![Ivanov, \"Noli me tangere.\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/alexander_ivanov_-_christs_appearance_to_mary_magdalene_after_the_resurrection_-_google_art_project-2.jpg\")
<\/a>Alexander Ivanov (1806-1858), \u201cChrist\u2019s Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection\u201d
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was the speaker in my ward\u2019s sacrament meeting this Easter morning.\u00a0 Below is a fairly accurate text of what I said.\u00a0 (I wasn\u2019t always reading it so, at some points, the wording is only approximate.\u00a0 I share it as an expression of my testimony, wishing everybody within my reach a blessed and happy Easter Sunday:<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m grateful to the choir and for the beautiful harp solo.<\/p>\n I\u2019m grateful, too, for the assignment to speak to you on what President Russell M. Nelson identified during the recent General Conference as the most important of Christian holidays.<\/p>\n There is a traditional Easter greeting throughout much of Eastern Christianity, often expressed in Greek, but often, too, in the local language.\u00a0 In Greek, it goes like this:<\/p>\n \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7!<\/p>\n \u201cChrist is risen!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To which the expected response is<\/p>\n \u00a0\u1f08\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u1ff6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7!<\/p>\n \u201cTruly, he is risen!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Already this morning, I\u2019ve received an email from a Greek-speaking friend that contains this greeting.<\/p>\n Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday commemorate the passion or suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, and constitute what is sometimes called, in mainstream Christianity, the Holy Triduum (\u201cthree days\u201d).<\/p>\n Whenever we partake of the sacrament, the events of these days should be central to our reflections. They should certainly be at the center of our thoughts today.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fundamental principles of our religion,\u201d Joseph Smith said, \u201care the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Christ\u2019s act on our behalf leaves us forever in his debt, and should put him at the center of our lives.\u00a0 Eventually, even for the rebellious, it will.\u00a0 Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 In scriptural language, he has redeemed us with his blood\u2014which is to say that he has literally purchased us; he has bought our freedom from slavery to sin and the devil.\u00a0 Whether we acknowledge it or not, we belong to him.\u00a0 Speaking of the eventual impact of his impending crucifixion, the Savior prophesied:<\/p>\n And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So far as I\u2019m aware, though, Latter-day Saints are unique in understanding that the atonement didn\u2019t occur only on the cross on Good Friday.\u00a0 It actually began the night before, in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem\u2019s Kidron Valley.\u00a0 Appropriately, it undid what had occurred in another garden, \u201ceastward in Eden,\u201d long before.\u00a0 \u201cFor as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 In some way that we cannot hope to understand in this life, Jesus suffered the pains of all men and women who have ever lived or ever will live\u2014and he began to do so before the soldiers had even arrived to arrest him.<\/p>\n During that process, the gospel of Mark records, he \u201cbegan to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 The Greek word that is translated as \u201camazed\u201d also means \u201cawestruck,\u201d \u201castonished.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing to read<\/em> about something, to understand the theory behind<\/em> something; it\u2019s quite another to experience it for oneself.\u00a0 It seems that mortality was a learning experience for the Savior, too:<\/p>\n And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon\u00a0him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.<\/p>\n And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor\u00a0his people according to their infirmities.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Reading books about France can never quite replace being<\/em> in France.\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing to know the theory of pain; it\u2019s quite another to be<\/em> in pain.\u00a0 All the classwork in dental school won\u2019t teach a dentist how it actually feels to suffer from a toothache.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Even the divine Son of God, it seems, was shocked by the experience of the atonement.<\/p>\n Accordingly, by the time Jesus went before Pontius Pilate and then on to Calvary, he was already well into the inconceivably horrific ordinance of the atonement\u2014which went far beyond the brutal scourging and crucifixion that the Romans had already imposed upon thousands of convicted criminals and rebels.\u00a0 His experience was unique because he<\/em> was unique.<\/p>\n Speaking to the Prophet Joseph Smith at Manchester, New York, during the summer of 1829\u2014nearly a year before the Church was organized\u2014the Lord said:<\/p>\n Therefore I command you to repent\u2014repent, lest I smite\u00a0you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings\u00a0be sore\u2014how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.<\/p>\n For behold, I, God, have suffered\u00a0these things for all, that they might\u00a0not suffer if they would repent;<\/p>\n But if they would not repent they must suffer\u00a0even as I;<\/p>\n Which suffering\u00a0caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit\u2014and would that I might not\u00a0drink the bitter cup, and shrink\u2014<\/p>\n Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished\u00a0my preparations unto the children of men.[8]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I think that we should take this seriously.\u00a0 Jesus knew the story of Abraham and Isaac.\u00a0 He knew that, although Abraham was willing<\/em> to sacrifice his beloved son, the willingness was, ultimately, enough<\/em>\u2014\u201cand it was counted unto him for righteousness.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n Jesus, too, was willing.\u00a0 Might the willingness be enough<\/em>?\u00a0 Was there an alternative?\u00a0 Could he forego the trials ahead?\u00a0 Surely he could ask.<\/p>\n Unlike the story of Abraham and Isaac, though, there was no alternative.\u00a0 There was no ram in the thicket.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n Some of you have heard my speculation about Joseph Knight Sr. and Joseph Knight Jr.\u00a0 I was relatively old when I realized that I was a descendant of the Knights.\u00a0 And it got me to thinking about the Book of Mormon prophecy of a latter-day seer named Joseph, which would also be the name of his father.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 We rightly see that as a prediction of Joseph Smith Sr. and Joseph Smith Jr.<\/p>\n Could Joseph Knight Sr. and Joseph Knight Jr. have been a \u201cback-up\u201d team?\u00a0 The Lord has his plans for the future, and they will not be thwarted.\u00a0 But humans have genuine agency.\u00a0 We can reject assignments, fail to fulfill our callings.\u00a0 The Knights lived in the same general area as the Smiths, and they were early converts.\u00a0 In fact, they\u2019ve sometimes been called the \u201csecond family of the Restoration.\u201d\u00a0 They were also just a few years younger than the Smiths\u2014which is how I would have done it, had I been in charge.<\/p>\n Now, you don\u2019t have to believe this.\u00a0 I don\u2019t necessarily believe it myself.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a suspicion.\u00a0 But my point is that there was no \u201cback-up\u201d for the atonement.\u00a0 There was no alternative, no Plan B.\u00a0 There could not have been.\u00a0 There was no other sinless offering to be had, no second \u201cOnly Begotten Son.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus had to fulfill his mission, or all was lost.<\/p>\n There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.\u00a0 He only could unlock the gate of heav\u2019n and let us in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is all-important.\u00a0 It makes all the difference.<\/p>\n I\u2019m now going to impose on you the first of two poems that mean a lot to me.\u00a0 The first is by A. E. Housman, an important second-tier English poet and a very important classicist at Cambridge University, and an agnostic.\u00a0 He wanted<\/em> to believe, I think, but could not.\u00a0 In this poem, entitled \u201cEaster Hymn,\u201d he addresses his yearning directly to Jesus:<\/p>\n If in that Syrian garden, ages slain, But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by, Try to imagine the sorrow and disappointment of the disciples, who had given up everything in order to follow a man that they believed to be the Messiah.\u00a0 Now, though, he was dead.\u00a0 He seemed to have been defeated.<\/p>\n As they hid out on the Saturday following Christ\u2019s death, they felt defeat, and deep sorrow at the death of a loved one.\u00a0 They feared arrest. They felt confusion, depression.\u00a0 They felt betrayed.\u00a0 Have you ever felt such emotions?\u00a0 They certainly did.\u00a0 And they were, no doubt, angry about the injustice and oppression of the Roman occupation and the corrupt priestly aristocracy that controlled their country.\u00a0 We\u2019re often upset about the politics of our day; things were much worse then<\/em>.<\/p>\n But then imagine the joy of Mary Magdalene, taking the news of the resurrection\u2014in a sense, the very first apostolic witness\u2014to the disciples who were gathered fearfully, sadly, and nervously together.<\/p>\n Incidentally, a word about women as the first witnesses:\u00a0 This is, to me, one powerful reason for trusting the New Testament accounts.\u00a0 In the world of first-century Judaism, the testimony of women was unacceptable in court.\u00a0 (Yes, I know this is plainly sexist.)\u00a0 They were considered unreliable witnesses.\u00a0 Which leads me to believe that the New Testament writers would not have chosen women to be the first witnesses at the tomb if they had had any choice.\u00a0 If they were simply making up a fictional story, they would have chosen men<\/em> as their first witnesses.\u00a0 They wrote it the way they did because that\u2019s how it actually happened.<\/p>\n Moreover, there\u2019s something that I want to say about the passage in which Mary Magdalene, after first failing to recognize Jesus, hears him pronounce her name and suddenly realizes who he is.\u00a0 \u201cRabboni,\u201d she cries out.\u00a0 \u201cMy master!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cTouch me not,\u201d he immediately responds, \u201cfor I am not yet ascended to my Father.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard Sunday School speculations about this.\u00a0 Maybe resurrected bodies need to be certified by the Father before they can be \u201ctouched\u201d?\u00a0 Maybe they haven\u2019t fully \u201ccongealed\u201d or \u201cset\u201d yet?<\/p>\n But this King James translation seriously misrepresents what happened.\u00a0 The verb translated as \u201ctouch\u201d means, more accurately, \u201cto cling,\u201d \u201cto hold,\u201d or even, as with Scotch tape, \u201cto adhere.\u201d\u00a0 And the tense means not to start<\/em> doing something but to stop<\/em> doing something that one is already doing.<\/p>\n I\u2019m fond of a painting that shows Mary reaching out to Jesus while he recoils from her.\u00a0 It\u2019s completely wrong.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t expect to see him alive again.\u00a0 She\u2019s overwhelmed with joyous emotion, and she throws herself at him.\u00a0 He\u2019s trying, in a way, to peel her off.\u00a0 \u201cStop holding me,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cFor I am not yet ascended to my Father.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a very human scene.\u00a0 A very dramatic one.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n Virtually all historians, of all religious opinions, agree that Jesus was crucified. The New Testament says that he died just prior to Passover.<\/p>\n One of his inner circle of twelve apostles betrayed him, nine fled at his arrest, and another \u2014 Peter \u2014 pretended not to know him. The last, John, seems to have watched events unfold from a safe distance.[13]<\/a> Thereafter, as prominent followers of a convicted and executed \u201ccriminal,\u201d they went into hiding.<\/p>\n Only a few weeks later, though, the eleven surviving apostles were transformed. They even appointed a willing replacement for Judas.<\/p>\n What had happened?<\/p>\n According to Acts 1:2-9, the risen Jesus trained his apostles for forty days during a series of post-resurrection appearances and then ascended into heaven. Less than two weeks later, they began their first public preaching in connection with the feast of Pentecost, seven weeks after Passover and Easter Sunday.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n The content of their first preaching is significant. Boldly speaking for the other apostles, Peter flatly identified the residents of Jerusalem as the killers of Jesus, testifying that God had raised Jesus from the dead and identifying himself and his colleagues as witnesses to these claims.[15]<\/a> At this point, if Peter\u2019s assertion were false, critics could easily have exhumed Jesus\u2019 body and ended the nonsense. But, in fact, Luke tells us that mass conversions followed the apostles\u2019 testimony.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n A few days later, Peter and John were in the courtyard of the temple, again openly accusing the people of Jerusalem of having murdered Jesus, testifying that God had raised Jesus from the dead, and identifying themselves as \u201cwitnesses\u201d to these facts.[17]<\/a><\/p>\n The chief priests and Sadducees were understandably threatened by these public challenges, and, so, the two apostles were arrested and brought before Annas, Caiaphas and other members of the city\u2019s elite\u2014 the very men who, less than two months before, had engineered the execution of Jesus.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n Without hesitation, Peter testified of \u201cJesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/p>\n Uncertain how to respond to this fearless defiance, the chief priests decided to \u201cthreaten\u201d Peter and John, and to order them to speak no further about Jesus\u2014to which the two apostles replied that they would not obey the order.\u00a0 Baffled as to what to do next, Annas and Caiaphas and the others simply threatened them again and let them go.[20]<\/a><\/p>\n But the little Christian movement continued its public preaching to the extent that, exasperated and \u201cfilled with indignation,\u201d the high priest and the Sadducees had the apostles arrested and jailed. However, they were miraculously delivered from prison, and immediately proceeded to the temple to preach still more.[21]<\/a><\/p>\n So they were arrested yet again and hauled once more before the high priest and his council, where they were reminded that they had been ordered not to teach about Jesus.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n And, yet again, the apostles were defiant and unintimidated. \u201cWe ought to obey God rather than men,\u201d explained Peter. You killed Jesus, he said, but God raised him from the dead \u201cand we are his witnesses of these things.\u201d[23]<\/a><\/p>\n At this point, according to Acts, the council considered killing them. But a prominent rabbi named Gamaliel stood up and strongly advised against that. So the council had them beaten yet again, and ordered them, yet again, to be quiet about Jesus.[24]<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.\u201d[25]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some will argue that this account is fiction, inspiring but wholly mythical. But its author, the evangelist Luke, seems to have been a well-educated and careful historian who based his narrative upon eyewitness interviews.[26]<\/a> And the New Testament doesn\u2019t shrink from casting early church leaders in a negative light when appropriate; it feels no apparent need to glorify them by falsifying history. Furthermore, given the remarkable and well-documented growth of earliest Christianity, something very like what Luke reports must necessarily have happened.<\/p>\n So what transformed the fearful, cowering apostles of Passover weekend into fearless preachers of Christ\u2019s resurrection less than two months later? There is a very obvious answer. Everything hinges on it.<\/p>\n As Joseph Smith said, every other claim of the Gospel is a footnote to this story.\u00a0 If it isn\u2019t true, our meetings, our programs, our temples, and, ultimately, our lives are empty, without meaning.<\/p>\n I now impose upon you a poem by John Updike, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner whose novels I would never quote in sacrament meeting but who was, somewhat surprisingly, a believing Christian.\u00a0 First, though, you need to understand the somewhat unfamiliar concluding word of the poem.\u00a0 It is r<\/em>emon<\/u>strance<\/em>, which means \u201ca forceful reproach,\u201d \u201ca rebuke.\u201d\u00a0 It comes from the verb to remonstrate<\/em> (\u201cto reproach someone,\u201d \u201cto rebuke someone\u201d).\u00a0 \u201cSeven Stanzas at Easter,\u201d by John Updike:<\/p>\n Make no mistake: if He rose at all<\/p>\n it was as His body;<\/p>\n if the cells\u2019 dissolution did not reverse, the molecules<\/p>\n reknit, the amino acids rekindle,<\/p>\n the Church will fall.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It was not as the flowers,<\/p>\n each soft Spring recurrent;<\/p>\n it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled<\/p>\n eyes of the eleven apostles;<\/p>\n it was as His flesh: ours.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The same hinged thumbs and toes,<\/p>\n the same valved heart<\/p>\n that\u2014pierced\u2014died, withered, paused, and then<\/p>\n regathered out of enduring Might<\/p>\n new strength to enclose.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Let us not mock God with metaphor,<\/p>\n analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;<\/p>\n making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the<\/p>\n faded credulity of earlier ages:<\/p>\n let us walk through the door.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,<\/p>\n not a stone in a story,<\/p>\n but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow<\/p>\n grinding of time will eclipse for each of us<\/p>\n the wide light of day.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And if we will have an angel at the tomb,<\/p>\n make it a real angel,<\/p>\n weighty with Max Planck\u2019s quanta, vivid with hair,<\/p>\n opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen<\/p>\n spun on a definite loom.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,<\/p>\n for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,<\/p>\n lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are<\/p>\n embarrassed by the miracle,<\/p>\n and crushed by remonstrance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At the beginning of his epistle to the Romans, though, the apostle Paul explains that Jesus was \u201cdeclared to be the Son of God . . . by the resurrection from the dead.\u201d[27]<\/a><\/p>\n The resurrection is the divine seal of approval on Jesus\u2019s teachings.\u00a0 It is the certification that his gift of atonement on our behalf has been accepted by the Father.\u00a0 God would surely not have raised a liar or a false teacher from the dead.<\/p>\n That\u2019s part of what his resurrection means.\u00a0 But only part.<\/p>\n According to an early Buddhist<\/a> story, a despairing mother whose little boy had died once came to the Buddha, begging him to restore her son to life. The Buddha told her to go about the town collecting mustard seeds. But she was to do so only from houses in which nobody had ever died.<\/p>\n Hopeful, she set about her task. But she found only disappointment, because each house had seen a death. Finally, she returned to the Buddha without a single mustard seed. Now she understood that death was universal and inescapable. And, though still sorrowful, she had come to accept it.<\/p>\n The simple, unavoidable fact is that we all will die. And all those whom we love, and every thing<\/em> that we love\u2014even seas, mountains, and valleys\u2014will also die. All earthly relationships end in death, if not before.<\/p>\n But the joyous news of Christianity goes far beyond mere stoic acceptance of death, or Buddhist resignation and non-attachment.<\/p>\n Holy Saturday, the last day of Holy Week and the day before Easter\u2014yesterday\u2014follows Good Friday. It commemorates the day that Jesus\u2019 broken body lay dead in the tomb. It represents an interim period, a time of waiting and uncertainty.<\/p>\n Modern believers in the Restoration, however, understand that, even while his body lay dead and motionless, Jesus\u2019 immortal spirit was preaching to the spirits in prison, inaugurating the great work of the redemption of the dead that is carried on now in our temples.[28]<\/a> We may not always see God visibly at work from our vantage point in this fallen world, encircled by the veil, but he is always working for our salvation.<\/p>\n On that ancient Saturday, though, the apostles were hiding, their hopes dashed, not knowing what to do, perhaps anticipating their own arrest and execution.<\/p>\n Many of us are living our own Saturday, holy or unholy. Evil and injustice frequently seem to have the upper hand in the world around us, and indeed in our own lives. We\u2019re fearful and uncertain. Often, we\u2019ve been defeated, and perhaps we feel that any significant victory is beyond our reach. We\u2019re worn out. We\u2019ve heard promises of wonderful things to come, but we\u2019re unsure of them. Commonly, our days seem very dark. Have we believed in vain?<\/p>\n But the testimony of the Four Gospels, of the first apostles, of the early Christians, of Christian believers throughout the centuries, of the Book of Mormon, and of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his apostolic successors is that, early on Sunday morning, the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty. Jesus had risen.<\/p>\n And, for all of us, Easter will come. Our Saturday of uncertainty and defeat does not, will not, continue forever. As the great late-medieval English mystic Julian of Norwich so simply but memorably expressed the Christian hope, in words that she said had been given her by God, \u201cAll shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.\u201d<\/p>\n And should we die before our journey\u2019s through,<\/p>\n Happy day! All is well!<\/p>\n We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;<\/p>\n With the just we shall dwell!<\/p>\n But if our lives are spared again<\/p>\n To see the Saints their rest obtain,<\/p>\n Oh, how we\u2019ll make this chorus swell\u2014<\/p>\n All is well! All is well!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Our \u201cafflictions,\u201d as the Book of Mormon puts it, should be \u201cswallowed up in the joy of Christ.\u201d[29]<\/a>\u00a0 Our lives should be reconfigured, transformed, by the news of Easter.<\/p>\n We should strive to not be like the anxious, fearful disciples of Holy Saturday, hiding from the world.\u00a0 We should be Christians who, knowing about Easter Sunday, confidently take the message of the atonement and the resurrection to our families, our friends, and the world.\u00a0 There is no more important message.\u00a0 It\u2019s life-transforming, and world-transforming.<\/p>\n \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7! \u2013 \u1f08\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u1ff6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7!<\/p>\n Christ is risen!\u00a0 Truly, he is risen!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith<\/em>, 121.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Philippians 2:10-11.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> John 12:32.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> 1 Corinthians 15:22.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Mark 14:33.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Alma 7:11-12.\u00a0 This passage, along with the preceding introductory sentence beginning with the words \u201cIt seems that mortality,\u201d was added after delivery of the talk.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> This sentence, too, was added after delivery of the talk.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-19.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> See Romans 4:3.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> See Genesis 22.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> 2 Nephi 3:15.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> See John 20:1-18.<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Luke 23:49; John 19:25-27.<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> Acts 2.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> Acts 2:23-24, 32.<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> Acts 2:41, 47.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Acts 3:13-15, 26.<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> Acts 4:1-7<\/p>\n [19]<\/a> Acts 4:10<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> Acts 4:17-21.<\/p>\n [21]<\/a> Acts 5:17-25.<\/p>\n [22]<\/a> Acts 5:26-28.<\/p>\n [23]<\/a> Acts 5:29-32.<\/p>\n [24]<\/a> Acts 5:33-40.<\/p>\n [25]<\/a> Acts 5:41-42.<\/p>\n [26]<\/a> Luke 1:1-4.<\/p>\n [27]<\/a> Romans 1:4.<\/p>\n [28]<\/a> 1 Peter 3:18-20; 4:6; and, most of all, Doctrine and Covenants 138.<\/p>\n
\nYou sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,
\nNor even in dreams behold how dark and bright
\nAscends in smoke and fire by day and night
\nThe hate you died to quench and could but fan,
\nSleep well and see no morning, son of man.<\/p>\n
\nAt the right hand of majesty on high
\nYou sit, and sitting so remember yet
\nYour tears, your agony and bloody sweat,
\nYour cross and passion and the life you gave,
\nBow hither out of heaven and see and save.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n