Forgiveness

"Forgiveness"

Mac Christensen

May 18, 2004

 

President and Sister Bednar, faculty, staff, brothers and sisters, students, friends, customers - I think I’ve touched all of you! You know, with the opening song, the prayer, the scripture reading, and magnificent organ solo, we are truly blessed. Sister Christensen and I are blessed to be here. We have one addition. About two weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, we had our seventh great-grandchild. Sister Christensen has raised eight children and never raised her voice. She’s an angel. We should have her here.

I want to talk today on forgiveness. Before I get into that, I want to give you just a couple of calls that we’ve had in the church. I have spent most of my adult life right across the street from 47 East South Temple where most of the general authorities used to be. Now they are in the church office building, but I’ve known most of them. In 1996, August 13, I’m working in our store at the ZCMI center and one of our little desk girls came up and said, “Mac, Elder Haight’s secretary is on the phone and she wants to talk to you at once.” I said, “Fine.” I knew Elder Haight well. He started at ZCMI a long, long time ago, and then I had later on, and we used to share war stories. We used to go over and take a break and we’d talk about things that had happened and things we thought should happen. I knew him well. Sweet, kind senior apostle. So I went over and answered the phone, and his secretary said, “Elder Haight wants to talk to you at once.” And I said, “Fine.” Elder Haight got on the phone and said, “Mac, how are you?” And I said, “Elder Haight, I’m just fine,” and I was at that time. And he said, “I’d like you to bring your wife and come over tomorrow at 11:00. Can you kids do that?” And I said, “Okay.” He said, “Then I’d like to take you two to lunch. Could you have lunch with me?” And I said fine, and then I thought he was going to hang up, but then he said, “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow at 11:00. By the way, we’re calling you two to be the directors of the Washington Temple Visitor’s center,” and then, Click, he hung up on me. True story.

Sister Christensen just happened that day to be working in the Relief Society Building as a hostess, and I’d only been over there, I think once, so I thought I better go over there and tell her. So I walked across the street to the Relief Society Building, and I walked in and she looked up and it frightened her. She thought something had happened to the children. She said, “What’s wrong?” And I lied to her and said nothing. Then I told her, and then she went white, and we spent an interesting day thinking about that. The next day at 11:00 we went over to Elder Haight’s office, and it happened to be that after the 13^th of August comes the 14^th of August and that was and still is Sister Christensen’s birthday. And we didn’t tell Elder Haight that, but we went over and he told us about the Washington Temple Visitor’s Center. Fifty-seven magnificent acres, spiritual acres, right next to the temple. The beltway comes around you can see the temple. You’ll have people from all over the world and just how magnificent it was and how much he loved that area. And then he took us down to the lunchroom where the General Authorities have their lunch, and I’d been there once or twice before, and people look at you, the other General Authorities, and wonder if you’re in trouble or why you’re there. Some know. But he wanted to pay for us, so we went through the line and he pays, takes us over to a table, and we sit down and immediately Elder Holland came over. Now, we had lived in Elder Holland’s ward and knew him well. He used to come over to my home and three or four of us would work out in the mornings. So we knew Elder Holland and then Elder Hales came over. I knew Elder Hales quite well because when he couldn’t find someone to play golf with on a Friday or Saturday, he knew that I could always get him on a golf course. He’d call and say, “Can we go look at land?” So, I knew them, but here is this senior apostle with two junior apostles - this was fun. And Elder Holland started in on Elder Haight - did you tell them this, did you tell them this, did you tell them this - a little from Elder Hales, but really Elder Holland. Finally, Elder Haight said to the two junior apostles (he called them boys), “Boys, I’ve been doing this for a long, long time. Now the first thing you do is you get them to say yes, and then you talk about those things.”

We went back to Washington, D.C. and we were frightened. We were really frightened. You’re open 365 days a year, you have people from all over. At Christmas time for about 40 days you have the festival of lights and you have about 400,000 lights out around the temple grounds, and people come clear from New York, Boston and they come to see the lights. Then we have concerts inside and we are getting referrals. It’s an extremely busy time. And you might have thirty buses to park and no where to park them, and if the temple president should say that if they got on his part of the area and take the patrons’ [parking], we were in trouble. It was a busy time. We learned a lot. We had a lot of things going on. We found that you had to have people in the visitors center, and our responsibility was to make friends, to give everyone who came there a spiritual experience, to get a referral and to send them out with something in their hand. We have the greatest sister missionaries in the world. We would have concerts, we would have firesides, we had a lot of things going all the time. I remember one night we had a concert and we had about 600 people in an area that should have had about 300 and it’s difficult to hear, especially when you wear hearing aides and I wear them in both ears, and I wear them for one reason - in order to hear. But when you have all those people you don’t hear well. So, consequently, this young man came up to me and he asked me a question and I said, “I’m sorry I can’t hear you.” He asked me again - “I’m sorry I can’t hear you.” The third time he asked me, I just couldn’t hear him and I said, “I’m sorry I can’t hear you.” And he said, “Hey, take those things out of your ears and you could hear me.”

The second call: to be the president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. What a call. I’d been around Temple Square. Sister Christensen and I, before we went out to Washington, D.C., were hosts on Temple Square. We were involved with hosting Music and the Spoken Word, but that was about it. And I’ll tell you about my musical background, singing especially. We grew up in Central Utah, Sister Christensen in Manti, and I in Ephraim. When we graduated from high school, our graduating class was small - we had about thirty-three. We sang three or four songs, we had a trombone solo, a couple of talks. My voice was such that our choir teacher, and she taught other things, but our choir teacher wouldn’t let me sing. I had to lip sync, and my mother has never forgiven her. I used to kid Sister Coals in our ward - “Let me just sit up there.”

“No Mac, you not-”

“Just let me sit up there!”

“No, you can’t!”

So one day in November of 2000, we had just come back from our mission, and a friend of mine, who had been the visitor center director in Palmyra, and I were running Senator Hatch’s reelection for the senate and we were just finishing. I thought, This is it, I’m through, I am going to be with the grand kids and play golf, enjoy life. Retail business 43 years, six days a week, early and late. I got a call from Don Staheli, secretary to President Hinckley and he said, “Brother Mac, President Hinckley would like to see you.” I said, “Okay, when?”

“Could you come over now?” We had an office over in the Key Bank building, just kind of kitty-corner across the street and down, and I said, “Okay.”

“Well, why don’t you come over now.”

“Okay.” Well, he wasn’t asking Sister Christensen to come. Our two youngest boys had run the store in the ZCMI Center. Since we came back from our mission, our boys (we have fours sons and a son-in-law that run our business) and they said, “Dad, if you’ll just stay out of the stores, we’ll send you and mom money.” So I wasn’t involved in the stores, but I thought President may want to tell me how good these two young men were. They maybe had pressed his suit or done something nice for President Hinckley. So I go over and go in the outer office, and Brother Staheli takes me right in to see the president, and I had known the president for a long time, and he said, “Mac, sit down.” So I sit down. And he said, “Mac, we are calling you to be president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.” Sometimes you know there might be a calling coming - I had no idea. Especially president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I said, “President, I’m a monotone!” And he kind of looked at me, in only the way he can, and said, “Mac, we’re not calling you to sing.” I said, “President, who do I report to?”

“You report to me.” President Hinckley had been and is the advisor to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square for over thirty years. Thirty years. And then he told me what a magnificent calling this was, how fortunate I was, what great people I had to work with. The choir has two music directors, they have two managers, they have a senior secretary and a part time secretary, they have three organists and two part time organists, and forty volunteers, 360 members of the choir and about 140 orchestra members. He told me the things that he wanted to see happen and the things to watch for, things that you would never think that he would even say. And who do I report to? I report to the president. If there is something that we need to get an approval, you go over and you see him, you call up and make an appointment and you’re there. This last week, Brother Jessop and I were with him Friday. The week before we were with him Thursday and Friday. Sometimes it will go for a month. I need to tell you: we have a living prophet, soon to be 94. Very tender since he lost Sister Hinckley. He came a week ago Sunday and thanked the choir for singing at the funeral. He is moving, he is going. He has vision and he is strong.

Now - I have to look at my watch. I’m used to doing thirty second commercials. And then sometimes you’ll go a little over, a little under and you’ll have to do them over, and I have an eye that I don’t see out of, but it wanders, so every once in a while Brother Smith’s brother does my commercials. He’s our producer and he’ll say “Mac, your eye’s wandering. We got to do it over.”

Now I want to take and talk to you about forgiveness and I want you to stay with me and I want you to think about this, and I want you to be honest with yourselves. Is there someone that you need to forgive? Is there someone that’s hurt you? Maybe in business or school or work, church, neighbors, family. Has someone hurt you? You need to forgive. You have a chip on your shoulder. Be honest. Think about that. Who do you really need to forgive? What’s happening to your life if you have a chip on your shoulder? How many of you have had or might still have hatred? I’m going to have one person raise their hand. I’ve had hatred. I wanted to take someone’s life. No ifs or buts or ands.

I’ll tell you a little story about a young man. When he was about 12 years of age, he started to take and work - clean, neat, handsome, bright, took after his mom, worked 15-20 hours a week while he was going to school. Summertime, 40, 50, 60 hours a week. But he just had to read, he had to study. It didn’t seem like he had enough time to get everything done that he wanted to do. He loved books, and read and read and read. He ended up with over 13,000 books - not 1,300, but 13,000, primarily church books, church related books. If he found one he really liked, he’d buy a dozen of them and then he’d give them to certain people. He loved to read. He was a peacemaker. Everyone but one person loved this young man. When he was 14 he was writing talks for all of his friends, church talks, whatever. When he was a junior in high school, he loved to debate. He was a great debater, but he was a little different than most debaters. He didn’t go for the jugular. When he was through debating someone, they were still friends. He won the debate meet at Stanford University as a junior in high school. As a senior in high school, most of you are too young to remember this, but we had draft boards. He was called to be on the draft board for the county that he lived in. He went on a mission to Australia, one of the first Italian speaking missionaries to go down. I think there were 12 that went down. Loved those people, worked with the Italians. He was an assistant to the president. He came home and he had a burning desire to work in the temple. He was a temple worker right after he got home, which was unusual then. He was called to a church writing committee in his early 20s, and then he was called to be the chairman of that writing committee. He had a brilliant mind. His stake president went to get him cleared from that committee. He wanted to call him as a bishop. They wouldn’t clear him. Stake president was tenacious. The stake president’s wife used to be the Relief Society president - her last name was Smoot. His name was Stan. He went back a year later and had the boy released, and was a bishop. Of course, married in the temple, three little boys. Loved to give firesides about the church. Here’s what this one thought, here’s what this one thought, here’s what this one thought, just a clean, handsome young man.

Most of you weren’t born, probably, in 1985. On a Sunday evening, October, this young man was called by his stake presidency to come into the stake presidency. He was still serving as a bishop. He was never set apart in that stake presidency. On Tuesday morning, he went to work. The front of his office, right in the front door, as he got ready to open his door, he picked up this packed that had his name on it, and he lost his life. It was a bomb. That was our son, Sister Christensen’s and my son, Steven Christensen. Most of you are too young to remember the Hoffman case. He was a forger. He blew two people up with bombs, trying basically to protect himself. I remember that day. I remember the Chaplin from the police department coming over to my store and telling me that we’d lost a son. I remember going home, not knowing what had happened. A friend took me home, thinking, Why couldn’t it have been me? This boy had so much to offer. What has happened? I go home, his wife comes up. Three little boys, she’s pregnant, just so happened the fourth son was born on January the 9^th that following year. Four sons. I remember the funeral. The funeral was in his ward. Police dogs all around the funeral. Just later the day we lost this boy, another person had picked up a box and lost their life. No one knew, really, what was going on. The person who set these bombs off just about killed himself accidently with a bomb. When we found out who it really was, and the police were very, very good to us and kept us informed. It was a long process to really pin this thing down, but when we really found out, I said to myself, “If the authorities don’t take care of this person, I will.” I had so much hatred. Can you imagine losing - this is your oldest son, one of your pride and joys. I don’t think he ever had a bad thought. And then you take his dad, and I’ve been an aggressive person all my life. I was sixth man on a five-man basketball team. When the coach would finally put me in, he’d always say, “Mac, shoot yourself out of the game.” If someone fouled me the next time down the court, the kid was in the bleachers and I had to fight the kid and his dad. I was a very aggressive young man. An eye for an eye, you know, if someone looked cross-eyed at you.

I remember there was a pre-trial and in it, they had this person nailed. I remember coming out one day, we had our three sons (we had five sons - lost the first one, the youngest one was in Bolivia on a mission) and our oldest daughter. We came out and the news media all around, and they are very aggressive and the one son, they had the camera right up against him. Obnoxious. This boy took after him. And something hit me and said, “Mac, you have to forgive.” Now how do you forgive someone who has taken your son? How do you really, seriously? It’s easy to say, but how do you do it? How does an aversive individual do it? But I could see what it could do to our family. The boy that took after the media, very aggressive boy, in fact our whole family, thank goodness they have their mother - sweet and gentle, but then there’s that other side.

Well, just to give you a couple of thoughts. You have to forgive. We have the greatest family. We never bring up what happened. In our home we have a picture of the boy, a big picture, we have a picture in the main store, but it’s a happy picture. If this person that took these two lives is in jail for life, and sometime he could be released, but if I had to write a letter and say don’t release him, I wouldn’t do that. Later on I met his dad and mother. His dad was a temple worker, very sweet man. Can you imagine what they went through?

Just a couple of thoughts from our Savior. “Love your enemies.” How do you love someone that’s murdered your son? “Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). How do you do that? If you want to have peace of mind, if you want to be forgiven, then you forgive. You have no choice. And make sure your family members forgive. You forgive. Let each of us look back over his or her life and recall the time when we have forgiven someone. Has any other joy been more gratifying? Has any other feeling been more uplifting? The feelings of smallness, pettiness, and hate or longing for revenge are crowded out by the attitude to forgive. Forgiveness is better than revenge, forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge the sign of a savage nature. Harboring resentment is poison for you and for your family. Few things will canker the soul faster and kill spiritual growth more than a wrong left unforgiven. Don’t let your family harbor resentment toward others. Taste the enjoyment of life. Please, please, please, please forgive. I say this in Jesus’ name, amen.