Rereading the Book of Mormon, pt. 1

From Aronofsky's The Fountain

So, I'm headed for Italy in a few weeks. I came home to the South and saw a copy of The Book of Mormon sitting on the coffee table, and I figured I had just enough time to read through the whole thing before I left the country. What follows will be a series of posts about what I learned from it this go-round.

1) Sam is Nephi's older brother. I must have known that before, but I always imagined Sam as younger. Probably because he is not nearly as assertive as Nephi. (Who is?)

2) 1 Nephi 2:15— "And my father dwelt in a tent." This is a favorite verse of smart-aleck Sunday School children, on par with John 11:35, "Jesus wept." But just like the verse from John, Nephi's remark punctuates poignancy. Reading between the lines, we can see that Lehi was a wealthy man, well connected with the government in Jerusalem. Laban, his cousin, was a member of the council of the elders. And by the sound of it, Lehi had quite a bit of wealth. That Nephi makes a point of his father living in a tent in the wilderness says something about Lehi's humility and the impact it had on his son.

3) 1 Nephi 8—This is Lehi's vision of the tree of life, one of the most iconic and important passages in the Book of Mormon. This time, more than ever, I'm struck with how very dreamlike it is. Lehi begins in a wasteland, then he sees a tree. He tries the fruit and wants family to have some as well. Then he sees his family. They eat the fruit, but then Laman and Lemuel aren't around. He sees them, but they don't want to come. Then he notices a huge iron rod leading to the tree and a numberless concourse of people. The people taste the fruit, but then they notice a huge floating building full of people mocking them.

In dreams, casual relationships are often reversed. We see an effect or result and then generate a cause. The people who ate the fruit are ashamed, and then – boom – there's a giant building of people making fun of them. Lehi wants his family to eat the fruit, and then – boom – there they are.

Also, the landscape of his vision is amorphous, like a dream. How did he not see the rod, river, and throng from the very beginning? Because they just sort of appeared. Aren't your dreams like that? Landmarks and scenes showing up and disappearing without any kind of logical thread? This is one of the reasons why most artistic depictions of Lehi's vision don't work for me. You can't fit the whole thing in a single snapshot because the scene is constantly shifting.

That said, here's a pretty nice collection of artists' renderings, some going back to the 1870s.

Baptism Talk (August 2011)

Art by J. Kirk Richards

I wrote this talk back in August, but I gave a three-minute version of it due to time constraint.

Today I was asked to speak on our baptismal covenants. This is a subject that I’ve recently come to better appreciate. About a year ago I was called to be a temple worker. I was expecting to work in initiatories and at the veil, and I thought that this would be a great way for me to learn more about those ordinances since they’re still relatively new to me. But when I went in for my interview, I was told that the baptistry is where they really needed me. I was honestly a little disappointed. I thought I knew everything there was to know about baptism. You go down, you come up, and that’s that. But somewhere over the course of watching and recording thousands upon thousands of baptisms, I’ve not only come to have a much deeper appreciation for baptism, but I’ve come to realize how little I actually do know about it.

There’s an other-worldliness to baptism which long-time members of the church may take for granted. But think about how you would explain baptism to someone who had no experience with Christianity. Any explanation of the actual process comes off as positively crude. Two people go down into water, but not all the way. They hold hands. One goes under the water and comes back up. Such an explanation fails to capture the elegance and solemnity of the ordinance. It’s something that just has to be witnessed and experienced.

And have you ever considered how striking it is that the very first act of the Lord’s ministry on earth was his own baptism? In Nephi’s vision of the Savior’s life, an angel asked him, “Knowest thout the condescention of God?” Nephi did not, so he diplomatically responded. “I know that God loveth his children: nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.” The angel responded by showing Nephi the Savior’s birth, and then the angel said, “Look and behold the condescension of God!” Nephi then writes, “And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my father had spoken; and I also beheld the prophet who should prepare the way before him. And the Lamb of God went forth and was baptized of him; and after he was baptized, I beheld the heavens open, and the Holy Ghost come down out of heaven and abide upon him in the form of a dove.”

This was no trivial thing. Anytime we see an appearance of all three members of the Godhead, we should pay attention. At the end of his ministry, Nephi wrote an emotionally charged passage where he asks, “Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.” “And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfill all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy to be baptized, yea, even by water.”

But have you ever wondered why baptism has such an emphasis in the Lord’s ministry? When most people think of the life of Jesus, they think of his miracles and his teachings. Why not lead with the Sermon on the Mount or the raising of Lazarus? And why, when we decide to become Christians, do we not first perform an act of Christ-like service and then get baptized? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I do appreciate that when we first begin to take upon us the name of Christ, we may do exactly what the Savior did at the beginning of his ministry, and we may do it just as well as he did. I doubt an eight year old could deliver a rousing sermon that synthesizes thousands of years of teachings into a new, simple, and profound way of living. I don’t think most potential converts are quite ready to raise someone from the dead. But with baptism, we can begin our discipleship by perfectly following the Lord’s example. Our primary children understand this and sing, “Now we know that we must also witness faith in Jesus’ word / Be baptized to show obedience as was Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I don’t think any of us doubt the importance of baptism. The scriptures are clear on this point. Jesus said to the inquisitive Nicodemus, “Unless a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Virtually every sermon in the Book of Mormon gets to a therefore-be-baptized section. Even Adam was baptized, which given the personnel shortage, was pretty remarkable. Enoch records the account in the Book of Moses. “And it came to pass...that Adam cried unto the Lord, and he was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, and was carried down into the water, and was laid under the water, and was brought forth out of the water. And thus he was baptized, and the Spirit of God descended upon him, and thus he was born of the Spirit, and became quickened in the inner man.”

Enoch further explains the importance of baptism. “That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten: that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory; For by water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified.” In his first epistle, John echoed this teaching. “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”

From these passages we can see that baptism is not an isolated ordinance, but that it is part of a larger whole. We are baptized (water), receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (spirit), and partake of the sacrament (blood). As Enoch and John have taught us, this is really to be considered as one thing. The sacrament is a renewal of our baptismal covenant, and therefore is an extension of baptism. In fact, all the saving ordinances are connected. We begin with baptism and end with the sealing, and I don’t think it’s coincidental that those two ordinances are the only ones done in the name of all three members of the Godhead. And from the baptism to the sealing, the covenant may become more elaborate and revelatory, but it stays more or less the same. For example, we never really covenant to do anything more than what we covenanted at the time of our baptism. The promises from both sides become more explicit and more solemn, but at baptism we covenanted to keep God’s commandments. And as the Savior so masterfully taught, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Furthermore, the better we are able to learn from the symbolism of baptism, the better we will understand the other ordinances. Once I was in a temple preparation class where my roommate was substituting. He did a fantastic job with the lesson, but I felt like he did the class a disservice by only referring to their temple attendance in the future tense. It was all about when they will go to the temple for the first time. But baptism for the dead is very much a temple ordinance, and it was something that they had all done before. Regular temple attendance does not have to wait until we are endowed, and the better we understand baptism, the better we will understand the other temple ordinances. Understanding the language of symbols is key to both.

In baptism we are buried in the water and pulled out. This simple act has a host of meanings. As we’ve already read in various scriptures today, that symbolizes a rebirth and entrance into the kingdom of heaven. But it also symbolizes our death and resurrection by means of the Priesthood. It is also symbolic of Christ’s own death and resurrection. Speaking of the symbolism of baptism, Paul taught, “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”

I hope that my comments today have enabled the Spirit to testify to you of the continued importance of our baptismal covenants and our need to strive to better understand that simple ordinance that most of us accepted as eight year-old children. Next Sunday when we again renew our baptismal covenants, I hope that we will consider Alma the Elder’s charge at the Waters of Mormon to “come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and...to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light...to mourn with those that mourn...and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death.”

End Times

Engraving by Dürer

I found this buried deep within my Google Docs:

I believe in the Gospel, in Jesus, and that he will come again, but often I have trouble believing that the world will get as bad as the scriptures say it will. I think I’m too much of an optimist. I really believe in the goodness of people, and I believe that our ethics and societies (in general) have been on the upward swing throughout all of history. I had some time to think on Saturday. I just finished a really powerful shift working at the temple, and then I drove up to Salt Lake to pick my brother up from the airport. As I was driving and thinking I believe I came to a better understanding of how those last events will unfold. I don’t think the world will be all bad. I think that that late stage of the world will be a heightening of good and evil. It reminds me of Churchill’s quote, “Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days—the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.”

Then in sacrament meeting yesterday, a young lady gave a talk on virtue. Like many talks, she began by giving us a definition of virtue. Usually I don't think too highly of this convention in sacrament meeting talks, but this time it got me thinking about the Latin word virtue comes from, vir and virtus, which literally meant manliness (vir, being the word for man or hero). Other meanings include courage, fortitude, bravery, spunk, mettle, and valor. Truly, as we draw near to the close, virtue more than ever requires the attributes of its more ancient form. And I believe that the saints will rise to that necessity. I am expecting to be witness to overwhelming goodness and righteousness. Certainly we will not be the majority, but we will be a strong minority.

Catholic Envy/Gehenna

Jerome writing the Vulgate

I've always had a little bit of Catholic envy. They have the coolest music, the coolest ceremonial clothes, and the best artists. But my Catholic envy reached an all-time high when I started reading the Vulgate. Before I knew any actual Latin, the language always had a certain mysticism to it. This made me (you guessed it) envious. Now that I can actually read Latin with something like efficiency, it may have lost some of its mysticism, but for me it's acquired a beauty and a precision. 

Protestants et al often give the Roman Catholics a hard time. We frequently accuse them of keeping the Bible out of the hands of the common people by only having it in Latin. Such an esoteric language, right? But during the Dark Ages, Latin had not yet become an obscure Roman artifact like so many amphitheaters. Latin was the common tongue across Europe. No one spoke it natively, but it was used as the lingua franca, and if you were educated at all, you knew some Latin. Hence the name Vulgate, which means "common." It was written expressly for the common people. And let me say, after having just fought my way through translating the first book Caesar's Gallic Wars, the Vulgate is EASY Latin. The first book I read was first John, and it was cake.

Now, it is true that the Catholic church murdered a fair share of people for trying to translate the Bible into their own language, but we can't pin that on Jerome.

So yesterday I was reading Matthew 5 in the Vulgate, and after the Beatitudes, I came across the section where Jesus "upgrades" the old law. In the KJV it reads:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Now, that's lovely. I've read it for many years in this translation and thought it was magnificent every time. But the words for "hell fire" in the Vulgate are quite different: gehennae ignis. Literally, "the fire of Gehenna." I was puzzled by that word, Gehenna. It didn't sound like any Latin word I could think of for hell or punishment. I looked in my handy-dandy Cassell's Latin Dictionary, but it wasn't listed there. So, naturally I turned to the internet. Turns out, Gehenna is where cultists would sacrifice their own children, by fire, to their gods.

Now, I love the use of "Gehenna" as a metaphorical name for hell. Sometimes, I feel like people think that God has created hell to punish people, or that it's Satan's torture palace. But by referring to it as "Gehenna," the responsibility of its creation lies with people. Just as the City of Enoch was founded by humans and will eventually become the New Jerusalem of Revelation, so hell is an essentially human invention. I don't think God had anything to do with it—that's kind of the point. Hell, in it's eternal, immutable state is for the very few who want to separate themselves from anything godly. Heaven, on the other hand, (in its various degrees) is for those who have embraced those qualities which are best in themselves and others. There's something very human about all eternal destinations.

Easter Reflections on Suffering, Empathy, and Unity

Today is Easter Sunday. I've always had mixed feelings about Easter. I felt that it was as grim as it was joyous. Sunday is the day of the resurrection, but for some reason, we insist on focusing on the suffering and crucifixion of Friday. For a while, I thought our focus was skewed, but I recently read an article by Jill Mann, a Chaucer scholar at Notre Dame, that made me change my mind. 

She examines The Clerk's Tale, where a husband psychologically tortures his bride. Mann argues that when the torture finally stops, it is not because the wife has "proven" herself, as the husband says, but that the husband has been overcome by his wife's suffering. She then likens the wife's experience to Christ's suffering. "The division between cruel Father and suffering Son is, once again, an illusion; the Father is the Son who suffers, united in singleness of godhead. The Father's cruelty is the vehicle for the Son's love. And just as power dissolves into powerlessness, so powerlessness assumes power; it is through the suffering of the cross that mankind is redeemed" (106). The Father suffers as he sees the suffering of the Son. But Jesus' suffering has a unifying effect on all those who observe it.

Tad R. Callister wrote, "There is a certain compelling power that flows from righteous suffering—not indiscriminate suffering, not needless suffering, but righteous, voluntary suffering for another. Such suffering for another is the highest and purest form of motivation we can offer to those we love" (213). Mann's article got me thinking about the mechanics of that motivation. I believe the center of how it all works is empathy. When we see someone else suffer, we feel pain as well, and the barrier between our identity and theirs (between self and other) begins to dissolve.  

I believe that we are redeemed in part by our empathy for Christ’s suffering. That empathy creates love, and love creates unity. And here we see a merger of selves as we approach the divine through love. I believe this was exactly as Jesus intended. Just before he was taken prisoner, he said, “I pray for these…that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:20–22).  God does not control our actions, and we cannot force his hand. Instead he seeks to persuade us to reconcile our mastery with his by showing us his suffering.

So I think it's appropriate to spend some time contemplating Jesus' suffering this Easter. Hopefully, we will undergo the same process as Isaac Watts describes:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Credits:


The Bible, King James Version.

Callister, Tad R. The Infinite Atonement. "The Blessing of Motivation."

Mann, Jill. Feminizing Chaucer. "Suffering Woman, Suffering God."

Richards, J. Kirk. (He did the crucifixion painting jkirkrichards.com)

On "Of Things that Matter Most"

I'm nearing graduation, so I decided to pile on an absurd course load this semester. I was hoping to take all the classes I wanted to take before leaving and to finish off most of the classes for my minor. The problem is, I hated my life. Then I started thinking about this talk from Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a man whose name defies American spell checkers. The talk's thesis is simple, but it is also true. When we strike hard times, we should slow down and focus on the essentials. Once again, this seems like simple advice, but there are a few things from the talk that stand out to me. For one, he is so frank and so right:

Let’s be honest; it’s rather easy to be busy. We all can think up a list of tasks that will overwhelm our schedules. Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. They flood the open spaces in their time with lists of meetings and minutia—even during times of stress and fatigue. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy, and too little sense of meaning in their lives.


Also, as someone who has tried many times, with varying levels of success, to learn a foreign language, I'm astounded at his ability to speak English. Take this pithy little remark:


There comes a point where milestones can become millstones and ambitions, albatrosses around our necks.


I'm pretty sure only about 10% of the audience even caught that allusion. I mean, he has no business being so good at English that he can casually allude to our canon's masterworks. He was a pilot, not a professor. I'm pretty sure when Nietzsche was writing about his Übermensch, he was actually seeing Uchtdorf in vision.


Anyway, I appreciate this talk mostly because after I applied its message and dropped a class (not even one of my more difficult or demanding classes), I have been so much happier. It probably only freed up about four hours in my week, but seriously, I am so much better for it.


Also, it's allowed me more time to be reading John. That is another guy who astounds me with his greatness. More on that later.

There was a Rose

Well, Christmas time is coming up so I thought I'd post this. It's my translation of the German carol "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen."

There was a Rose that flourished
in winter's harshest cold
which we in song have cherished
since men in days of old.
It in its budding brought
a sacred tender beauty
all holy men have sought.

That Rose which seraphs herald,
also Isaiah saw—
the babe which Mary cradled
Christ, that great God of all.
Though serpents bruised our heel,
we find in him a ransom,
our hope, our joy, and zeal.

Now we await his coming
as men in days of old,
and view his manger, longing,
through winter's harshest cold.
But when Messiah comes
we shall be reunited
and with our God be one.


P.S.
I know the picture's a poppy, not a rose, but I couldn't find an O'Keeffe rose painting.