Easter Sunday Resurrection Talk

Brush your teeth.  Wash your hands.  Comb your hair.  Eat your vegetables.  Stand up straight.  All of these and more we have been taught by our parents with regard to our physical bodies. 

From the Health community, we are taught: Exercise.  Eat your vegetables. Eat a balanced diet.  Drink plenty of fluids.  Get plenty of rest. Etc.

From God, through His prophets and the scriptures we are taught:  Do not partake of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, coffee or tea.  Eat your vegetables. Eat meat sparingly.  Do not get tattoos.  Other than the optional one pair of earrings for girls, do not pierce your body.  Bridle your tongue.  And, the Law of Chastity, and the commandment to not kill, two commandments that carry the most severe of consequences if broken, have to do with how a Spirit person gains a body, and how that Spirit departs it's mortal body.

As a side-note: Kids, if all that you get out of my talk is that you need to eat your vegetables, that is still a good message. 

So, obviously, our bodies, how we care for them, and what we do with them are important.  But why?  In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we are taught that "In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life."

Those Spirit sons and daughters were us.  We lived with our perfect, immortal, righteous, joyous Father in Heaven.  He is the Father of our Spirits, and we wanted to become like him.  Our Father in Heaven's entire work and glory is to bring to pass our IMMORTALITY and ETERNAL LIFE.  Immortality requires that we have a perfect physical body permanently and inseparably connected with our spirit body.  Eternal life requires that we keep the commandments and the covenants that we have made to perfection that we too may be perfect, righteous, and joyous like our Father in Heaven.

Heavenly Father knew that the way for us to gain immortality and eternal life was to come to earth, gain a physical body, and learn through our experience to make righteous choices.  He loved us, and he knew that this life would present two major obstacles in our ability to return to Him: first is sin, the second is physical death.  So, His plan required a Savior to atone for the sins of man and to break the bonds of death.  Our Father said, "Whom shall I send?" (Abraham 3:27). Jesus Christ, who was called Jehovah, said, "Here am I, send me" (Abraham 3:27), giving all glory and honor to the Father.

Satan also volunteered, but not to follow the Father's plan.  Instead, he proposed a plan in which we would not be allowed to learn through our choices; we would be forced to do what is right; and in his plan, all glory and honor would be his. 

Our loving, wise, perfect Father chose Jesus Christ, knowing that His love for his Spirit brothers and sisters, His unwavering obedience, and His strength of character would see Him through the difficult task.  Satan was not pleased, and a battle, in the War for the Souls of Men, commenced

Of this time, President Hinckley taught, "What a perilous time that must have been. The Almighty Himself was pitted against the son of the morning. We were there while that was going on. That must have been a desperately difficult struggle, with a grand, triumphal victory.

"...Why were we then happy? I think it was because good had triumphed over evil and the whole human family was on the Lord’s side. We turned our backs on the adversary and aligned ourselves with the forces of God, and those forces were victorious."  Close quote.

One third of the hosts of Heaven had chosen to follow Satan, and, being defeated, were cast out.  In losing the battle, Satan and his followers permanently lost the opportunities presented in our Father's plan.  Namely, they would NEVER receive a physical body, and they could NEVER live with God again. 

For those of you thinking, "At least THEY don't have to eat their vegetables."  Listen to what the Prophet Joseph Smith taught: "We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The devil has no body, and herein is his punishment. He is pleased when he can obtain the tabernacle of man, and when cast out by the Savior he asked to go into the herd of swine, showing that he would prefer a swine's body to having none. All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not. The devil has no power over us only as we permit him; the moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power' " Close quote. (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 211, 214)."(David A. Bednar, "Things as They Really Are (Church Educational System fireside for young adults, May 3, 2009)

(We might also note that the swine, themselves, preferred death to being inhabited by evil spirits.)

In General Conference last Sunday morning, Elder Russell M. Nelson spoke of our amazing bodies.  He said, " Each organ of your body is a wondrous gift from God. Each eye has an autofocusing lens. Nerves and muscles control two eyes to make a single three-dimensional image. The eyes are connected to the brain, which records the sights seen.

"Your heart is an incredible pump.¹⁷ It has four delicate valves that control the direction of blood flow. These valves open and close more than 100,000 times a day—36 million times a year. Yet, unless altered by disease, they are able to withstand such stress almost indefinitely.

"Think of the body’s defense system. To protect it from harm, it perceives pain. In response to infection, it generates antibodies. The skin provides protection. It warns against injury that excessive heat or cold might cause.

"The body renews its own outdated cells and regulates the levels of its own vital ingredients. The body heals its cuts, bruises, and broken bones. Its capacity for reproduction is another sacred gift from God.

"Be we reminded that a perfect body is not required to achieve one’s divine destiny. In fact, some of the sweetest spirits are housed in frail or imperfect bodies. Great spiritual strength is often developed by people with physical challenges, precisely because they are so challenged."

He goes on to explain, " If the body’s capacity for normal function, defense, repair, regulation, and regeneration were to prevail without limit, life here would continue in perpetuity. Yes, we would be stranded here on earth! Mercifully for us, our Creator provided for aging and other processes that would ultimately result in our physical death. Death, like birth, is part of life. Scripture teaches that “it was not expedient that man should be reclaimed from this temporal death, for that would destroy the great plan of happiness.”²⁰ To return to God through the gateway we call death is a joy for those who love Him and are prepared to meet Him.²¹ Eventually the time will come when each “spirit and … body shall be reunited again in … perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame,”²² never to be separated again. For these physical gifts, thanks be to God!"

For those of us left behind, death does not generally bring a feeling of joy.  " When President Hinckley spoke at [Elder Joseph B.] Wirthlin’s [wife's] funeral, he said that it is a devastating, consuming thing to lose someone you love. It gnaws at your soul."

Elder Wirthlin agreed, saying, " He was right. As Elisa was my greatest joy, now her passing is my greatest sorrow."

He goes on to teach, " During my life I have heard many sermons on the Resurrection. Like you, I can recite the events of that first Easter Sunday. ...We know what the Resurrection is—the reuniting of the spirit and body in its perfect form.¹

"...Can you imagine that? Life at our prime? Never sick, never in pain, never burdened by the ills that so often beset us in mortality?

"The Resurrection is at the core of our beliefs as Christians. Without it, our faith is meaningless.  ... when the Savior rose from the tomb, He did something no one had ever done. He did something no one else could do. He broke the bonds of death, not only for Himself but for all who have ever lived—the just and the unjust.⁶

"When Christ rose from the grave, becoming the firstfruits of the Resurrection, He made that gift available to all. And with that sublime act, He softened the devastating, consuming sorrow that gnaws at the souls of those who have lost precious loved ones."

This life can be very hard.  Our bodies, though wonderful and amazing and necessary to our Eternal progression can also cause us a lot of trouble at times.  Sickness, injury and age can bring pain and sorrow to anyone. 

However, Christ, our Savior, our Warrior, our Deliverer in the premortal realm, came to earth as a tiny baby. Born to a mortal mother, and an immortal Father -- our Father in Heaven, himself, being the Father of Christ's mortal body, Christ again became our Deliverer, this time from Death and Sin.

President Marion G. Romney taught, ""... His death on the cross, after having been rejected and betrayed and after having suffered appalling indignities, seems not to be in dispute, even among nonbelievers. That he gave his life voluntarily, with the express purpose of taking it up again in the Resurrection, is not so universally accepted. Such, however, is the fact. He was, it is true, maliciously slain by wicked men, but all the while he held the power to stay them. “I lay down my life,” he said, “that I might take it again.

“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 10:17–18.)

"This power was inherently his by virtue of his being born of the virgin Mary (a mortal), and being the Son of God (an immortal, celestialized being)".  Close quote. (Marion G. Romney, April 1982)

I close now with a portion of Elder Wirthlin's October 2006 General Conference talk. He said, "I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.

"On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

"Those evil men who sought His life rejoiced. Now that Jesus was no more, surely those who followed Him would disperse. On that day they stood triumphant.

"On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

"Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross.

"On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

"On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled.

"It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

"I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

"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, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.

"I testify to you that the Resurrection is not a fable. We have the personal testimonies of those who saw Him. Thousands in the Old and New Worlds witnessed the risen Savior. They felt the wounds in His hands, feet, and side. They shed tears of unrestrained joy as they embraced Him."  Close Quote

I bear my testimony to you that I know that my Redeemer lives, and that because He lives, each of us, too, will be resurrected.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.