Easter Talk 2019

1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

6 He is not here: for he is risen,

Happy Easter, everyone.

Two years ago, as new members of this ward, I was asked to speak on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I was 34 weeks pregnant with our son, Harris. My talk ran long, and I didn’t get to completely finish. Now two years later, I am 32 weeks pregnant with another baby boy. My topic is the Resurrection. I feel like I get to finish my talk from two years ago.

As a child, I loved Christmas. Christmas was THE holiday of the year, and everything else paled in comparison. Like many of you, I couldn’t sleep the night before Christmas, anticipating the next morning with its many presents, foods and memories.

Of course, I still love Christmas. But Easter is now my favorite holiday. Now, the presents I receive for Christmas, though sent to me with love and generosity, pale in comparison to the eternal gifts we receive because of the events that transpired 2,000 years ago and which we now reflect upon during Easter week.

You see, a lot of life stuff has happened to me since those exciting Christmas days. Now don’t get me wrong, I know I am still young and I know I still haven’t gone through anything truly excruciating, as many of you have. But enough life has happened to me where I gain much more comfort from Easter than I used to.

Several weeks ago, our two-year-old Harris was having a hard time during Sacrament meeting. What am I talking about? Every single week, Harris has a hard time with Sacrament Meeting. But this particular week, we were sitting behind three of the wise, experienced men in our ward—Brothers Budd, Matthews and Van Seggern. And Harris kept trying to hop over our pew to sit next to them. Finally fed up, Dan picked Harris up, and without asking permission or offering sympathies, placed our little blondie next to Brother Budd. Without a word, these three men welcomed Harris to their wise, old men club. Harris was enthralled and played with them and stroked their white beards.

It was funny; it was cute. It was also meaningful to me. I hope Harris grows up to be like these great men—active in the church and in their priesthood responsibilities. Currently, Harris is an innocent boy who loves Christmas, and these three men have grown in wisdom and power because of a lifetime of Gethsemane moments and Easters.

I served my mission in Romania, and in Romania, nothing is open the week before Easter. The vast majority of Romanians belong to the Romanian Orthodox church, and even though many of them do not attend church regularly, the week before Easter is sacred. Missionaries are told not to proselytize the week before Easter. Most shops are closed. People don’t work. The cities are quiet. When greeting someone, you say “Christ was resurrected!” and they respond, “Truly he was resurrected!” It was in Romania that my love for Easter started to really take root in my heart.

The year prior to serving my mission, my dad was diagnosed with a severe case of prostate cancer. Though normally a treatable cancer, my dad had Type 1 diabetes and other ailments which caused his case to be extremely advanced. I know many of you have heard me talk about my dad’s passing before, and I apologize for repeating myself. But it is often in these moments (I call them “Gethsemane moments”) where we meet the Savior and learn of Him. It was from my dad’s passing that I feel like I gained a much deeper understanding and appreciation for the gift of the Resurrection. The Atonement and Resurrection give me hope for a better world.

When my mom called to tell me of my dad’s diagnosis, I was a student at BYU-Provo. I had a really hard time with the news. I called my home teacher, who was a boy named Mike Duncan. Now Mike Duncan was not just some random boy at a school of 30,000 people who was assigned to be my home teacher. Oh no, Mike Duncan was actually from my hometown, knew my father and his father and my father had lunch once a week together in downtown Kansas City, where they both worked. I didn’t know Mike Duncan was going to be in my ward at BYU that semester, and I certainly didn’t know he was going to be called as my home teacher. But I know it wasn’t a coincidence.

I called Mike, and he came over, and I told him the news. And then he gave me a blessing. With his hands on my head, I waited for the words to come, “your father will be healed”. Instead the words came, “this experience will strengthen your testimony that families can be together forever.” It was the blessing I didn’t want. And it was the blessing Mike didn’t want to give. He and I just looked at each other after the blessing, feeling sad yet peaceful.

Of course, the words of the blessing came true. My dad received chemo and radiation treatments and was in some sort of remission when I left on my mission. Two years after I came home, Dan and I were sealed in the Las Vegas temple. After we left the reception to embark on our honeymoon, my father gathered my four siblings and their spouses to tell them that the cancer had returned, and he had six months to live, and he asked my brothers for a blessing. I found out when I came back from my honeymoon. What I thought would be an adventure-filled and fun-loving time in my life, my first year of marriage, turned out to be a chaotic period filled with trips back home to be with my dad, culminating in my dad’s passing on the fourth of July. Luckily, I happened to be visiting that weekend and watched my dad take his last mortal breath.

Interestingly enough, while I was consumed with what was happening before me—my father leaving his earthly life and entering the next, I had a brother there with me who was going through that and something else entirely. One of my brothers has a son with significant special needs. My nephew struggles with many, many cognitive and behavioral issues. At the time of my father’s passing, it was not uncommon for my brother to be called to his son’s middle school several times throughout a month in order to help his son calm down after a bad episode. So while my brother was sorrowful to see my dad pass on, he was at peace. My dad had lived a good, righteous, covenant-keeping life. My brother was grieving his current situation with his son, whose issues seemed to have no answer. In the final moments before my brother said good-bye to my dad, my brother tearfully pleaded, “Dad, please send help.”

Joseph Smith said, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it”. Think about what that truly means. Tithing, the Word of Wisdom, family history, ministering, food storage. These things are all important, and yet only appendages to the central message of a Savior who gave His life and rose again.

The doctrine of the Atonement is this: Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the pain He suffered and blood He shed in the Garden of Gethsemane as well as His death upon the cross, we are able to be cleansed through the repentance process. “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.” And while we DO believe in our works being a requisite part of the process, we also know that works cannot save us. Nephi said “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” Brother Brad Wilcox has said that we don’t believe that we “earn heaven, but rather that we are learning heaven.” Our works qualify us for the repentance process, but I don’t know if we ever deserve salvation and exaltation. I can’t imagine ever doing enough to deserve how wonderful eternal life with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will be. Rather, the Lord gives us this holy gift because He loves us. It is for this reason, as my 7-year-old June says, “we love each other 99, but we love Jesus 100.” His love and plan are perfect, and if we love Him before anything else, we will be blessed.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson has said, “Having satisfied the demands of justice, Christ now steps into the place of justice; or we might say He is justice, just as He is love. Likewise, besides being a “perfect, just God,” He is a perfect, merciful God. Thus, the Savior makes all things right. No injustice in mortality is permanent, even death, for He restores life again. No injury, disability, betrayal, or abuse goes uncompensated in the end because of His ultimate justice and mercy.

By the same token, we are all accountable to Him for our lives, our choices, and our actions, even our thoughts. Because He redeemed us from the Fall, our lives are in reality His.”

My sophomore year of high school, I had a seminary teacher who taught this concept, and it took awhile for us students to catch on. His name was Ferroll Truman, and prior to being my seminary teacher, he was in our stake presidency. He was older and retired, and when he spoke, he had this voice that could be used to narrate all of the church videos. I felt like I was in the presence of a holy man every day in that class.

One day, he asked the class of 15 and 16-year-old kids, “Do you have the right to sin?”

We all piped up, “Yes, of course! We have agency!”

And he responded, “You have agency. You have the ability to choose to sin. And you will sin, and the Lord knows you will and allows you to do so to learn. But you do not have the right to sin. You were bought with a price, and you are now His.”

Similarly, in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, convicted thief Jean Valjean escapes from the torturous work camp he has labored in for 19 years only to end up at a Catholic bishop’s house, of all places. The bishop allows the haggard Valjean to stay the night with him, showing him the first act of kindness he has seen in almost two decades. Desperate Valjean steals from the bishop, hoping to sell his goods for money. The bishop catches him in the act, and instead of condemning him, offers him his silver candlesticks also, stating, "Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man."

"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God."

The redemptive power of the Atonement is not all, though. Elder Bruce C. Hafen has pointed out that the whole point of our lives isn’t to simply erase our sins through the repentance process. No, that would turn us back to the innocent state of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Gethsemane. We were not sent here to return to Heavenly Father as innocent children. No, we know that Moses 1:39 states that God’s purpose is to bring to pass the eternal life of man.” Yes, we are to use the Atonement to cleanse ourselves, but the Atonement also offers an enabling power, which power helps us to become even as the Savior is. This power takes us—mere mortals—and endows us with power to become more than we are and to do more than mortals can do.

And the doctrine of the Resurrection is this: because the Savior raised Himself from the dead on the third day, ALL MANKIND will be resurrected. All mankind! I have confidence I will see my dad again. And my nephew will be made whole. And families will be reunited. And we will understand so much we don’t understand now.

Elder Christofferson has also said, “Given the reality of the Resurrection of Christ, doubts about the omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence of God the Father—who gave His Only Begotten Son for the redemption of the world—are groundless. Doubts about the meaning and purpose of life are unfounded. Jesus Christ is in fact the only name or way by which salvation can come to mankind. The grace of Christ is real, affording both forgiveness and cleansing to the repentant sinner. Faith truly is more than imagination or psychological invention. There is ultimate and universal truth, and there are objective and unchanging moral standards, as taught by Him.”

I know that Jesus Christ died and rose from the grave. He has saved my soul. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.