From The Ashes, A Symbol Of The Resurrection

The Provo Tabernacle after the fire — The Provo Tabernacle in December 2010
(From a Provo mayoral website)

We’re looking forward to the dedication of the Provo City Center Temple.

There’s never been temple-construction story quite like this one. But it seems quite appropriate to me that its dedication is taking place during the Easter season.

Think about it:

The Saints built the old Provo Tabernacle back in the nineteenth century. With the passage of time, it became a bit run down. Its central tower proved structurally unsound, for example, and had to be removed.

And then, catastrophically, it was almost completely destroyed by fire in 2010.

Now, though, it’s been rebuilt. Even the central tower has been restored. But it’s far more beautiful now than it ever was. And on Sunday, 20 March 2016, it will be dedicated not merely as a reconstructed tabernacle but as a temple — in Latter-day Saint belief, the holiest kind of place on earth.

dsphoto Provo CC Temple — A photo, by my wife, of the Provo City Center Temple from the south. (The white tent in the foreground at the right is now gone, of course; it was only there for the convenience of people attending the pre-dedication open house.)

President Hinckley used to say that temples testify of our faith in the resurrection; we build them because we believe that the efficacy of their ordinances extends beyond the grave. This temple, though, actually represents the resurrection itself: Not only life after death, but glorification beyond destruction. Nothing lost. Everything restored and rendered more glorious.

Posted from Rexburg, Idaho

From the ashes, a symbol of the resurrection