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The Searcher

by John Puckett 
01/01/23
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The Searcher

’Tis not for the ninety and nine he goes
On a dangerous midnight search.
’Tis not for the ninety and nine who sit
In security safe in the church,
Whose paths are set in the well-fenced bounds
Of conventional Sunday suits,
While the songs of their souls sound dreadfully cold
To the biker in leathers and boots.

’Tis not for the ninety and nine good folk
Who chapter and verse freely quote,
Nor for those who appear so exactly sincere
As their Bible-text pencils take notes.
’Tis not for the multitude stuck in the fold
That the Shepherd is mostly concerned –
But for wanderers lost in the soft ways of sin,
Jesus’ eye with compassion-light burns.

For the sinner perplexed by the pattern of life,
For the one from the hundred astray,
For the one who abandons the standards of God,
Determined to go his own way,
For the one who has tasted the sweetness of sin,
And discovered how quick it decays –
’Twas for him that the Shepherd went out in the night
Of that sin-uttered “Crucify!” day.

What love! What compassion! What limitless care
In his seeking for one who is lost!
Oh, what infinite pity must quicken his heart,
To go out on that search at such cost!

And the organ plays softly,
The hymn board is fixed,
The offering taken for mortar and bricks,
And so few in the pew
In compassion can search,
For the Shepherd, like them,
We have shut in the church.

John Puckett

When a rather unconventional young man began coming to the morning service of a traditional chapel some years ago, I was struck with how easy it is for us in our churches to become self-contained and self-content.