The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
-By JD. Wetterling
It was Sundays with The Good Shepherd that led this rascally lamb to that narrow way
PCANews - "Reprinted with permission of PCANews.com, the Web magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America."
[Editor's Note: PCANews is the online magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which is the more conservative Presbyterian denomination over against the larger Presbyterian Church (USA). Jerry Wetterling, formerly of Stronghurst, is a ruling elder in the PCA and their best contributor, according to Dominic Aquila, Editor of PCANews.
Wetterling lives at Ridge Haven Retreat and Conference Center, North Carolina with his wife where he is the resident manager. He has written articles for various publication including the Wall Street Journal and is author of
"Son of Thunder" which, according to Gen. Ron Fogleman, former Chief of Staff, USAF, "captures the (Vietnam) experience better than anyone I've read or
heard." [Read more on Jerry's web page at http://www.jdwetterling.com]
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6).
A center aisle under the high vaulted ceiling of Bethel Lutheran Church divided six straight rows of dark-stained oak pews. They faced a stained glass window scene of The Good Shepherd above the altar, backlit by the morning sun.
In the early years before anyone thought nurseries were needed and sermons made no sense to me, my imagination climbed into that pastoral scene in the window.
I played among the trees and rocks and petted the sheep and tried to imagine what that friendly looking man was like that held a lamb asleep at his bosom in his right arm. While that picture does not conform to the Westminster Standards that I now subscribe to, that first impression of Jesus, The Good Shepherd, my Savior, and God incarnate has never left me. It has only been enriched and intensified by a lifetime of Bible study and worship.
Every Sunday morning of my youth, except for a few sick days, I was in a pew with my family in that little church-generally the same middle pew on the right side-and in Sunday School for an hour before that.
On very rare occasions when the family traveled to visit friends or relatives we were still in a church somewhere on Sunday morning. By the time I was sixteen-years-old my laddered Sunday School perfect attendance pin hung all the way to my short ribs.
Bethel was built in the latter days of the nineteenth century by a group of Swedes that included my forebears. It was located on the south side of the village of Stronghurst, Illinois, population 950 souls - less now, but still on the map.
The membership roll looked like it was lifted out of the Stockholm phone book:-two and three generations of Wetterlings, Leinbachs, Leflers, Andersons, Johnsons, Pearsons, Petersons, Swansons, Swedlunds.
Many were related by blood as well as faith and almost all were farm families, the unwealthy aristocracy of that agrarian culture in heartland America. Few businessmen have less control over the fruits of their labors than small farmers.
They rely on God's grace alone to bring timely rain and sunshine and avoid the devastation of storms in the growing season. Weather was always a topic of conversation before and after church and a critical petition in prayer.
The life of our family centered around that church, two miles west of our farm on a gravel road, then three miles north on narrow US Route 94. Mom directed the choir and Dad sat on the church board all those years.
If the church doors were open our family was there - youth services on Sunday night, midweek worship during Lent, funerals, weddings, family potluck dinners in the basement, ice cream socials on the lawn in the summer, midnight worship services on Christmas eve, and worship in new clothes, often homemade, on Easter.
I sang in the youth choir, took my turn lighting the altar candles before the service, extinguishing them after, and helping the preacher with communion, as did every other able-bodied boy in that church who could carry a reasonable tune and be trusted with matches.
And I sweat through many a summer sermon in the acolyte's surplice, wagging a cardboard fan advertising Mellor's Funeral Home. It created just enough breeze to offset the heat generated from the exertion of using it.
Not a single sermon remains in my memory from those years (aside from one I delivered myself on Youth Sunday), but the passion of every preacher remains recorded in my mind-a lesson in homiletics that I recall on those occasions when I've been blessed to fill a pulpit as an elder.
But what does stick clearly in my memory, more so than the melodies and a few of the verses of my favorite hymns, more so than the words of Luther's Catechism, are the words to Psalms sung to ancient liturgical tunes.
They were not my favorite melodies then...or now, but they were sung every Sunday and they are the granite on which the Holy Spirit engraved the wisdom of the ages in my soul in King James English. Foremost among them are the words that come to the mind of this sinner-saved-by-grace at the most needful times.
They comprise David's impassioned plea after he had committed the most heinous of sins:
Create in me a clean heart, oh God;
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence;
and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation;
and uphold me with the free spirit.
(Psalm 51:10-12, KJV)
Mother's angelic soprano voice from the choir loft and Dad's unabashed monotone beside me echo in my mind as I type these inspired words of David.
I am forever thankful that she and father trained me in "...the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:24b). It was Sundays with The Good Shepherd that led this rascally lamb to that narrow way, where all days are spent in the joy of his presence, secure in his palm (John 10:28).
The Good Shepherd's sheep never had it so good. No other day of the week spent with anybody I know was more important.
One day we'll all be together again, Dad will be carrying a wonderful tune and David's prayer will be answered in the fullest as we sing our Lord's praises. We'll have the cleanest hearts, God's own righteous spirit within us, and joy beyond human utterance in the eternal company of the triune God.
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Excerpted from Grace in the Growing Season: Meditations on the Mountain, a work in progress by JD Wetterling, resident manager of Ridge Haven, the PCA Conference Center and Retreat in North Carolina.