith in His Father (God) in these real-time moments of the Atonement was incredible beyond imagination. I was comparing the faith and strength demonstrated by regular people in their personal trials, with the faith and strength demonstrated by Christ in His paramount trial. I think these both are the same species of faithful strength. I think as long as our faithful strength is rooted in and focused on God, it can be considered to be the same variety as Christ's. Because I believe it's something that comes straight from the spirit of a person. And we and Christ are very much alike in that aspect. He and we -- we all come from the same Father. We come from the same family. We've got the same sort of spirit inside us. It's hereditary.
And so, if I were to summarize these particular thoughts into a one-sentence statement, to repeat over and over again in my head all day long (which I did, last Sunday), it would be, "To pass through trial with trust in God is a holy and sacred experience because, in a way, it mirrors what Christ has done." To "endure to the end," as it says in the scriptures, is a truly Christlike skill.
I would now like to share with you a snapshot of a write-out that my MoTab soprano friend Sherry made (I'll type out the words, too), along with the full lyrics of the published hymn:
Engaged to the love of his life, George Matheson had heard that he was going blind. His fiancée, learning this, decided she couldn't live her life with a blind man. He wrote this in his despair for his loss and love for the Savior, who finds us wherever we are. He was 20 at the time and he never married. He eventually joined the ministry. ~Ryan Murphy
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths
Its flow may richer, fuller be.
O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze
Its day may brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow thru the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red life
That shall endless be.
I realized early last Sunday morning that, in my eyes, the story in this hymn seems like it's being told by George and by Christ, and sometimes individual lines in the text sound like they could have been spoken by either of the two people, in their own individual major trials. The hymn's words, to me, are reminiscent of the feelings of both a humbled and aching blind man, and the Redeemer of mankind, in the pivotal events leading up to the conclusion of His mortal mission.
First, special lines from "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go" that are especially perfect coming from George Matheson:
- "O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to thee." (Well, basically the entire second verse.) George, whose physical vision of physical sunlight had "flickered" out more and more as he grew older, never lost sight of He who has always been the true Light of the world.
- "I trace the rainbow thru the rain..." Again, as a blind man, George arrived at a point in his life where rainbows in the rain would no longer be visible to his human eyes, but he would still be able to stand outside in the rain, feel the cool, gentle drops, reach out into the air with his hand, and motion an arc shape where he'd imagine that a colorful rainbow might exist. I can just picture that, and it sweetly moves me.
Next, special lines from the song that I can imagine hearing the Savior say as He made His great atoning sacrifice, with accompanying scriptural verses of which I was reminded:
- "O Love that will not let me go..." "And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him." (Luke 22:43) I think back on a painting I once saw by Danish painter Carl Heinrich Bloch (I apologize for the dangling modifier), and I'm pretty sure it changed my life forever when I beheld it. It's called "Christ in Gethsemane" and I am touched and I smile to think that Heavenly Father blessed His Son with an angelic friend to come to His aid in this dark time.
- "...I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe..." "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." (Luke 23:46)
- "...and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be." I do love to think of this specific line as a testimony from a child of God here on earth, whose faith in Christ's Atonement and in the Plan of Happiness is solid and immovable. But for the first time since the first time I ever sang this hymn, I visualize Christ speaking these words. Once again my thoughts are directed to how intensely faith-infused Christ's performance of those poignant and crucial atoning acts must have been. I believe He had faith -- as He went through the pain that He went through -- that the good miracle would happen. That His sacrifice would do what it was always intended to do. To redeem us all. To save us all. I believe that He believed that there was a promise that would be made to His Father's children who too would follow in faith, that "morn would be tearless" for them -- in other words, that His Father's children (us) wouldn't have to remain in tears and pain, for they would have a Savior's infinitely wonderful gift to use on a day-to-day basis, any time they could ever wish for.
- I repeat the final verse of "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go":
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red life
That shall endless be.
Does not this entire verse automatically spark a depiction of our kind and gracious Savior, Jesus Christ, in your mind? What gorgeous words. Christ's mission here on earth -- clear up to the final minutes and seconds of it -- was a mission He never desired to "fly from."
I know there may be moments during the remainder of my mortal mission when I won't feel as focused or strong as I'd like to feel. But I wish for it to be forever my goal to strive to follow my Savior's example of faith. I'm unsure if that's a statement I've ever stated verbatim before, but I'm stating and declaring it now. I thank my experiences last Sunday morning for causing me to think about all this. That was a good day.
