Talks...

Sacrament Meeting Talk

Bountiful 28^th Ward

Easter – 16 April 2006

Good Morning, Brothers and Sisters. I express gratitude and a happy heart for the music and flowers, and for this Easter Sunday.

I have been asked to speak to a subject that even prophets of God have said is incomprehensible. President John Taylor said, “The suffering of the Son of God was not simply the suffering of personal death; for in assuming the position that He did in making an atonement for the sins of the world He bore the weight, the responsibility, and the burden of the sins of all men, which, to us, is incomprehensible”. And so I ask for your prayers and the help of Heavenly Father.

Two years before I was born, President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., said: “When the Savior came upon the earth He had two great missions; one was to work out the Messiahship, the atonement for the fall, and the fulfillment of the law; the other was the work which He did among his brethren and sisters in the flesh by way of relieving their sufferings. The Savior left as a heritage to us, who should come after Him in his Church, the carrying on of those two great things – work for the relief of the ills and the sufferings of humanity, and the teaching of the spiritual truths, which should bring us back into the presence of our Heavenly Father.”

President Brigham Young taught that this world is only a place of temporary residence. After the spirit leaves the body, which is death, it remains without its body until the time of the resurrection, when, in a twinkling of an eye, our spirits will take possession of our bodies again – no matter what happened to the body or where and how it was laid to rest.

Today is Easter. We are remembering and celebrating His birth and His resurrection, for, as President Hinckley has said, “there would be no Christmas without an Easter”. We are also remembering His suffering, His shedding of innocent blood, and the sacrificing of His body – at the hands of those who did not know what they were doing, for on the cross He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”.

President Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the Church said, “The atonement of Jesus Christ is the central and most significant act of all human history. It has both an unconditional part and a conditional part”.

What is the Atonement?

· It is to make one again. To me it is the re-uniting or bringing back together the body and the spirit, and the possibility of re-uniting with the Savior, in God’s presence, or shall we say ‘coming back home’ to our Father in Heaven.

What is the purpose of the Atonement?

· It is to correct or overcome the consequences of sin. And sin is the refusal on men’s part to submit to the law of God. When we transgress we lose control of our own will and become a slave of sin, thus incurring the penalty of spiritual death.

What are the unconditional aspects of the Atonement?

· It unconditionally overcomes temporal death and provides all people with the gift of resurrection and immortality. Death comes upon us without the exercise of our agency; therefore, we have no hand in bringing again life to ourselves. Every man that dies shall live again, a gift offered by the life and person of the Savior and provided by the Father.

What are the conditions of the Atonement?

· It overcomes spiritual death, which is the first death, or being banished from the presence of God, by redeeming us from our sins and making possible our exaltation (inheriting the celestial kingdom) – if we exercise faith, repent, are baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and obey and keep the commandments, sometimes called ‘enduring to the end’.

What is Redeeming our sins?

· The Savior did not just suffer our punishment for us. He became the guilty party – in our place – and experienced our guilt. Our guilt became His guilt and His innocence becomes our innocence. Being tempted to sin is not it self a sin. As long as we resist then we remain innocent, President Boyd K. Packer has reminded us. It is as though we never committed sin!

And God said to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth”; then God said to Adam and Eve: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it…in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. They had a dilemma – either remain alone in the garden of Eden, or to do as Mother Eve choose, when she explained: “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient”.

We also have a dilemma – being allowed to dwell in God’s presence. In the D&C we are told that the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, and in Romans it says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God”. As brother Stephen E. Robinson puts it – We have all been sent to our rooms and cannot come out – not unless, that is, the Savior comes to get us.

However low we may fall, the Savior has already been there. He knows what we are feeling. He experienced for us, in the Garden of Gethsemane, our grief, our heartaches and pains, our handicaps, burdens, and depressions. He knows our loneliness when we are not chosen for a part in the play, or a place in the choir, or a spot on the team. He knows the anguish of parents whose children are astray. He knows all of it, for He descended below them all, as the Prophet Joseph said, while in the Liberty Jail.

I have said before, at this pulpit, that I struggle with perfection. I am just now beginning to understand that if I were to achieve perfection in this life, I wouldn’t need the Savior and His atonement. And do I really mean I want do all of this struggling and suffering alone, by myself – without the Savior’s help? I know I believe in Him, but do I believe Him, as brother Robinson said in his book, Believing Christ.

Brother Robinson tells the story of his 7-year-old Sarah who wanted a bike:

“Daddy, can I get a bike? I’m the only kid in the neighborhood who doesn’t have a bike”.

“I tell you what Sarah, you save all your pennies, and pretty soon you’ll have enough for a bike”.

“OK, Daddy” she said.

A few weeks went by as Sarah did chores for her mother and put each coin she earned in a maraschino cherry jar with a slot cut in the lid. She showed her Daddy the jar with a bunch of coins in the bottom and said, “You promised that if I saved all my pennies, pretty soon I’d have enough to get a bike. And Daddy, I’ve saved every single one!”

Her Daddy thought, “Well, she’s my daughter, and I love her. I hadn’t actually lied to her. If she saved all of her pennies, eventually she would have enough for a bike. But by then, she would probably want a car.” In the meantime, sweet little Sarah was doing everything in her power to follow my instructions, but her needs were still not being met.

“OK, Sarah, Let’s go downtown and look at bikes.” We found it: the Perfect Bicycle, she ran and jumped up on the bike and said, “Dad, this is it. This is just the one I want.”

Then she noticed the price tag hanging down between the handlebars, and with a smile, she reached down and turned it over. At first she just stared at it; then the smile disappeared. She started to cry. “Oh Daddy, I’ll never have enough for the bicycle.”

The bike cost over one hundred dollars. It was hopelessly beyond her means. But Sarah is my daughter and I love her, I want her to be happy. So I said, “Sarah, how much money do you have?”

“Sixty-one cents,” she answered.

“Then I’ll tell you what. Lets try a different arrangement. You give me everything you’ve got, the whole sixty-one cents, and a hug and a kiss, and this bike is yours.”

It occurred to me as I drove home slowly, as Sarah rode the bike home on the sidewalk, that this is a parable for the atonement of Christ.

You see, we all want something desperately. We want the kingdom of God. We want to go home to our heavenly parents worthy and clean. But the horrible price – perfect performance – is hopelessly beyond our means. In some point in our spiritual progress, we realize what the full price of admission into that kingdom is, and we also realize that we cannot pay it.

When we finally realize our inability to perfect and save ourselves, only then do we realize that here in mortality we need to be saved by the One who comes to save.

At this point, the Savior steps in and says, “So you’ve done all you can do, but it’s not enough. Well, don’t despair. I’ll tell you what, let’s try a different arrangement. How much do you have? How much can fairly be expected of you? You give me exactly that much (the whole sixty-one cents – and a hug and a kiss) and do all you can do, and I will provide the rest, and the kingdom is yours! You do everything you can do, and I’ll do what you can’t yet do. Between the two of us, we’ll have it all covered. You will be one hundred percent justified.”

Christ is the answer. He is the bridge from here to there. He is the solution to the Great Dilemma. He solved the dilemma of Adam and Eve, and with His help we can solve our dilemma, and not have to ‘stay in our room’.

From Adam to Jesus Christ the law of sacrifice was given – a reminder of the Savior’s act to bring them back from temporal death and spiritual death. Today we are given the sacrament. By partaking of the sacrament, we remember Jesus Christ and His Atonement. The sacrament is the most sacred ordinance outside the temple.

I want to bear my own testimony that I know God lives and that Jesus Christ is his Son, His Only Begotten Son, who lived and died – that each of us will live again, after we die. He opened the door so we could come out of our earthly room, and live with Him again – yes, in the presence of God—the celestial Kingdom. I know He can save me – from my sins, from my struggles, from my imperfections, from my depressions and from myself. I know He has restored His Church in our day.

May we try to better comprehend what the atonement means and what He has done for each of us. I pray we will ‘carry on the work for the relief of the ills and the suffering of humanity, and the teaching of the spiritual truths, which should bring us back in the presence of our Heavenly Father’?

And I am reminded of what Mufasa told his son, Simba, in The Lion King, “You have forgotten me…Remember who you are!” May we remember who we are, and the words of the sacrament prayer: and always remember Him and keep His commandments, that we may have His spirit to be with us.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.