Every Good Thing

Image:  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 

As the celebration of Easter nears, it is appropriate to remember that Jesus Christ has taught us how to “lay hold upon every good thing” (Moroni 7:20).  After all, He is the Founder of every good thing.

Fifty-five years ago, in Palmyra, New York, esteeming His example, I was baptized in the same way and by the same authority as Jesus Christ was baptized, nearly two thousand years before in the Holy Land.  My baptism was followed by the same divine blessing, the gift and companionship of the Holy Spirit.

Since then, giving heed to the inspiration of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit has allowed me, in every momentous decision of significant and lasting consequence, to recognize and make the right choice.  I have been enabled to perceive what was wise, what was right, what the Lord would advise me to do.  The vision and inspiration are from the Savior, who leaves each to choose.  The consequence of the right decision has been joyful.  As Christ’s prophets have taught, those anciently, and those in our time in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we exist that we might have joy, and Jesus Christ helps us find it.

For example, one category among many has been my career.  I can say that I am grateful for the jobs that I wanted and did not get.  Instead, in each case, I was blessed with a better one, on a career path fairer than what I had envisioned.  The Savior has been my best career counselor.  It has been, knowing my thoughts, as if Jesus Christ were to say, that is fine, but I have something more for you.  And so it has been and continues.  

Now in what is called retirement, I labor for joy above any salary, with my eternal companion as my colleague.  Together we are privileged to prepare for the ways of heaven, serving in one of Jesus Christ’s holy Temples.  To get there, the first big step I took fifty-five years ago, in Palmyra, New York.

Thinking on such things is appropriate as Easter nears, to celebrate with deep gratitude that Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice and resurrection, made all good possible and placed it within our reach.

Of Being Lucky and Blessed

 

Photo by Corey Hearne on Unsplash

“Insanely lucky.”  What does that conjure up for you?  I encountered it this morning at a repair shop where I presented my electronic hand-held device.  I began the conversation by saying, “I bring you the cleanest cellphone you are going to see.  It comes out of the washing machine.”

The technician’s response was, “Buy a new one.”

The look on my face led him to add, “There is no way to fix it.”  He had merely seen it in my hand, nice and clean and shiny.

I explained to him that I had dried it off, that it was on and working when retrieved, and that I immediately had turned it off.  With a slight shake of his head he reaffirmed his unexamined diagnosis.  Seeing that I was not yet convinced, he continued, “Unless you are insanely lucky, it cannot be fixed.”

Not ready to surrender hope, I handed it to him.  I even showed him the leather-bound case with an interior plastic sleeve that had enclosed the device (without explicitly mentioning the wash, rinse, wash and rinse again, and multiple spin cycles it had been through).  Friendly and nonplussed by my explanation, he repeated, “You would have to be insanely lucky for it to be fixed.”

Yet, obliging a would-be customer who remained cordial through the exchange, the technician removed from the device what I think was a sim card (for all I know).  Looking carefully, turning it on, examining the sides, running his finger across the glass, he handed it back. 

Worried that this was the end of the transaction, I asked the technician what I should do.  He said, “Take it with you and use it.  You are insanely lucky.”

Sure that it needed to be opened up, I asked, “Aren’t you going to take off the cover and see if there is any water inside that needs to be dried?”  He responded, “No need to.  It is completely dry.  No water got in.”  With a smile the technician reaffirmed, “You are insanely lucky.”

Leaving my thanks, I was too surprised to say more.  After a few yards toward my car, I knew I should have told the technician that I was not lucky, I was blessed, as I later recounted to my wife.  She replied, “You should have explained to him that we are all blessed.”  And so we are. 

We have a saying at the Washington Temple, where I volunteer several days each week, that there are no coincidences in the Temple.  Statistically unlikely incidents of joy and happiness occur so often there that we are sure that we see the hand of God in our labors.

I see the Lord’s  hand outside the Temple as well, in ways large and small.  For an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly-loving God, how can there be anything that happens by chance?  In things as small as my machine-washed but undamaged cellphone to great matters of mortal life I have perceived my Heavenly Father blessing me every day.  Actually, that is what Easter is all about, and what Jesus Christ came to make possible for us all.

Of Family Reunions and Families Forever

Photo by Ryan Brisco on Unsplash

Every couple of years our family gets together for a reunion.  To maximize the association of cousins—and to some degree to test patience—we all pile into a single house.  It has to be a big house, to accommodate the families of our five children and my wife and me.  Our population breached 20 several years ago.

Finding a rental house large enough to accommodate us is not easy.  It usually involves, along with “big,” such criteria as spacious kitchens, with twice the number of stoves, ovens, and refrigerators.  Large dining areas are needed so that we can enjoy the sociality of eating together.  Also essential for us is a spacious place where we all gather for devotionals, entertainment, singing, and games.  And, of course, there must be lots of sleeping places.

Fortunately, houses that have all these features offer a lot more, including rec facilities, porches with a peacefully grand view, game rooms, barbecues, occasionally a pool, and always a pool table.  To my pleasant surprise, while nearly all have offered movie theaters, these have been generally little used.  As we hoped, the cousins, aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters prefer to spend time with one another—including as much time with Grandma and Grandpa as we could wish.

My daughter sent me a beautiful e-mail a few days ago.  She and her family had been watching a video about Temples, like the one where she and her husband had been married.  She wrote about one of her boys, I will call him “Jackson” for anonymity.  Jackson was much impressed by the Temples and remarked, “Wow, these are the best family reunion houses, ever.”

Maybe Jackson spoke more than he knew, for he was completely correct.  The Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are entirely focused on families, with the explicit intention of uniting families forever.  Such Temples are, in every sense, family reunion houses.  Marriages there are performed not just for this life, but for time and all eternity.  Our Heavenly Father intended that family association be eternal and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to make it so.  I personally believe that Jackson was inspired.  As the scripture says, “little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned.” (Alma 32:23)

The Temple where my wife and I were married, just outside of Washington, D.C., has been closed for some two years for renovation.  It will be reopened soon, preceding which there will be a public open house.  I invite you to come inside and see it and experience the feelings that inspired my young grandson to declare that it is one “of the best family reunion houses, ever.”

Of Life and the Church of Christ

This past Sunday I was reminded, as I am often reminded, of one of the distinguishing features of the church of Jesus Christ:  it is alive.  That characteristic powerfully impressed me from my first attendance at a meeting of the church, when I was thirteen.  No more than 100 members, gathered in the rented second floor of a Grange Hall in a western New York village, hymns sung accompanied by a volunteer pianist on a beat up honky-tonk piano, sermons provided from the rank and file of the membership, Sunday School taught in a kitchen and class members sitting on a few folding chairs arranged around the cooking stove—all was alive and vibrant.  That same spiritual life was present when as a missionary in Spain we met with fewer than a dozen people in a swept-out garage.  And it was present when I joined thousands in a meeting at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City for the church’s annual June youth conference.  I have found it wherever I have gathered with the members of Christ’s church. 

In each and every case, the building contributed more or less to comfort but had little to do with the sense of the church being alive.  In my childhood I had been a frequent attendee at the meetings of Protestant churches in pleasant and neat but not ostentatious surroundings, and I have since visited some of the most magnificent cathedrals of the world.  But I sensed something palpably different and alive, noticeable even to a young teenager, when I first set foot in Christ’s church, and each time since. 

I conclude that the life comes from Jesus Christ, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, flowing through those gathered in His name at His call.  It is as the Savior promised to His saints, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)  The Savior explained to the Sadducees anciently, who had the form of worship without its life, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:32)  The things I had been taught from the scriptures, revered as dead relics in an old museum in the other churches I had known, came to life in the church of Christ.

Unable to articulate precisely what he was seeking—other than the truth—the fourteen-year old Joseph Smith learned from God Himself in 1820 what was missing in the churches of his day, what held Joseph back from joining with any of them even after persistent earnest inquiries.  Said the Lord to Joseph, in answer to his simple prayer, “they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” (Joseph Smith History, verse 19)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just as the church of Christ of the saints in ancient days, is full of life, it is all about life and the overcoming of death.  Its victory over death is not just a promise for the future, beyond this world of mortality.  It brings life from the eternal worlds and extends it among men and women today, in this world where temporary things would otherwise seem to prevail. 

The Church reveres the prophets and apostles of antiquity and treasures their testimony, but it is led—as Christ’s living church always has been—by living apostles and prophets who receive direct revelation pertinent to conditions and needs in our day.  Along with the prophets come scriptures, as we write down the inspired words of the apostles and prophets.  With roots firmly planted in the ancient scriptures of the Holy Bible and The Book of Mormon, the tree of revelation has not withered or died but continues growing in Christ’s modern church, providing divine guidance to a world that never needed it more.

There are no crucifixes to be found in the modern church of Christ, not because the Church does not recognize the infinite atonement of the Savior, but because that atonement was fulfilled by the resurrection, the rising of the living Christ from the tomb, conquering mortality.  It is toward the living Christ that the saints of God focus their attention, not to the instrument of His torture and very real but very temporary death.

All of the ordinances and sacraments of Christ’s church are founded on Christ’s promise, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (Matthew 10:10)  In baptism, the new Christian rises up out of the water to newness of life, and the gift of the Holy Ghost is bestowed by the laying on of hands to bring about a spiritual rebirth, in both cases death overcome.   The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, celebrated each Sunday in the church, points to Christ’s defeat of sin and death, and His victory over mortality.  Christ emphasized this when as the risen Messiah He presented the sacramental bread to the ancient Americans with the commandment to partake of the bread, “in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you” (3 Nephi 18:7), his very real and immortal, resurrected body as much as His body that was torn and killed on the cross. 

The highest ordinance that God offers to His children is marriage for time and eternity, whereby man and woman are united in a family to last forever, without end.  In those families, children are welcome and encouraged and seen as the glory of their parents. Genealogical records are sought out and preserved, as the promise of life and family connections extends forever back and continues forever onward.  No one is to be forgotten, because the promise of eternal life extends to all. 

Death is very real, but in the church of Jesus Christ death is no mystery, through Christ it has lost its sting.   After all, mortality is the exception in a universe where the eternity of life prevails. 

Of Baptisms for the Dead and the Feast of the Lord

I am not troubled by increased attention of the public to the doctrines of Jesus Christ.  I welcome it as an opportunity to invite them to partake of the riches of eternity that the Savior has placed upon the table of mankind for His brothers and sisters to delight in.  I am eager that all should pull up a chair:  the supply is unlimited and the table will never be too small nor the number of chairs inadequate.

I am reluctant, however, to allow the enemies of Christ to pollute the table or to corrupt what the Lord has given to us.  To humanity at large, many of the gifts of the Savior will seem new and powerfully at odds with the fare offered on the impoverished tables of the world.  It has always been so.  If they are to be of value to the disciples of Jesus Christ and those who would join them, they must be preserved in their purity. 

One of the great offerings from the Savior to the world through the church of Jesus Christ is the privilege of being baptized for release from our sins.  Through that marvelous ordinance we are able to make a promise to God to turn away from a life of sinning to a life of goodness and good will to all and eternal perfection of ourselves, leaving the former ways of dissipation in degrees small and great behind us.  In return, we are washed of our sins, and our days and ways of death are left buried underneath the wave as we arise from the water in newness of life.  We escape the consequences of our past sins by completely accepting the Savior Jesus Christ and receiving His suffering in place of our deserved punishment.  As Christ explained through modern prophets,

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent. . . (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16)

That is a wonderful doctrine of change and peace of mind, by which the evils of the world can be overcome and peace prevail—today for any individual who chooses to embrace it, and for any society made up of such individuals.  It is all the more powerful because it is real, having been tested and demonstrated in millions of lives over the course of human history.

As a young teenager I could see the value of these doctrines, and I welcomed them.  I was particularly moved by the doctrine of extending these blessings of repentance and baptism to all, even to people who had little or no opportunity to hear or receive them during their mortal lives. 

While those who once walked where we walk now live in the world of spirits, awaiting the great resurrection of all, they continue to learn and associate with one another.  There they have the opportunity of learning of Jesus Christ and accepting His sacrifice for them, or rejecting it, as many have and do in mortality.  Those who accept the Savior’s vicarious sacrifice can make the same promise and commitment to newness of life by accepting vicarious baptisms performed by the living on their behalf in Christ’s Temples.  Thereby they obtain all of baptism’s changing and redemptive power.  Similarly, just as Christ and His vicarious suffering can be rejected in the world of spirits so can those vicarious baptisms by which the Savior is otherwise received.  As in mortality, free will is preserved and indeed enhanced by having the opportunity to accept or reject what otherwise would be beyond reach.  Even to a thirteen year old the fairness and justness of this doctrine was apparent.

What is not apparent to me several decades later is the logic of those who would object to this doctrine.  If you do not believe that it is a true doctrine of God, then at worst Christ’s disciples are wasting their time being baptized here on behalf of those who have died.  If the doctrine is false and the church of Jesus Christ is mistaken, then nothing that it does can reach beyond the grave and the dead remain out of touch from any in this life.  If, however, Jesus Christ is the Savior and indeed did suffer vicariously for the sins of any who would receive Him so that they might not suffer for themselves, and if the work offered in Christ’s Temples does reach beyond the grave, then this doctrine is a cause for rejoicing and partaking, among the many other rich things prepared for us and available on the Lord’s table of fat things.

And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.  (Isaiah 25:6)

Y’all come and pull up a chair. 

Of Families and Everlasting Reunions

Some family traditions are seemingly untraceable; we do not know where or how they got started. We just do them as part of the warp and woof that weave the family together. But there are some of which we know where and when they began, because we began them. In a few days we will start a new tradition in our family that promises to help unite our family forever, because it is intended to remind us that families go on and on through the generations and that the members of the family are connected to the family eternally.

We will gather all members of the family in what is projected to be a biennial reunion. We envision a combination of daily living and recreation, punctuated by family devotionals. The devotionals are intended as a unified worship of the Father of us all upon whose power we rely to make these family relations everlasting.

Inconstancy is one of the constants of mortality. Plans are made and changed or forgotten. Pledges are given and revoked. Promises are made and broken. People are born, mature, grow old, die, and fade from the memory of the living. All earthly things seem to fail and fade.

Yet many wish and hope for the sweetest experiences and relations of life to continue unceasingly. God, the Father of us all, has promised that they can. They are found most bountifully within the family. How in this world of all things temporary and changing do we find the power to make things everlasting and unchanging?

We can only find it by drawing the power and influence of the eternal world into this one. God Himself has to do it. Because our Father in Heaven wants us to bring our families into heaven, He has established heavenly places on earth where heavenly promises can be made by mortals, made eternal by the participation of God in the promise-making and His help in the promise-keeping.

These holy places are the holy Temples of God, built under God’s direction, dedicated by His authority, sanctified by His presence. Inside these holy Temples heaven takes up residence on earth.

Imperfect man and woman can enter into these Temples, there join hands under the authority of God, and make solemn promises that can unite them as a family that may last forever. The promises may last forever, because God is a party to the promises. By those who hold heavenly power and authority to act in His name our Heavenly Father wraps binding cords of eternity around the hearts of the participants. As the mortal husband and wife remain true to God He keeps them united and through the atonement of Jesus Christ overcomes their mortal imperfections. This blessed association is available today to all who will.

Heavenly connections thus made and honored reach through the generations, tying grandparents, parents, and children together, on and on throughout the past and future. As each new child is born, he or she is connected to the family, and as each family member passes beyond this life the connections remain unbroken.

And we do not have to wait to celebrate this family union. We will remember and celebrate it this week, and for every day to come. Our Father intended it that way.

Of Temples and Family Unity

Yesterday was a lovely Christmas season Saturday, with a smattering of early snow to add to the seasonal charm. Many people were busy about their tasks and errands related to the celebration of Christmas: shopping, craft making, decorating, parades, and performances. It was a joy to see worshiping, as hundreds of people were at the nearby Temple of God, participating in the Savior’s work of extending salvation to all who would receive it, both the living and the dead.

Yesterday I participated in ordinances through which families are united together throughout the eternities. Everything that the Savior Jesus Christ does, in the words of a wonderful teacher I met in Murcia, Spain, is para siempre, forever. While we live in the here and now, the here and now obtains meaning by being part of eternity. The Savior time and again and in many ways has sought to have us understand this.

The most important organization in the here and now, the family, is also the most important organization in heaven. The Savior would have our family relationships continue para siempre. So would most people I know.

That is the highest purpose of the Temples of the Lord, the eternal uniting of families. That means the uniting of families in the present, all across the family of man. The vows revealed by God Himself and administered in the present in the Lord’s Temples continue unbroken beyond the grave, as eternal as heaven.

Husband and wife and the children, too, are linked in that loving association forever. Through the linking of the children the generations are joined from the beginning of time until time becomes eternity. As the son of my parents I am linked to my father and mother. They each are linked to their parents, and on to the first parents. No one is forgotten or denied the opportunity to come to Christ and through Him to be united with all generations past, present, and future in one family of all who accept God as their Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, as their Savior.

Fundamentally, that is why Christ came to earth two thousand years ago, to save mankind, and especially to save us as families, literally part of the united family of God the Father. Yesterday hundreds were laboring in our local Temple, and around the world thousands in the other Temples of Christ, worshiping the Savior by continuing His work to unite and thereby save the family units of today and the past. That work will continue until the Savior Himself shall say, “It is done.” That is a lovely Christmas celebration.

Of Temples and Homes

In a few weeks I will witness the marriage of my youngest daughter. The simple but sacred ceremony will be held in a Latter-day Saint Temple, where she and her husband will be united forever, never to be separated, not even by death. Our Heavenly Father desires our families to be forever and has arranged for the family associations to continue throughout the eternities. The union of a man and woman in the bonds of eternal marriage is the most sacred ceremony (or sacrament) performed on earth. The consequences have enormous importance (despite the efforts of popular culture and other loud voices to cheapen marriage and the marital relationship), and for that reason the Lord has asked for the building of sacred places away from the ordinary walks of life, where these ceremonies can be held in a setting befitting their importance.

A Temple is a holy place. As such it is designed to encourage people to aspire to live and act so as to be holy themselves in order to enter. A Temple is set apart to be a place of peace were God can seem nearer and heaven a closer reality. Careful efforts are made to keep the mundane, the crass, the vulgar, and even the ordinary outside of the Temple’s walls. Anyone may enter a Temple who makes promises and demonstrates in his walk of life a commitment to living a higher set of standards. These promises include dedication to Jesus Christ and a discipleship revealed in service, obedience to the Ten Commandments and other commandments from God, chastity, honesty, and a willingness to make self-improvement a constant way of life.

In a world where evil masquerades as good, where truth is taught to be a dangerous concept, where the contemporary culture applauds instant gratification that cheapens all things of value, a Temple stands as a beacon of truth, a preserver of value, and an encouragement to all who would seek to approach God. It is a refuge where the kind, the good, and the gentle can find rest, and where the temporary merges into and becomes part of the eternal.

Such a place provides the perfect setting for a man and a woman to begin their partnership that extends beyond this life and into the eternities. And it becomes a place where they may often return and find a model of the conditions to promote in their own homes as they make their homes sacred places.

When the Savior gave instructions for building His first Temple in modern times, He called for it to be “a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:119). So the Temples are, and so can our homes become.

Of Christ and Christmas Trees

In a few days we will take down our Christmas tree. We will remove the ornaments, the lights, the strings of silver beads. We will remove the angel ornament that stands now and each year of many years has stood atop the tree. As we do, we will retain the reflections on what the Christmas tree symbolizes for us. It may be the most powerful symbol that decorates our Christmas celebration.

The symbolism of the evergreen tree may be familiar to many, a reminder that Christ is the author of immortality and eternal life for man. The conical shape of the tree points the mind heavenward, like the spires of a Temple.

After bringing the tree into the house each season the first thing that I place on the tree, and the last that I remove, is the figure of an angel sounding a trumpet and holding a book. He reminds us of the prophecy of John, fulfilled in modern days: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation, kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” (Revelation 14:6,7)

The second thing that I do is cover the tree in lights. In my mind I am seeking to create a reminder of the stars in the sky, representing the creations of God that extend beyond this world throughout the universe, a universe filled with the children of God. As the modern-day prophet, Joseph Smith, heard the Heavenly Voice proclaim, by and through Jesus Christ “the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:24)

I like to think that the strings of silver beads, reflecting the light of the tree, represent the sons and daughters of God joined together in their faith in and acceptance of the Savior, reflecting His light, resting on His strength.

On our Christmas tree, like many trees of many families, we have a wide number and wide variety of ornaments. There are cartoon characters, seashells, ballerinas, birds, pianos and other musical instruments, fruits and candies. Each year, high on the tree, is an ornament with a silhouette of the Washington Temple. Nearby is a small, crystal oyster shell with a pearl inside—a reminder of the pearl of great price that the Savior taught in a parable was the gospel of life, that a man sold all he had to possess. There are boats, bells, animals, and fairy tale figures. There are symbols of our free nation, the Senate, the Congress, the President, all elected to represent the people and preserve the freedoms of our nation. There are reminders of family and friends, gifts from grandparents, children, and neighbors.

These ornaments may be the most significant Christmas symbols of all. As diverse as they may seem, they are all part of the same message. From the Testimony of John we have this record of the Savior’s words, describing His mission to the children of God: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Similarly, the ancient American prophet, Mormon, testified two centuries later, that “in Christ there should come every good thing. And behold, there were divers ways that he did manifest things unto the children of men, which were good; and all things which are good cometh of Christ” (Moroni 7:22,24). And so we fill our Christmas tree with memories of the good things that we have received—material and immaterial, intellectual, spiritual, and physical—all through Jesus Christ. Even while we put away our tree and its trimmings for another year, we set about gathering all the good things of that abundant life that Christ promised to all who would follow Him.