Jesus Christ

by Nora Moore Hess

The Men of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir have made a truly exceptional recording of the following Mormon hymn. I heard it yesterday on their broadcast, and then I listened to it on iTunes again and again:

Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy

From His lighthouse evermore,

But to us He gives the keeping

Of the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning;

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

(“Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy,” Hymns #335)

Someone I love very dearly is back in jail again. He gets into trouble, usually small things, and then just waits for it to go away. He always seems genuinely surprised when it doesn’t. When I heard he had been arrested again, I felt my usual combination of sadness and relief. Jail is not always such a bad place. He has a place to sleep and three meals a day, and he doesn’t have much access to the addictive substances that have sometimes threatened to overwhelm him. If he wants to, in jail he can earn his GED, get a job that might last after he is released, or quit smoking. He could even go to church every week, renewing and strengthening his relationship with God, the one relationship that could see him through anything. When I visited him last week, he told me about his goals. He sounded hopeful. The real test, of course, will come six months from now, when he is released to once again try to find his way home.

Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.

Eager eyes are watching, longing,

For the lights along the shore.

The Night of Sin

My loved one has had a hard life. He was in and out of foster care until he was twelve years old, when he came into our lives. Before he was sixteen he was back in trouble, running away repeatedly. Before he was eighteen he began drinking, finally leaving home for good. Like the prodigal son, he left behind him the hands that reached out to help, turning his back on a life of blessings and discipline, and “wasted his substance with riotous living” (see Luke 15:13). He never graduated from high school; he was laid off from jobs. He treated badly and then lost the girl he hoped to marry. After two stints in jail, he entered a treatment program for addiction, and things were better for a while. But he lost his job and left his home with his birth mother for an “adventure” into drugs and homelessness. Now he is back in jail again.

Although he came into our lives late, and doesn’t show up for months at a time, I love him so much that it takes my breath away. I can see his hope and potential in his eyes, and hear it in his voice, whenever I am around him. He was baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes inadvertently referred to as the “Mormon Church” by the media) a few years ago, promising to take upon him the name of his Savior, Jesus Christ, and to follow Him and keep His commandments. And then he waited, as he always has, for his life to change by itself. But his problems did not just disappear. He wants a better life, but does not take the steps necessary to make it happen. He can see the light, but has not yet learned to call upon the power of God to assist him in his struggles to reach it.

Our Father’s Mercy: The Atonement of Jesus Christ

My loved one needs the power of the atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ, in his life. He needs Christ’s power to repent of his sins, and to forsake them. Christ is reaching out to him, showing him the choices he needs to make. In Christ is the power to change. God loves him with a perfect and infinite love. He can provide him with every opportunity he needs, and give him the strength he needs to get up in the morning, go to work, be kind, pray, and resist temptation. But like the prodigal son, he must first “[come] to himself.” There is “bread enough and to spare”  in his Father’s house, and right now, with his freedom taken away, he can see that (see Luke 15:17).  Jail is a good place to come to himself. And when he does, I hope he will turn his eyes back towards home. The hands that reached out to him before, the “lower lights,” are still there. Mercy and forgiveness are waiting for him, both on earth and in heaven.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;

Some poor sailor, tempest tossed,

Trying now to make the harbor,

In the darkness may be lost.

Let the lower lights be burning;

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

The Lower Lights

Tags: Atonement, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, forgiveness, Jesus Christ, light, mercy, mormon

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Array. You can follow any responses to this entry through the http://jesus.christ.org/4095/brightly-beams-our-fathers-mercy-jesus-christ-prodigal-son/feed feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.