The Celebration of Easter

Note: That which follows is my talk given during our ward’s Easter service.

Sister Linford has portrayed for us the major events and the importances of what we now refer to as the Easter story. The events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus Christ have been retold in some form annually in Christian congregations from that day to this for the comfort and edification of their believers.

So important has been this singular event to very many Christians down through the ages that they have been motivated to recommit themselves to the tenets of the religions they accepted and still do accept as being true. In a broader sense, this celebration has served also to give hope and provide assurance to multitudes of believers and non-believers of their productive future through the springtime renewal of nature for yet again another year.

This is a time when we as Latter-day Saints ought to take stock of life, and the way we are living it. We ought to celebrate the affirmation of our future resurrection and concern ourselves with the nature of the resurrection in which we desire to participate. This might give us the needed incentive to improve the quality of our obedience to God’s commandments, and in turn, help us be more grateful for our understanding of the gospel in its fulness and of our possession of the Holy Priesthood.

However, with the recounting each year of the events surrounding the Savior’s resurrection, do we stop to consider the spectrum of our brothers and sisters who have rejoiced and still will do so as a result of what took place in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago? Most of these individuals of whom I speak are largely beyond the understanding of the majority Christian world.

The Apostle Paul referred to Jesus Christ as being the “firstfruits” of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). That being the case, all of the righteous Saints who had died from the days of Adam down to the Lord’s resurrection on that historic morning were waiting anxiously for their opportunity to come forth from their graves. They had been hindered in their personal progression and thus were biding their time as disembodied spirits in paradise waiting for the time of their deliverance. We read concerning their condition in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants:

“And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality; And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name. All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand. They were assembled awaiting the advent of the Son of God into the spirit world, to declare their redemption from the bands of death. Their sleeping dust was to be restored unto its perfect frame, bone to his bone, and the sinews and the flesh upon them, the spirit and the body to be united never again to be divided, that they might receive a fulness of joy. While this vast multitude waited and conversed, rejoicing in the hour of their deliverance from the chains of death, the Son of God appeared, declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful; And there he preached to them the everlasting gospel, the doctrine of the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance. . . . For the dead had looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage. These the Lord taught, and gave them power to come forth, after his resurrection from the dead, to enter into his Father’s kingdom, there to be crowned with immortality and eternal life, And continue thenceforth their labor as had been promised by the Lord, and be partakers of all blessings which were held in reserve for them that love him” (D&C 138:12-19, 50-52).

Who were these righteous dead? Some of them were the righteous Saints who experienced their mortal probation in the general area that we today call the Middle East. But numbered among the righteous dead were also those who had experienced much if not all of life in America. For we know from the Bible and the Book of Mormon that many Saints arose from their graves just subsequent to the Lord’s resurrection and went into the cities of Judea and America to bear testimony to the living of the reality of the resurrection (Matt 27:52-53 and 3 Nephi 23:8-13).

How many of the Saints of old arose at that time is a matter of some uncertainty, but we know that their numbers were not a few. Among them were some of the leaders of old who would be instrumental in assisting the Prophet Joseph Smith in accomplishing the complex work of the restoration. The most important of these were John the Baptist, Moses, Elias, and Elijah. Others who assisted in the work of the restoration and were resurrected later included Peter, James, and Moroni, among others.

And what was the experience of the believers among the scattered, lost tribes of Israel when the resurrected Lord appeared to them? While in Jerusalem and before his crucifixion, the Lord spoke of His other sheep to whom He must go (John 10:16). In America, while visiting the Saints there after His resurrection, the Lord told them that they were the other sheep to whom he had reference during His mortal ministry. Also in America, He told the Saints that there were still others of the House of Israel to whom He must go (3 Nephi 15:11-24; 16:1-3). Are we to assume that they had been left without a knowledge of the gospel and thus were totally unprepared for His appearance among them? Are we to assume that among their righteous there were not expressions of awe and thanksgiving at His coming? Are we to assume that He did not organize His Church among them and preach to them the principles of His living gospel? Are we to assume that none of their righteous dead participated in this early resurrection as a testimony to those still living of the truthfulness of the resurrection as was the case in Jerusalem and America? The answers to these and a multitude of other questions will be answered when these scattered peoples are gathered in and allowed to take their rightful place in the Kingdom of God on the earth.

But these are not the only ones who have and are still to rejoice over the Lord’s resurrection. What about all of our brothers and sisters who did not have the opportunity to hear the gospel preached while they were in mortality and were or are waiting in spirit prison? In conjunction with this question, let us not forget the dead of the blood of Ephraim whose earthly mission it was to be born, to live, to beget children, and to die without having an opportunity to hear the gospel in order that the blood of Ephraim might come down through the ages to be the salt of the earth in these last days. The spreading of the gospel in the earth in this last dispensation is largely the gathering of the remnants of scattered Ephraim. Those who died during the era of the dark ages will respond to the gospel message as it is preached to them in spirit prison just as they would have done had they been privileged to live in this great generation.

In addition, let us not forget also the vast multitude of God’s children who have died or will die before they have had the opportunity to hear the gospel preached and are not of Ephraim. They too are now or will be the subjects of the missionary labors taking place literally as we speak in spirit prison. All who accept the gospel as preached to them by faithful Saints, who have died and been called to that labor, will be given the opportunity to accept the saving ordinances of the gospel performed by proxies in temples scattered across the face of this earth. When the repentant dead accept the gospel as it is preached to them and subsequently accept the saving ordinances that have been performed in their behalf, they will be ushered from spirit prison into paradise. True is it not, we may only imagine what the magnitude of this work must be like on the other side of the veil?

Now it is all good and wonderful that we have this understanding of at least some of the rippling ramifications of that first resurrection morning in Jerusalem, but what we do with that understanding that we do possess is even more important. We should reassert ourselves in doing that which we know is required of us. We should become more righteous in fact. We should be more aware of those with whom we come in contact who should hear the gospel message, and we should act on that inspiration. We should be more actively involved in seeking out the names of our kindred dead and seeing to it that the saving ordinances are completed in their behalf in a temple of the Lord. We should improve the support we are giving to others by going to the temple and assisting in the completion of the saving ordinances for their kindred dead. We should be more prepared to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D&C 81:5). We should reaffirm to our families the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ that was restored to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith.