OK, I was thinking about this last night while I was trying to decide on what I was going to write for my Easter post. LDS people, have you ever thought about the question "Why don't we wear crosses?" (for those of you who are not LDS, Mormons generally don't wear the cross, or display it in their homes or meeting houses.) Well, I just have a few thoughts on that.
Does it mean that we don't believe in or care about Christ's death on the cross? No, of course not! We recognize His sacrifice, and know that we can never show enough gratitude for that gift to us. Then why don't we wear the cross? Because, although we realize how tremendous the crucifixion was, we don't like to focus on it. We don't like to focus on His death, we like to focus on the fact that after His death, He lived. He was resurrected. He broke the bands of death! How glorious is that?
That is what we think about on Easter. Christ died, and yet He lives, He will always live. And because of that, because He broke the bonds of death, we can live again also. Death has been conquered. It is all part of that wondrous and infinite Atonement. We are redeemed, through Christ, from every part of the fall. Including death, both physically and spiritually.
I read this from this month's 'New Era,' and liked it a lot. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin was talking about how dark the Friday before the resurrection was, and then he said this:
But the doom of that day did not endure.
The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.
And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.
Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.
But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.
No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, in this life or the next, Sunday will come.
Isn't that a wonderful thought? So just remember this Easter, it's not about bunnies, and chocolate (although those things are fun and fine.) it's about this beautiful gift from our Savior to each of us.
I love you all!
Happy Easter!!!
4 comments:
Amen, praise God, He did conquer death with His resurrection! If He had not arisen, there would be no resurrection for us - i.e. we could not go to Heaven. If Christ had not arisen from the dead, HE would have been conquered by death rather than the other way around, and our faith would be worthless because He would be dead. Christ's resurrection proves that He is all-powerful God. BUT we need to focus on the cross as well. If Christ had not died on the cross, the penalty for our sins - death - would not have been paid. He paid both with physical death on the cross, when He took on all of the sins of the entire world on Himself. The weight of all of the world's sins was so repulsive that the Father turned His back on Jesus for that time. Then He paid the punishment with spiritually - literally spending those three days in hell. It is because of Jesus' death on the cross that the penalty for our sins has been paid, so that we can be forgiven. It is because of Jesus' death on the cross that we are eternally indebted to Him. We need to focus on the cross in the context of the Resurrection.
I sort of look at it all as one big thing. The suffering in the garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion on the cross, three days of darkness, and then the resurrection (glorious conclusion!) all work together to create a perfect and complete atonement from every aspect of the fall and beyond.
Yes, that was a huge run-on sentence.
Happy Easter Tiff. Thanks for your beautiful post. What Christ did for us is so amazing. I can't imagine what it would be like if he did not do all of that for us.
Christi, You sound like a very sweet and special girl too. You seem like you are a lot like my neice Tiffany. I'm glad you two are friends.
Hey Tiff, I really hope you don't mind a conflicting view. If you do, you can delete this comment. Without the cross there would be NO resurrection. They all have to go together, you cant' have the resurrection without the cross. or vise versa, we look at them both as a whole, a beautiful plan of our savior.
But, as I said, if this offends you, please delete it.
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