ARTICLE – 23 October 2016

“So send I you” is a missionary song with the lyrics written by Margaret Clarkson (1915-2008) and tune by John Peterson. Margaret, aged 22, wrote the poem in 1937 in the midst of personal pain and great loneliness. The song was recognised as the finest missionary hymn of the twentieth century. Here are the verses of the first version:

So send I you — to labor unrewarded, To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown, To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing — So send I you, to toil for Me alone.

So send I you — to bind the bruised and broken, O’er wand’ring souls to work, to weep, to wake, To bear the burdens of a world a-weary — So send I you, to suffer for My sake.

So send I you — to loneliness and longing, With heart a-hung’ring for the loved and known, Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one — So send I you, to know My love alone

So send I you — to leave your life’s ambition, To die to dear desire, self-will resign, To labor long, and love where men revile you — So send I you, to lose your life in Mine.

So send I you — to hearts made hard by hatred, To eyes made blind because they will not see, To spend, tho it be blood, to spend and spare not — So send I you, to taste of Calvary.
“As the Father hath sent Me, So send I you.”

In 1963 Margaret, aged 48, was not happy with the song. She wrote: “I realized that the poem was really very one-sided; it told only of the sorrows and privations of the missionary call and none of its triumphs. So, I wrote another song in the same rhythm so that verses could be used inter- changeably, setting forth the glory and the hope of the missionary calling. This was published in 1963. Above all I wish to be a biblical writer, and the second hymn is the more biblical one.” Here are the verses of the revised version:

So send I you — by grace made strong to triumph O’er hosts of hell, o’er darkness, death and sin, My name to bear and in that name to conquer — So send I you, My victory to win.

So send I you – to take to souls in bondage The Word of Truth that sets the captive free To break the bonds of sin, to loose death’s fetters — So send I you, to bring the lost to Me.

So send I you — My strength to know in weakness, My joy in grief, My perfect peace in pain, To prove My pow’r, My grace, My promised presence — So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.

So send I you — to bear My cross with patience, And then one day with joy to lay it down, To hear My voice, “Well done, My faithful servant — Come share My throne, My kingdom and My crown!”
“As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.”

The missionary challenge from Jesus Christ to us is: “As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.”