Happy Easter

I love this short movie about our Savior. What a glorious and wonderful Easter Weekend! Easter is by far my most favorite holiday of the year. Spring, renewal, new life, remembering Christ…how could it get any better than that?

Last night we went with our friends the Cooks to see the Tabernacle Choir perform the full “Messiah” by Handel. For 2 1/2 hours we were inspired, awed, dare I say BLOWN AWAY!?! It made me cry. It was so powerful and such a beautiful testament of our Savior, his life and ministry and his sacrifice. I was a little worried about going (we were offered the tickets last minute) because I needed to spend the time preparing for the lesson I was to teach today but really, I can think of no better way to prepare than by feeling the power of the holy spirit that was there in abundance last night.

The lesson was on The Sacrament and Easter. I loved being able to focus on the correlation between the Passover and the Last Supper where Christ instituted the Sacrament. I love how the Sacrament is such an important ordinance that we do it every week. In preparing for the lesson I learned something very beautiful about the Sacrament, that is that the bread represents our physical death and Christ overcoming that physical death through his sacrifice on the cross. And the water represents Christ overcoming spiritual death (the effects of sin) through his atonement in the garden of Gethsemane where he took upon himself our sins. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles put it this way:

With a crust of bread, always broken, blessed, and offered first, we remember his bruised body and broken heart, his physical suffering on the cross where he cried, “I thirst,” and finally, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (John 19:28; Matt. 27:46.)

The Savior’s physical suffering guarantees that through his mercy and grace (see 2 Ne. 2:8) every member of the human familyshall be freed from the bonds of death and be resurrected triumphantly from the grave. Of course the time of that resurrection and the degree of exaltation it leads to are based upon our faithfulness.

With a small cup of water we remember the shedding of Christ’s blood and the depth of his spiritual suffering, anguish which began in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt. 26:38). He was in agony and “prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

The Savior’s spiritual suffering and the shedding of his innocent blood, so lovingly and freely given, paid the debt for what the scriptures call the “original guilt” of Adam’s transgression (Moses 6:54). Furthermore, Christ suffered for the sins and sorrows and pains of all the rest of the human family, providing remission for all of our sins as well, upon conditions of obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel he taught (see 2 Ne. 9:21–23). As the Apostle Paul wrote, we were “bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:20). What an expensive price and what a merciful purchase!

Isn’t that beautiful? We talked about remembering Him and what we can think about as we try to remember Him and more meaningfully partake of the sacrament. I would advise all to go to his talk and see all the things Elder Holland says we can think about as we try to remember. He says this about remembering:

What is stressed in both prayers (referring to the sacrament prayers for the bread and the water found here) is that all of this is done in remembrance of Christ. In so participating we witness that we will always remember him, that we may always have his Spirit to be with us.

If remembering is the principal task before us, what might come to our memory when those plain and precious emblems are offered to us?

I love this quotation because “what might come to our memory when those plain and precious emblems are offered to us” sounds like a wonderful spiritual adventure that can open our spiritual eyes and show us beauties and possibilities not known to us before as we embrace and better understand the atonement and how it really applies to each of us.

Here are two more talks by Elder Holland on the Savior that I just love:

“Laborers in the Vineyard”

“None Were With Him”

As for the rest of the day, Mom and Brian came for dinner and then we had an egg hunt. Even though I was against the whole candy-for-every-holiday thing, I sure enjoyed watching the excitement of the children as they searched for their eggs!

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