This talk was excruciating to get through. I didn’t even attempt to “present” – I just read the whole thing, keeping my eyes and face down. I knew if I looked up I would burst into tears. And what good would that do? So instead I read my talk, slowly and painfully. I wrote it more as if to convince myself. Because some days I feel like I need some convincing.
*Now, let no will misunderstand me, I need convincing in the effort of the gospel, not in it’s reality.
We have just passed the one year mark of the Covid-19 pandemic. The world has seemed to sink deep into the winter of discontent as feelings of distress and fury are proclaimed daily in the headlines; 2.76 million people worldwide have died from the ravages of this disease, half a million of them in this country, and one, a very dear and beloved member of our own ward family. At the same time, the politics of the world and nation have raged, corruption and deceit have replaced courage and decency. The human family- our Heavenly family – is divided into factions and tribes of every racial, cultural, social, religious, economic and political line imagined so that we are so exclusive and loyal to our own, that even members of our own – family, ward, community, country – are not welcomed at our tables or worse, in our hearts. Violence has seemed to become the reasonable response to every antipathy, protesting injustice while inflicting it further. As Zaccharia prophesied “And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold everyone on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.”
At the same time natural disasters wreak havoc throughout the world – fires burn, and storms surge, the earth shakes and the seas leave their bounds causing loss of life and economic prosperity of those who are affected. And while we are isolated at home, bemoaning the chaos of the world, we are burdened – perhaps more heavily – by the personal crosses mortality calls us to bear. Unwelcomed and unanticipated health challenges may beset us, we may experience strains and breaks in relationships with those we love, our hearts may ache for children who have chosen paths we do not wish for, and many struggle beneath the unrelenting weight of mental health challenges. These are just a few of personal crosses we may bear, seen or unseen by our neighbors and friends, but known, always known unto the Lord. And still the Psalmist soothed with the words: “I have set the Lord always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope.”
The language of the scripture invites us to look more clearly at ourselves – our part to play in the passion of our own lives. First said the psalmist: “I have set the Lord always before me.” A call to each of us to renew our commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ – to examine ourselves more carefully and make ourselves more fit for the kingdom. Self reflection is both a joyful and painful process at once, as we examine what we know to be true, what we hope to be true, and what part we want to play in our Heavenly Fathers plan.
For example, as Zaccharia warned that neighbors hand shall rise up against neighbor, if we 1) believe the scriptures to be true, 2) believe that these are the last days that Zaccharia was prophesying about and 3) believe that this prophecy would come to pass, perhaps we should examine ourselves and consider if we are being a part of the fulfillment – and do we want to be? I would suggest, based on what I know of the Draper 8th ward, that we indeed do not. But it’s not enough to simply not want to be a part of it. We must act out the better part. We must examine – who is our neighbor, and how can we soothe their trembling hearts, rather than participate in the adversarial combat of proving a point.
Next, the Psalmist sang “He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” In the darkness of struggle it can at times be difficult to believe that the Lord is at your right hand. And yet he promised in D&C 84: “I will go bbefore your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my cSpirit shall be in your hearts, and mine dangels round about you, to bear you up.” and in Genesis the Lord tells us: “And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you.”
Brothers and Sisters, the plan of Salvation is an individual plan – made and tailored and promised to each of us individually. Elder Bednar taught us that this is a gospel of “One by One.” Just as when the Savior appeared before the Nephites, and time was taken so all who were there could have their turn coming to the Lord, and feeling wounds of the crucifixion, so too are all of us invited to feel the nail prints in the palms and wound in the side of the Savior. The Lord is concerned for you, each of you, and He suffered alone in agony and despair so that we do not have to. He promises that our burdens may be light – and not just that they may become easier to bear – but that the Lord will, out of the darkness of our lives, make light. Again – to make light out of darkness. He will brighten you – what ever light you have, no matter how small, how dim, how flickering and fluttering it may be. He will take that smallest glimmer of our own souls and brighten it and polish it and cause it to shine out until all of the darkness – all of it – is consumed. It is more than simply enduring the tragedy of a mortal life, it is becoming light – beautiful – precious – bejeweled through the searing process of binding our souls to Him. As he describes in 3rd Nephi: “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted! Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.”
Because of this we too can say: “Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope.” – and there is no greater symbol of the hope the Savior has given us than that which we will celebrate next week – the vision of the empty tomb. In the plan – the great and perfect plan of salvation – it was no mistake that the resurrection came in the breaths of springtime. The sacred sacrament of the season penned by Emily Dickinson – “A Light exists in Spring / Not present on the Year / At any other period — / When March is scarcely here” – describes the hope exhaled by any well worn soul at first sight of the cherry blossoms seen at Eastertide. And as we find hope to carry on, the empty tomb witnesses of all that could be – all that already is – because the atonement has been made, the victory has been won, and “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
So let us rejoice as the psalmist, let us stand firm with the Savior, and rejoice in our lives and rest in our hope. While we are called to carry the cross of mortality, we do not carry it alone. And while the world may rage as prophesied of the last days, there is much to rejoice in. Most joyful of all is the victory of the Savior – his Life, his Love, his Atonement, and his Covenant – to you, and to me and to each of us, as a people and one by one. As expressed by a hymn –
Abide the Day
Though now the weight of darkness press,
Thy Light, O Lord, yet pierces all;
Though hatred grieve and sin oppress,
In Thee we shall not fail nor fall.
We shall not fear; we shall not doubt
Though storms of opposition rage,
But look to Thee in ev’ry thought
And bright with hope, abide the day,
–
I pray for each of you, that in your darkness you will feel the warmth of the Light and Love of the Savior. I pray that you will find courage in the beauty of a spring morning that you may continue forward in your faith. I pray that you will feel the prints of the nails of the hands of our Savior through your own trials of exquisite, but mortal and temporal pain. And I pray that you will feel the peace and the rest, the joy and the comfort of peering in to an empty tomb and knowing that He is not there, for He has risen — for you and for me. And that we are conquerors because we are His. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
- Richard III, William Shakespeare
- Zechariah 14:13
- Psalms 16:7-9
- D&C 84:88
- Genesis 9:15
- 2 Corinthians 4:6
- 3 Nephi 22:11-12
- A Light Exists in Spring, Emily Dickinson
- Loveliest of Trees, A. E. Housman
- Romans 8:37
- Abide the Day, submitted hymn, text: Toni Thomas
- Matthew 28:6