Forty years ago at our graduation service we sang these words as part of our class hymn.
Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life's alarms
When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within thine arms,
And strong shall be my hand.
The images of this hymn are bold ones. They sound possibly too bold. "Make me a captive...force me...imprison me." Yet over the years I have come back to this hymn over and over again. I cannot imagine anything we need more than for our Lord Jesus Christ to take us captive, to imprison us in his arms. To be at one with him is to be given a freedom, a power for love that can be found no where else.
There really is no human analogy for the freeing power of being captive to the love of our Lord. One experience I remember distinctly, however, could help us grasp how fulfilling, how much joy comes from this relationship.
A number of us had the very special joy of singing in the Augustana Academy Choir under the direction of Clifton Madsen. To sing in that choir was indeed to sing "under" the direction of this man. Maybe it was different for some of you, but I never would have conceived of this man as my buddy. I stood in awe of him, and I with you had my eyes fixed on him when we sang in practice or in concert. We gave up what many would call freedom for the privilege of being held captive by Madsen's direction.
Some of you may recall the time we sang at a veterans hospital out in the Black Hills. I recall it being a place where the men had mental problems. Anyway, during one of the numbers some of these guys were captivated by the beauty of you young women and started carrying on to distract you. They accomplished this with a few, and the eyes of some from the choir left Madsen and were drawn to these characters in the front row. It was clear that Dr. Madsen became very upset, and as I recall we all sung in a kind of fear and trembling the rest of that number. During a break he told us how discombobulated he became and didn't hardly know where he was.
For me it was a special moment in my life. He may have been too harsh on those who were the "offenders." It was next to impossible for any of us not to be distracted. Yet in our "freedom" to look away from him, we lost the freedom of singing as an ensemble of voices directed by a master. Now, as I listen to high school choirs and see students looking here and there, I long for them to have the experience some of us were privileged to have--captive to a director to whom at that moment we belonged. Through this man many of us were drawn to our Beautiful Savior. We have come to rejoice that this One, Jesus, has imprisoned us within His arms. Held by him we have been strengthened at least in some small measure to reflect his love.
One other thought came to mind in this regard, as I had a brief conversation with Harlen Norem and LeRoy Iseminger. Duing our senior year we had a religion class I'll never forget. It turns out it was LeRoy Isemger who was teaching us. In the class he asked us this question or one like it. "If there was no heaven and no hell, would you be a Christian?" I'll never forget our answers and the debate we had with him that day. As I recall, most if not all of us said that we would not be a Christian if there were no heaven or hell.
We may have tried to argue that if this were the case the Bible would be false and, therefore, we would have our faith undermined. I believe looking back on it, however, that the real reason was this. Without the fear of hell we who were living under so many rules and restrictions would have kicked up our heels and "raised a little hell." We'd have let our hormones take over more than they already had and gone wild.
For us Christianity was a bit like a prison with high walls keeping us in line. We may have known in part that we needed boundaries. There is protection in having clear limits and having consequences thast flow naturally upon us when we disregard the protection offered by God's law.
Nevertheless, I look back on that hour with considerable sadness, because I believe many of us then were living under the law in a manner that was not so helpful. Some among us got hit by the law in a way that did not necessarily lead to life. Oh, how I wish many more of us could have heard LeRoy's plea that day for us to be held by our Lord Jesus, be smitten by His love, captured in our hearts by His love. Our class hymn had it right. "Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free." To be a Christian is not to live in fear of hell if we are on the loose. To be a Christian is to know the joy of being forced off the throne and living in the marvelous freedom of being Christ's own, living with Him in His kingdom. To be under Him is to be in the hand of the Master. With Him directing our lives we sing with a beauty and harmony that many who hear and see it will be drawn to.
Each of us probably looks back on our years with very different emotions. Our memories may well relate to some of the dynamics I've spoken of here.
My prayer for us all is that forty years later we can sing with a joy from deep within:
Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life's alarms
When by myself I stand.
Imprison me within thine arms,
And strong shall be my hand.
With love, your classmate, Paul Knudson
My heart is weak and poor
Until it master find;
It has no spring of action sure,
It varies with the wind;
It cannot freely move
Until thou has wrought its chain;
Enslave it with thy matchless love,
And deathless it shall reign.
My power is faint and low
Till I have learned to serve;
It lacks the needed fire to glow,
It lacks the breeze to nerve.
It cannot drive the world
Until itself be driven;
Its flag can only be unfurled
When Thou shalt breathe from heaven.