Article December 13, 1924 Issue

"Sent"

MARY I. MESECHRE

One of the most attractive characteristics of childhood is its eager willingness to go upon an errand, to do the bidding of the sender, and to perform successfully the mission upon which it is sent. Particularly is this true of very small children, who are so desirous of being helpful that no extraneous interests distract them from the errand for which they have been chosen. As they grow larger and older, and are sent on more important errands, they may loiter with other children or stray out of the direct path to enjoy some boon companion; they may forget, or garble, the message intrusted for delivery; or they may even quite ignore both the errand and their instructions. These faults seem to become even more noticeable with the growth of stature and the maturing of years, causing discontent with the doing of errands for others and the determination to choose one's own tasks and their method of accomplishment,—all this in spite of an attributed degree of attained intelligence that should recognize that all work, even one's own, is but a doing of errands in and for the world, and that attention and faithfulness to assigned tasks are rewarded by success, while penalty marks infringement.

Scriptures is full of allusions to the doing of errands in the frutherance of God's work and will which surely redeems either the task or its accomplishment from triviality, however the world and its toilers may regard both. In the one hundred and seventh psalm we read, "He sent his word, and healed them." Isaiah alludes to this sending of the divine Word, accompanied by the assurance that it should prosper in the thing whereto God sent it. The prophet himself was sent by God to proclaim the ultimate deliverance of the Israelites from the distresses their own faulty following had brought upon them, and his great reward was in being given the special errand of foretelling the coming upon earth of one who would so undeviatingly obey the divine sending as to stand forth to the world throughout all ages as "the way."

John the Baptist, the Messianic herald, was "a man sent from God," who adhered so closely to his assigned errand as to incur the murderous enmity of those whose divergence from the right caused them to resent the message he proclaimed. The one born blind was sent by Jesus on an errand to the pool of Siloam, a spot difficult of access and, for him, seemingly almost impossible to reach; but his obedience was unquestioning and was gloriously rewarded,—"he went ... and came seeing." Jesus sent his disciples, the twelve and later the seventy, on errands, to carry and show the healing message to the needy in Palestine. They obeyed, and returned with joy to bring their report to him.

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