"Many"?

Many of us are familiar with the story of the brother of Jared. Being a man of great faith, he helped lead his family toward a land that was promised to him and his family. Along the way, it became necessary for the group to have light sources, and fire wasn't an option. Having been invited by the Lord to offer his suggestion, the brother of Jared brought 16 clear stones up into a mountain and asked the Lord to touch them, expressing faith that if He touched them, He could make them glow. The brother of Jared then had an experience that, until tonight, I had thought was unique. His faith was so great that he saw the finger of the Lord touch those stones, and then, after another expression of faith, saw the Lord Himself. Apart from those who were alive during Jesus' mortal ministry, I had thought that there hadn't been many who had seen Jesus, and there certainly couldn't have been many who had such great faith that they could not be kept from seeing the Lord, as had been the case with the brother of Jared.

Yet, despite the seeming singularity of this event, Ether 12:19 says that "there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil," and who saw Jesus Christ. When I read that verse in family scripture study earlier this evening, the word "many" stood out to me. I knew that there had been a few others who had seen the Lord, but could there really have been "many" others? I don't know of many other Christ sightings in the Book of Mormon or Old Testament. A few in each, sure, but not what I'd call "many." Then again, how many is "many"? Besides, it's possible that there were people who saw Jesus who just didn't have it mentioned in the scriptures. If Nephi hadn't mentioned in 2 Nephi 11 that his brother, Jacob, had seen the Lord, we'd have never known it. Come to think of it, I had forgotten that Nephi had seen Jesus too. There are certainly more people who had been given the privilege of seeing the Lord than I had realized.

This tells me two things: First, that Jesus is real. There can't have been that many people having seen Him without Him being there to see. I can imagine a handful of people experiencing a similar delusion, but not many. Second, it's sometimes (apparently often) easy for miracles, even miracles as great as someone personally seeing Jesus Christ, to go unnoticed by the general public. God doesn't toot His own horn as often as He could. Frequently, He finds it sufficient to have a strong impact on a handful of individuals, and leave it to the rest of the world to decide whether they take notice or not. This has the effect of there appearing to be far fewer miracles than there are, and I'd assume that God is okay with that, or He'd probably be more vocal about what all He does for us. God doesn't seem to feel the need for our recognition, at least, not to the extent that He deserves. Yes, He wants us to be mindful of our blessings and be grateful for them, but His blessings to us are sometimes so subtle and private that it sometimes takes effort to take notice of them.

Also, I'm certain that not all sacred experiences were meant to be shared with the world, so there must be countless of such experiences that just aren't written in the scriptures. Plus, many sacred experiences happened after the scriptures were written, so they wouldn't have been included either, and even had it been possible for them to have been written about ahead of time, there wouldn't have been room in the books for them all. There are innumerable miracles that have occurred without our knowledge, including (judging by Ether 12) "many" people having seen Jesus.

It would seem that I have a lot to learn about how the Lord does His work. I typically picture Him making grand appearances, ascending and descending to and from heaven in the eyes of multitudes, or at least groups of a dozen or so, not privately appearing to specific individuals more times than I could count. I had thought that the experience of the brother of Jared was a rare and remarkable experience, but now I feel that, while it's still certainly remarkable, it may not have been quite as rare of an experience as I had thought.