Ye Are My Friends

 I just finished reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte. It is a remarkable novel that illustrates profoundly the pain and despair that come from friendlessness – yet also the joy found in even the tiniest of friendships.

After a difficult childhood of abandonment and loss, Lucy Snow feels that no one loves her, and that the future would yield no such love. She becomes an English Teacher at a French girls’ school, and experiences a painful summer all alone at the school – the schoolmistress, other teachers, and pupils leave for vacation. Lucy becomes sick and bed-ridden. A stormy day intensifies Lucy’s despair:

"I do not know … why the raging storm and beating rain crushed me with a deadlier paralysis than I had experienced while the air remained serene: but so it was; and my nervous system could hardly support what it had for so many days and nights to undergo in that huge, empty house. How I used to pray to heaven for consolation and support! ... Methought the well-loved dead, who had loved me well in life, met me elsewhere, alienated: galled was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of despair about the future. Motive there was none why I should try to recover or wish to live;" (Villette, p.157-158)Bronte wrote as if she personally knew this emotion. And she’s not the only one to have described loneliness as “paralyzing” and “crushing.” Elder Holland recently described the Savior’s suffering using similar words:

"I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically but which He may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually—that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when He cries in ultimate loneliness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (None Were with Him, Elder Holland)

The imagery of the wine-press helps us understand a bit more the depth of the pain our Savior endured. Those who have felt the crushing and paralyzing pain of despair, abandonment and loneliness in their lives certainly understand, in a small way, more of what Christ felt in Gethsemane and at Calvary.

"I speak of the Savior’s solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of our salvation. Rightly He would say: “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me … I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold [me].”¹ … He ventured into the Garden of Gethsemane alone. Falling on His face in prayer, “sorrowful … unto death,”⁸ the record says, His sweat came as great drops of blood⁹ as He pled with the Father to let this crushing, brutal cup pass from Him." (None Were with Him, Elder Holland)Truly, the Savior felt all of what humankind is capable of feeling, and also knows what will bring relief to each kind of pain. The author of the character Lucy Snow understood well what would cure her protagonist:

“The mere relief of communication in an ear which was human and sentient, yet consecrated—the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating, long pent-up pain into a vessel whence it could not he again diffused—had done me good. I was already solaced." (Villette, p.162) If only a listening ear is required, a warm heart, someone willing to comfort, what greater undertaking can we aspire to than a friend? That is what Christ is to us, our greatest friend. He offers us His comfort, His peace, His embrace, His friendship when we are friendless. It shouldn’t be a one-sided friendship either – Elder Holland said we must be a friend to the Savior, by being His disciple; following Him.

 “These scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice … must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He … find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His Via Dolorosa in our present day…May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (None Were with Him, Elder Holland)

Why Eggs and Easter Bunnies?

This weekend I wondered why we celebrate the resurrection of Christ with dyed eggs and the Easter Bunny. I did a little investigative work on Wikipedia and the history channel website. I learned about some pagan influences, symbols, the connection to Passover, and mostly I learned about Christ. All things testify of Him!

Pagan Influences

It seems to me like a few of our holidays have been influenced by traditional pagan celebrations. Even the origin of the name “Easter” supposedly comes from a Germanic pagan goddess “Eostre,” who had a month in the Anglo-Saxon calendar named after her – the month that we call April. Celebrations for this goddess during the springtime included feasts and perhaps even eggs and hares.

Symbols of New Life

The ancient Germanic egg and hare symbols were most likely brought to the United States in the 1700s by Germanic settlers. Their children would make nests which would be filled over night with colorful eggs by the mythical egg-laying Easter bunny or "Oschter Haws."

Eggs have long symbolized new life and it is logical that they would be used to celebrate springtime, along with the newly hatched chicks. Some say that the egg represents Christ’s emergence from the tomb.

Rabbits are known to be “prolific procreators,” also appropriate animals to celebrate the coming of spring and new life.

These symbols that we use in our celebration of Christ’s Resurrection are certainly appropriate as we celebrate that all will be resurrected because Christ conquered death.

My History Mind…

Most of the original converts to Christianity were raised Jewish. They were used to celebrating Passover every year, a feast which commemorated the Israelites’ feast in Egypt before they were freed from enslavement. Christ’s last supper was most likely a Passover Seder, or dinner.

Then, when Christ died and fulfilled the Jewish prophesies that a Messiah would come and die like the “paschal lamb” (a symbolic part of their Passover feast), Christians began to celebrate His death and resurrection with an Easter feast instead of a Passover feast. In other languages, Easter is translated as a derivative of the word Passover.

Evidence that early Christians switched from celebrating Passover to Easter is found in 1st Corinthians 5:7-8:

^aPurge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are ^bunleavened. For even Christ our ^cpassover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the ^afeast, not with old ^bleaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of ^csincerity and truth.

New Life

I’m thankful that Jesus Christ condescended below all pains, sorrows, afflictions, and a terrible death, in order to more fully understand our pains and sorrows. I’m thankful that he then rose from the tomb, triumphant over death!

This beautiful Easter season, as we celebrate the new life that Spring brings after a long, dark winter, I am thankful that though all things die, in Christ, all things shall be made alive. The trees outside my window that lost their leaves will soon be bursting with green and life. All things truly do testify of Christ:

“All things denote there is a God; yea, even the ^bearth, and ^call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its ^dmotion, yea, and also all the ^eplanets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” (Alma 30: 44)

I think that our creator gave us the seasons of the year to remind us that though the winter is fierce, dark, cold and lonely, with dying plants and flowers without bloom, springtime will come. Though our loved ones die, resurrection will come. As Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin put it, Sunday will come.

“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.” (“Sunday Will Come”)

The Fire of the Covenant

Elder Bednar spoke in conference about “the divine purpose of gathering.” What is the reason that we gather - why send missionaries out to gather people to the Church - why gather together in wards and stakes - why gather our friends by sharing our testimonies? We do it so God’s children can receive the highest ordinances of the temple and gain eternal life – in the Temple. Elder Bednar said that the purpose of gathering is to build temples. The determining factor behind where and when a temple is built is the number of Saints that have gathered in that area. I live by the Provo temple, and my recent walks have taken me to it. I love the area around the temple, I love the temple grounds, I love being in the temple. It is beautiful and it seems to me that the feeling of beauty emanates from the temple to the flowers outside it, to the mountains behind it, and to the sky above it.

“Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord, burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable” (Elder Bednar quoting Brigham Young). Elder Bednar promised us worshipping in the temple will give us a strengthening fire in our hearts.

“There is a difference between church-attending, tithe-paying members who occasionally rush into the temple to go through a session and those members who faithfully and consistently worship in the temple.” I want to be in the second group. I’m not quite sure how deep the difference is between the groups, but I definitely don’t want to be left behind by being a mediocre temple attender.

Faith

My favorite Conference Talk was by Elder Kevin W. Pearson. I think we can all understand how Satan tries to erode our faith when described this way. He talked about the 6 "Ds" that can destroy our faith:

1. Doubt; 2. Discouragement; 3. Distraction; 4. lack of Diligence; 5. Disobedience; and 6. Disbelief.

When he talked about doubt, he talked about self doubt. I think that anytime we forget who we are and our divine potential - "self-doubt" - we become discouraged and on and on in the downward cycle.