(This is the Easter Message that God would have me to hear.)
This Easter Season, as I contemplate what the Father would have me to understand about our Lord, the Savior Jesus Christ, the following phrase was impressed upon my mind:Jesus Christ is the Author of My Covenants. At a later moment, an understanding followed of the progression that Jesus Christ modeled and which uniquely qualified prepared Him to be the only one who could claim the position of being the Author of my Covenants. I am being reminded at this season of new life and rebirth, that Jesus Christ has marked the path and leads the way that I am being asked to follow. Will you come with me as I explore a few of these thoughts that have rested upon me mind and heart?
Christ is the Author of the Covenant
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we make covenants with God. I have a tendency to look at the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ as being accomplished by prophets of God. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, down to our current president: Dallin H. Oaks. But in my better moments, I can see that the restoration of the Church and Gospel of Jesus Christ was actually under the direction of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That same being who came and experienced mortality, He is the One who also has created the covenants that are uniquely available in this Church. From baptism and confirmation, weekly participation in the Sacrament covenant, to the temple endowment and temple sealing covenants. Jesus Christ is the author of these covenants and their attendant blessings.
Abinadi the prophet declared:
“I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people….
“(He) suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people.
“And after all this, after working many mighty miracles among the children of men… he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death…
“…And thus God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men—“
I seem to understand the events surrounding the end of Christ’s mortal ministry, but do I fully appreciate what this means in our Lord’s ability to bless my life in a very personal and real way. Consider just a few lines from his intercessory prayer:
“…for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:
The Progression of Jesus Christ Qualifies Him to be The Author
Our Good Lord, the Savior Jesus Christ says that he sanctified himself for our benefit. We also read that
- “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)
Mastery of self, Though Christ made it look easy, it doesn’t mean that it was easy. The capacity to execute on the hardest task of eternity came from a lifetime of preparation.
Last December President D. Todd Christofferson shared this profound insight:
It is all but impossible to grasp the magnitude of our Savior’s condescension. Imagine a divine being with intelligence and power sufficient to create this earth, a planet capable of sustaining billions of our Father’s children and many other creatures over many thousands of years. Now He lays aside His glory and powers and descends to His creation, His “footstool,”9 as a helpless babe, born in a humble stable with a manger used to feed animals as His cradle. He experiences what all of us experience: growing over time in consciousness and capacity—developing from infancy to childhood to youth to adulthood. As the Only Begotten Son of God (God being the Father not only of Christ’s spirit but also of His body), Jesus’s learning is more rapid and advanced than anything even the brightest of us have ever experienced; yet it is for Him, as for us, not instantaneous. The scriptures record that
he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace;
And . . . continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness.10
In this state of condescension, Jesus of Nazareth experiences hunger and deprivation, fatigue and pain, persecution and rejection. In Isaiah’s words, He is “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”11 On one occasion, Jesus laments, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”12 So He lies in the very dust that is the least of His creations. In the end, He is “led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death.”13
And why this incomprehensible condescension? Could not Jesus have performed His infinite Atonement, so fundamentally crucial to our immortality and eternal life, without also having to experience mortality from birth to adulthood? Could He have simply come as a man rather than as a babe and still have accomplished His atoning mission? I cannot say, but surely it is by divine design that the Son of God lived a life and performed a ministry that not merely tell us but show us the way of discipleship, the way to God. Beginning with His own baptism, witnessing “unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments,”14 He not only taught but demonstrated what it means to walk the covenant path. Throughout His life, culminating in His suffering and death on the cross, “he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth.”15
And so “we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”16 There is nothing we experience that He does not comprehend and that He does not have power to address and redress. He knows; He understands; His love is perfect. With His Resurrection, just as He “descended below all things,” Jesus has now overcome and risen above all things:
He hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy . . . [being] death.17
Now He sits “on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men.”18
Jesus’s condescension, His willingness to live in this fallen world and show us the meaning of His gospel in day-to-day life, is truly an act of genuine love. He indeed has shown us His “more excellent way.”19 He is “the way.”20 We should study His life and model His discipleship. His condescension, culminating in His Atonement, gives hope, direction, and purpose to our lives.
(The Lord has connected in my mind self-mastery with the Life of Christ, and how it is that we are to be improving and doing better every day to take full advantage of the Gospel of Christ.)
My path is marked (authored) by Jesus Christ
In the last supper, Christ told his disciples that he would soon leave them so that he could prepare a place for them in Heaven. His disciples were sad and confused as this news. They wanted to know where he was going. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
- I am not expected to stay where I am, but to be improving to follow Christ’s example.
Jesus progressed through life from grace to grace. We too are expected to make this same progression through life, from grace to grace. Though, he did not sin, Jesus clearly understood and suffered from the effects of sin, our sins. But the good news of the Gospel is that this was overcome for one and all who will repent and make covenants with God.
Jeremiah the prophet taught:
“this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
Doctrine and Covenants 76:69
“These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood:”
Elder David A. Bednar, four years ago, made this statement:
Entering into sacred covenants and worthily receiving priesthood ordinances yoke us with and bind us to the Lord Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. This simply means that we trust in the Savior as our Advocate and Mediator and rely on His merits, mercy, and grace during the journey of life. As we are steadfast in coming unto Christ and are yoked with Him, we receive the cleansing, healing, and strengthening blessings of His infinite and eternal Atonement.
Living and loving covenant commitments creates a connection with the Lord that is deeply personal and spiritually powerful. As we honor the conditions of sacred covenants and ordinances, we gradually and incrementally are drawn closer to Him and experience the impact of His divinity and living reality in our lives. Jesus then becomes much more than the central character in scripture stories; His example and teachings influence our every desire, thought, and action.
I frankly do not have the ability to describe adequately the precise nature and power of our covenant connection with the resurrected and living Son of God. But I witness that the connections with Him and Heavenly Father are real…
(David A Bednar, April 2022, “But We Heeded Them Not”)
Conclusion
I testify of Eternal Progression, that because of Jesus Christ, we shall go on forever through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not compelled upon us, but is the only way in which we safely travel in this life. Jesus Christ, indeed, is the author of our coveants and the path that returns us home as glorified beings to the presence of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name I testify of these things. Amen.