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 Men and Women

I hope and have every confidence that at some future day my posterity and yours will look upon the popular efforts of our popular culture, working mightily to smooth out the differences between men and women, and conclude, “Huh?”  The differences are real, profound, and obvious. 

You have to work very hard to convince young children that men and women, boys and girls, are pretty much the same.  The differences are to them an unremarkable truth.  And so they remain, despite efforts to pretend they are otherwise.  And so, I believe, the differences between man and woman will persist, with unhappiness and poverty the rewards for efforts to obliterate them.

Not that it has not been tried before.  It has always come to grief.  One story comes from the French Revolution.  A leader of the National Assembly proclaimed that the new government had almost completely eliminated all differences between the sexes, when a voice from the back softly retorted, “Vive la différence!”

I, too, embrace the differences and am glad of them.  Having been married more than three decades I can testify from long experiment that the many differences between husband and wife, man and woman, have played a central role in our happiness.  Even as a youth I often mused upon how my life had been enriched by the influence of women.  That was not a new discovery for mankind even if it was for me.  Benjamin Disraeli said as much in the 1800s:  “There is no mortification however keen, no misery however desperate, which the spirit of woman cannot in some degree lighten or alleviate.” (Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, p.311)  I am not aware of any exception to that maxim.

This variety is eternal, built into human nature from the very beginning:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:27)

This was no accident of nature.  Together man and woman, male and female, are the image of God.

My children have always noticed the difference and profited from it.  When they phone, they rarely ask for “Dad.”  If Dad answers, they will sweetly and briefly chat and then ask, “Is Mom there?”  With Mom they will then talk for a long while, hours sometimes. 

On the other hand, while growing up, when they wanted permission to do this or that, more often than not, they went to Dad.  To guard against this clever maneuver, my wife and I early made a pact that we would not openly disagree regarding the denial or approval of a child’s request and would seek to consult to get a parental consensus if a matter of consequence were involved.  That worked well, but the children still knew where to go first to make their pitch.

The paradigm was similar when it came to bugs, vermin, and fixing broken things, unclogging drains, moving the rubbish—all jobs usually given to Dad and faced with trepidation when Dad was not available.  As the boys got older, these jobs increasingly found their way to them, too.  The flip side was that all illnesses and injuries were brought to the attention of Doctor Mom. They still are, no matter how far away the child may be.

These patterns have been successful for peace and harmony in the home.  Life would be harder if my wife and I struggled against the differences that gave us distinct skills, insights, and abilities, related to being a woman and being a man.  One of the greatest blessings of marriage has been to enlist an undying union with the owner of a wealthy supply of talents not easily possessed by the other.

My conversation with friends and colleagues have shown this pattern to be too common to be attributable merely to differences of personality.  The differences between man and woman are real and enriching.  I thank my God for making man and woman in His image, together.

Vive la différence!

Of Jesus Christ and Revolutionary Doctrines

There are several key doctrines of the gospel of Christ revolutionary to the general world.  I do not include the existence of God, since belief in God is as old as human thought.  The first man and woman believed in God, and that belief has continued—with much variation—among their children to our present day.  Belief in God is not exceptional.  It comes easily to the human mind.  Disbelief seems to be more artificial.

Without an attempt to list the revolutionary doctrines of Christ by order of importance, I nevertheless will begin with the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and in His divinity He walked among mankind for some 34 years.  Through word and deed Jesus proclaimed His relationship to the Father.  That being true, and it is, all non-Christian religions are human inventions, however well-meaning they might be.  Christ being a God, what He said was true, what He taught was true, what He did had divine approval and purpose.  There is peril of the highest order in disregarding any of that.

Next I would turn to the revolutionary import of the resurrection, beginning with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The Savior’s resurrection was as sure as His death.  Jesus made significant effort to demonstrate the physical nature of the resurrection.  When He appeared to His disciples in their shut up room on the evening of that first new day He had them touch the wounds in His hands and feet and the wound in His side inflicted by the executioners to make certain of His death, assuring the disciples that, “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (Luke 24:39)  When the disciples for joy yet doubted their own senses, Jesus emphasized the reality by eating some broiled fish and honeycomb to demonstrate the tangible nature of it all (Luke 24:41-43).  The disciples even felt His breath on them (see John 20:22).  In the Americas, shortly afterwards, thousands more beheld the resurrected Christ and personally felt the wounds of His execution (see 3 Nephi 11). 

In this mortal world, death is as common as birth.  The resurrection, already begun, will become as common as death, and will overcome death, making death as temporary as mortal life.  Hence the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that, because of the resurrection, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  (1 Corinthians 15:54)  That very physical resurrection rescues from oblivion all done in this very physical world, endowing it all with lasting meaning, nothing of value lost.

The fact that we each and all existed before we were born, in another sphere and in the presence of God, our Father, is another revolutionary doctrine of Christ.  Jesus taught that His Father was also our Father, the literal Father of our spirits.  On the morning of His resurrection, Jesus commanded Mary Magdalene to tell His disciples, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father” (John 20:17).  The Apostle Paul, who taught that we should obey “the Father of spirits, and live” (Hebrews 12:9), wrote to the Romans, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:  and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16, 17). 

As His spirit children, we lived in the presence of our Eternal Father before this creation.  The earth was purposely made for us, designed for our growth and development in our brief mortality.  Not only did Christ’s resurrection preserve meaning and purpose for this mortal existence, but that purpose preceded the beginning of mortality.  Among the many consequences of that revolutionary truth is the reality that all members of the human race are more than figuratively brothers and sisters.  The children born to mortal parents existed before their birth, and they come from the same eternal home as did their parents.  There is a deep-rooted respect that is due in both directions between parent and child.

In that context it is appropriate to recognize the revolutionary import of the Christian doctrine of the eternal nature of the marriage relationship.  If we come from an eternal family that was formed before the earth was, then it becomes natural to recognize that life’s closest relationship, between husband and wife, is not a temporary arrangement.  Love is the highest virtue of the highest heaven.  Love finds its deepest manifestation in the marriage union.  God, who preserves all good things, could not mean for that relationship to end with death.  As Christ paved the way for us to live on through the eternities, so He prepared the way for a loving marriage to last forever for those who desire it enough.

Perhaps on another day I will more than touch upon other Christian doctrines that revolutionize the world and human relations.  Among these would be the opportunity to talk with God and receive direct, personal revelation; the ability to change human nature, for better or for worse; the reality of individual freedom, such that God is not responsible for our personal decisions, we own them; and the continuing, unfinished canon of divine scripture, from ancient time into the modern era (scriptures were always revealed in a modern era to those who first received them).

These revolutionary doctrines of Christ are eternal, connecting us to an eternal universe, which makes them revolutionary to a mortal world where endings seem to prevail.  They are rejuvenating to mind and spirit.  When Christ taught them to the people of the ancient Americas, He declared that “all things have become new.” (3 Nephi 12:47)  They make things new today.

Of Man and God’s Work

On the sacred mountain, made sacred by the personal presence of the Divine, Moses spoke face to face with God, without whom “was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:3)  Moses beheld in vision the many creations of God and many worlds on which God had placed His children, much as with this creation.  The Lord explained to Moses that, “as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.” (Moses 1:38)

That creative work is what God does and has been doing and will continue to do.  Then God explained to Moses the “Why” behind it all:

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.  (Moses 1:39)

That is to say that what God does is entirely purposeful, the “what” of His work intrinsically tied to the “Why.”  And why He does what He does, and what He does, is all related to man.  We are His children, and the Father is literally our Father.  On the morning of His resurrection, the Father’s firstborn son, Jesus Christ, declared to Mary Magdalene, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father” (John 20:17).  The Son was speaking literally not figuratively. 

Our Heavenly Father is more interested in our growth and progress than even the most loving earthly parents are in the growth and progress of their children.  His happiness is connected with our happiness and progress, His “job satisfaction” derived from our moral improvement.  That improvement, in turn, comes from the righteous exercise of our freedom to choose and do good. 

The exercise of our choice is all that we can give to God that He does not have, and He will not deprive us of that power of choice.  He will not take it, because by doing so our “choice” becomes worthless to Him.  It is the fullest and therefore richest exercise of that freedom that He seeks and applies His own effort to empower and encourage and protect.  To diminish our freedom is to diminish its worth to Him.  Compelled virtue is no virtue at all and has no value to the Father or to His children.  By choosing good in an environment where we may select evil we become good; by living virtuously among full opportunities to embrace vice we become virtuous.  Through that process—with the free gift of the Savior to retrieve us, upon conditions of repentance, from evil choices—we expand our freedom, rejecting all that would enslave us.  In so doing we qualify for God’s ultimate gift, eternal life.     

That is the process and what life is all about.  God devotes His attention to creating the necessary environment and conditions for our eternal progression.  Then He stays involved to help each of us as much as we will allow.  His love for us extended to the sacrificial offering of His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, who used His own free will to rescue us out of the depths of evil if we would apply what choice we may have left to turn with all our hearts away from darkness toward light.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  (John 3:16)

This being God’s work and His glory, He cares very much about what we do that affects that work and glory.  That is also to say that nothing else we do matters to Him.  It is only in the context of His work for our immortality and eternal life that anything we do really matters.  God is probably not very interested in whether we buy the blue car or the white car, per se, as it has little bearing on immortality and eternal life.  God could be interested, however, if we choose to buy the blue car after agreeing beforehand with our spouse to buy the white one, as unity in marriage matters a great deal to our eternal progress, as does keeping promises.

All of this begs the question, if something does not matter to God, should it matter much to us?  In fact, paying excessive attention to the minutiae and distractions of life can become a big deal, if doing so draws our time and effort away from what truly drives virtue.

Customs and traditions can do this very thing.  Consider the recent Christmas season.  Were there little things, maybe many little things, that competed for your focus on Christ and the commemoration of His mission, and the many good works that the Christmas season offered?  Customs and traditions can do that if we are not careful. 

The Savior, during his mortal ministry in Galilee and Judea, frequently pointed the people to their traditions that interfered with what He called the “weightier matters”, such as “judgment, mercy, and faith”.  He called that straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:23, 24).  Do we not see a similar error in the political correctness of today that raises an uproar over a stray word—no matter how ugly—while embracing all varieties of immorality and family destruction? 

God’s work is all related to us, because we are related to Him.  Knowing God’s work, and making it our work, may be as important and valuable for us today as it was for Moses in his time.  I suspect so.

Of Marriage and Happiness

Last week I completed teaching another “Strengthening Marriages” course at church.  The principles I taught were my own.  By that I do not mean that I thought them up.  They are mine because I embrace them.  The course was designed under the direction of living Apostles and prophets.  The concepts are divinely inspired. Their purpose is not to “fix” troubled marriages but rather to help husband and wife in any marriage increase the joy of this most important of all human relationships.

Here is a summary of some of the key principles taught.

The first and foundational principle is that the family is not only the most important institution in the Church but is in fact the most important institution in all time and all eternity.  The marriage relationship is our most important relationship and can be the source of our greatest joy, beginning now and lasting forever.  The key to that joy is building our marriages and our homes on the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  So built, we can withstand all that this life of trial throws at us, allowing us to begin living in heaven already while here in mortality.

Another central principle of happiness is unity in marriage.  Husband and wife are intended to be one.  Man and woman were created to be united and become a greater one.  No man or woman is complete or whole without wife or husband.  To enjoy the most of that unity husband and wife should allow their differences in gifts to complement one another.  God intended man and woman to be much alike but also significantly different in physical, mental, and even spiritual gifts.  Embrace that, do not fight it.  Unity in marriage also requires complete loyalty to each other, placing commitment to each other above any relationship with anyone else on earth.  This unlocks an unending wealth of happiness in marriage.

Important in the day-to-day life of marriage is nurturing love and friendship with each other.  Frequent expressions of love and kindness—in ways large and small— play no small part in that nurturing.  The proper expression of intimacy in marriage is a gift that God has extended to His children that, kept in proper channels, unlocks enormous eternal power.  Complete faithfulness to each other strengthens that intimacy and enfolds it in an ever increasing love.

Both husband and wife should expect and acknowledge that there will be challenges.  The purpose of mortal life is to be immersed in a world of challenges and grow from those challenges, our reactions to them shaping us into who we choose to be for the eternities.  In marriage we find help to face those challenges, a help meet that we can find in no other way or relationship.  Husbands and wives, with the aid and inspiration of the Lord, can work through any challenge.  This is part of the marriage covenant.  Marriage, to be what the Lord intended, to manifest all of its power for joy, must be a covenant, not a contract, a covenant through which we give all to each other without consideration of an “exchange.”  The concept of “prenuptial” agreements, of counting the contributions of each in marriage, are foreign to the eternal union of souls that marriage can be as intended by God.

An important principle of happiness that needs to be applied whenever a challenge arises within the marriage itself, be the challenge large or small, is that we can choose to react in patience and love rather than in frustration and anger.  That may take practice, but it is a rewarding practice.  As children of God, we can increase our power and freedom to make that choice each time that we choose well.  Strong lines of communication between spouses will enable us to respond to challenges most effectively.  When looking at each other, seeing the admirable qualities rather than the temporary weaknesses facilitates that communication and builds the confidence that underlies it.

A successful eternal marriage involves the Lord as a constant Partner, Help, and Guarantor of the covenant.  He wants us to succeed.  We draw upon His help and strength through faith and prayer.  Modern prophets for a hundred years or more have counseled that great power comes to husband and wife and then to their family from such inspired practices as regular, daily family prayer and scripture study and weekly family home evening.  From long experience I can tell you that this is true.

We know that we each will come up short from time to time.  The atonement of Christ gives us the best tool for dealing with our shortcomings and not letting them harm our marriage:  forgiveness.  We discussed how we need to seek forgiveness from each other and be ever ready to extend forgiveness.  The result is peace, trust, and security.

Do not neglect to follow, jointly, principles of sound family finances.  Managing family finances together can be a powerful way of uniting marriage in real life.  As we manage the material elements of our life we build eternal spiritual ties with each other.  In a material way we see our complete union growing closer.  A few of the key principles of successful financial management include paying an honest tithe (as a constant reminder of the spiritual nature of all things material), spending less than we earn, and the freedom that comes from living within a budget.

These are just highlights of the marvelous truths that God has revealed to us through His prophets to make our marriages what He intends them to be, the greatest source of happiness and joy in this life and happiness and fulfillment beyond anything that we can imagine in the eternal worlds.

As you consider them, think on the words of the modern prophet Brigham Young about the marriage relationship:

But the whole subject of the marriage relation is not in my reach, nor in any other man’s reach on this earth.  It is without beginning of days or end of years; it is a hard matter to reach.  We can tell some things with regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of salvation—of the Gospel of the Son of God; it is from eternity to eternity.  (Brigham Young, October 6, 1854, Journal of Discourses, 2:90)

Of Dead Family Members and Getting to Know Them

Some years ago a radio commentator expressed revulsion toward the popular fascination with genealogy.  To make his argument short, he did not see the point.  In his view all of those people are dead and gone. What do they matter?

Inasmuch as the comment was made before recent notable advances in research on gene-based hereditary diseases, we can excuse the radioman’s ignorance of how important genealogy can be to tracing the roots of many things that make us ill.  At the time, however, I would have liked to relieve his ignorance of other points perhaps even more relevant and important.

In all fairness, I agree with a narrow part of his argument, his objection to the democratization of the old aristocratic practice of using genealogy to prove yourself better than someone else.  Such a pitiful exercise in arrogance and pride is pointless.  Given how family trees intertwine in just a few generations, there is probably nary a person of western European background who is not a descendent of Charlemagne.  The story is similar for people from other parts of the world.  And we are all descendants of Noah and Adam, so where are the bragging rights? 

It is on his central point where the radioman’s rejection of genealogy falls to the ground.  What a woeful and lonely view of man’s condition is embodied in the view that once someone dies he is forever gone!  Genealogy, or more broadly speaking, family history, is founded on the belief that the dead in profound respects live on, that they do matter to us.  Let me suggest three ways among many, ranked in a generally progressing order of importance.

·         The members of our family who have passed on are in many aspects part of us, beyond the shared DNA.  Much in our habits, practices, language, beliefs, and our culture in general has deep roots in those who raised and taught those who raised and taught us.  Most of that is probably worth retaining and cherishing, some of it in need of overcoming, but there is a rich heritage there to be discovered.  Significant personal meaning can be found in the recognition that the current generation is only the leading edge of something very big that has been going on a long time.

·         As I mentioned, you do not have to do much family history research to discover that we are linked together, more connected than separate.  Few genealogists can avoid the powerful realization of being part of the family of man.  Our respect for humanity and for each other deepens.

·         Most important, the dead are not gone.  They have merely passed from this brief state of mortality, brief for all of us, to the next state on the journey that makes up eternity.  Each of us will soon be joining those who once walked where we walk.  Family history is the effort to get to know them now, whom we have the privilege of knowing better for a much longer time than mortality has to offer.

Explaining the resurrection to the Sadducees, Jesus Christ reminded them that our Father is God of the living, not of the dead (Mark 12:26, 27).  The mission of Jesus Christ is to provide life to all, to carry out the “work and the glory” of God, “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)

Jesus Christ speaks more than symbolically and beyond His own relationship when He refers to God the Father.  The family relationships and ties, so precious to us now, are eternal.  That means that they not only are intended to last forever, but they reach across the generations, beyond death—to generations past and future.  They can be among those few precious things we take with us to the grave and beyond.  That is not a vain wish of every loving husband and wife and father and mother.  It is an inheritance from our Divine Father. 

We can begin to build and extend and preserve those relationships here and now.  Why wait?

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 Holy Ordinances and Meaningful Lives

One of the benighted ideas that American society inherited from the benighted 1960s is the idea that marriage and other sacred religious ordinances are just meaningless ceremonies.  Forty years later the tracks of trouble and sorrow caused by this and related assaults on marriage should be readily apparent, yet the concept survives, supported particularly by people who see life as a carnival of selfish delights, where one grabs for all of the gratification that he can—and then dies.

That is after all a doctrine of isolation and death.  Sooner or later the commitmentless self-centered world view ends in death, leaving a heritage of broken kewpie dolls, regrettable memories, shallow relationships, and psychological emptiness.  In fact, periodically statistics show us that it shortens the mortality ride.  For those who follow that lifestyle—and most of America’s social leaders do and increasingly seek to impose it on everyone else—life seems short, cheap, and a despairing struggle for meaning of some sort.  When it is over there is a profound sense of loss, not only the loss in terms of the end of life but in terms of the loss of a lifetime that has been lived so bereft of redeeming value.

Many of the acolytes of this doctrine of death throughout the ages have been desperate to extend life but only to live it with more emptiness.  Others who are overcome along the way by the vacuum of meaning in the lifestyle have sought to end it all sooner than later, only to find that they have brought their empty life view with them into yet another life in the world of spirits, where they fearfully await the tallying up of their lives’ events into pitiful sums of value.

Our Heavenly Father instituted sacred ordinances from the beginning as tools to convey and reinforce meaning, each ordinance pointing to the Source of meaning in this life and in the eternal worlds to come. At the core of each sacred ordinance is a covenant and promise between God and man.  The form of each ordinance from God is designed to point the mind to Jesus Christ, whose atoning sacrifice in Gethsemane and on the cross gave meaning and value to this life.

Baptism, the first sacred ordinance offered to men and women in this life, is a useful example.   Through baptism we accept the vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ in our stead so that we do not have to suffer for our sins, in exchange for a covenant and promise that we will change our lives and refrain from sinning, a promise that we will turn away from the meaningless life of self-indulgence to a life rich in meaning and value focused on love, kindness, achievement, and development of virtue.  We are briefly “buried” in water, simultaneously burying our life of death and washing away its filthiness.  We arise from the water to newness of life, cleansed from our sins.

The marriage ordinance provided by God is an eternal pledge between husband and wife of perpetual faithfulness and dedication to the happiness of each other, as a foundation for living a joint life forever, a fitting and appropriate platform for bringing children into the family.  These covenants and promises are made by husband and wife to each other and also to God, whose power changes and unites hearts to reinforce faithfulness and to give these promises power that extends throughout eternity.  Taken altogether, this becomes a highly significant and holy ordinance with profound impact on the memory and the heart.  Compare that with the world’s version:  hey, want to live together?

Glorious versus pitiful.  The pattern is repeated for all of God’s ordinances versus men’s substitutes, the holy versus the hollow. 

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.