Thank you, Elder Nielson, for the remarkably personal candor
of that remarkable counsel.
Without safety ropes, or harnesses,
or climbing gear of any kind, two brothers--Jimmy, age 14,
and John, age 19--(though those are not their real names)
attempted to scale a sheer canyon wall in Snow Canyon
State Park in my native Southern Utah.
Near the top of their laborious climb,
they discovered that a protruding ledge denied them
their final few feet of ascent.
They could not get over it but neither could they
now retreat from it.
They were stranded.
After careful maneuvering, John, the older,
found enough footing to boost his younger brother to safety
on the top of the ledge.
But there was no way to lift himself.
The more he strained to find finger or foot leverage,
the more his muscles began to cramp.
Panic started to sweep over him, and he
began to fear for his life.
Unable to hold on much longer, John
decided his only option was to try
to jump vertically in an effort to grab
the top of the overhanging ledge.
If successful he might, by his considerable arm strength,
pull himself to safety.
In his own words, he said: "Prior to my jump
I told Jimmy to go search for a tree branch strong enough
to extend down to me, although I knew
there was nothing of the kind on that rocky summit.
It was only a desperate ruse.
If my jump failed, the least I could do
was make certain my little brother did not
see me falling to my death.
Giving him enough time to be out of sight,
I said my last prayer--that I wanted my family to know I
loved them and that Jimmy could make it home safely on his
own--then I leapt.
There was enough adrenaline in my spring
that the jump extended my arms above the ledge almost
to my elbows.
But as I slapped my hands down on the surface,
I felt nothing--nothing but loose sand on flat stone.
I can still remember the gritty sensation," he says,
"of hanging there with nothing to hold on to--no lip,
no ridge, nothing to grab or grasp.
I felt my fingers begin to recede slowly
over the sandy surface.
I knew my life was over.
But then suddenly, like a lightning strike in a summer
storm, two hands shot out from somewhere
above the edge of the cliff, grabbing my wrists
with a strength and a determination that
belied their size.
My faithful little brother had not
gone looking for any fictitious tree branch.
Guessing exactly what I was planning to do,
he had never moved an inch.
He had simply waited--silently, almost breathlessly--knowing
full well I would be foolish enough to try to make that
jump.
When I did he grabbed me.
He held me, and he refused to let me fall.
Those strong brotherly arms saved my life that day
as I dangled helplessly above what surely
would have been certain death."
My beloved brothers and sisters, today is Easter Sunday.
Although we should always remember
(we promise in our weekly sacramental prayer
that we will), nevertheless this is
the most sacred day of the year for special remembrance
of brotherly hands and determined
arms that reached into the very abyss of death
to save us from our fallings and our failings, from our sorrows,
and from our sins.
Against the background of this story reported to me by John's
and Jimmy's family, I express my gratitude for the Atonement
and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ
and acknowledge events in the divine plan of God
that led up to and give meaning to the "love Jesus
offers [us]."
In our increasingly secular society,
it is as uncommon as it is unfashionable to speak
of Adam and Eve, or the Garden of Eden, or a "fortunate fall"
into mortality.
Nevertheless the simple truth is that we cannot fully comprehend
the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ and we will not
adequately appreciate the unique purpose of His birth or His
death--in other words there is no way to truly celebrate
Christmas or Easter--without understanding that there was
an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden with all
the consequences that Fall carried with it.
I do not know the details of what happened on this planet
before that, but I do know these two were created
under the divine hand of God, that for a time
they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting
where there was neither human death nor future family,
and that through a sequence of choices
they transgressed a commandment of God which required that they
leave their garden setting but which
allowed them to have children before facing physical death.
To add further sorrow and complexity
to their circumstance, their transgression
had spiritual consequences as well,
cutting them off from the presence of God forever.
Because we were then born into that fallen world
and because we too would transgress the laws of God,
we also were sentenced to the same penalties
that Adam and Eve faced.
What a plight!
The entire human race in free fall--every man, woman,
and child in it physically tumbling toward permanent
death, spiritually plunging toward eternal anguish.
Is that what life was meant to be?
Is this the grand finale of the human experience?
Are we all just hanging in a cold canyon somewhere
in an indifferent universe, each of us searching for a toehold,
each of us seeking for something to help,
something to grip--with nothing but the feeling of sand sliding
under our fingers nothing to save us,
nothing to hold on to, much less anything to hold on to us?
Is our only purpose in life an empty existential
exercise--simply to leap as high as we can,
hang on for our prescribed three score years and ten,
and then fail and fall, and keep falling forever?
The answer to those questions is an unequivocal
and eternal "No!"
With prophets ancient and modern I
testify that "all things have been done in the wisdom of him
who knoweth all things."
Thus, from the moment those first parents stepped out
of the Garden of Eden, the God and Father of us all,
anticipating Adam and Eve's decision,
dispatched the very angels of heaven to declare to them--and
down through time to us--that the entire sequence was
designed for our eternal happiness.
It was part of His divine plan which
provided for a Savior, the very Son of God Himself,
another "Adam" the Apostle Paul would call Him,
who would come in the meridian of time
to atone for the first Adam's transgression.
That Atonement would achieve complete victory
over physical death, unconditionally granting
resurrection to every person who has been born
or ever will be born into this world.
Mercifully it would also provide forgiveness
for the personal sins of all from Adam
to the end of the world, conditioned
upon repentance and obedience to divine commandments.
As one of His ordained witnesses,
I declare this Easter morning that Jesus of Nazareth
was and is that Savior of the world,
the "last Adam," the Author and Finisher
of our faith, the Alpha and Omega of eternal life.
"For as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive."
And from the Prophet-Patriarch Lehi:
"Adam fell that men might be.
. . .
And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time,
that he may redeem the children of men from the fall."
Most thoroughly of all, the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob taught
as part of a two-day sermon on the Atonement of Jesus Christ
that "the resurrection must . . . come . . .
by reason of the fall."
So today we celebrate the gift of victory over every fall we
have ever experienced, every sorrow we have ever known,
every discouragement we have ever had,
every fear we have ever faced--to say nothing
of resurrection from death and forgiveness for our sins.
That victory is available to us because of events
that transpired on a weekend precisely
like this more than two millennia ago in Jerusalem.
Beginning in the spiritual anguish
of the Garden of Gethsemane, moving to the Crucifixion
on a cross at Calvary, and concluding
on a beautiful Sunday morning inside a donated tomb,
a sinless, pure and holy man, the very Son of God Himself,
did what no other deceased person had ever done
nor ever could do.
Under His own power He rose from death, never
to have His body separated from His spirit again.
Of His own volition He shed the burial linen
with which He had been bound, carefully putting the burial
napkin that had been placed over His face in "a place
by itself," the scripture says.
That first Easter sequence of Atonement and Resurrection
constitutes the most consequential moment,
the most generous gift, the most excruciating pain,
and the most majestic manifestation of pure love
ever to be demonstrated in the history of this world.
Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God,
suffered, died, and rose from death in order
that He could, like the lightning in a summer storm,
grasp us as we fell, held us with His might,
and through our obedience to His commandments,
lift us to eternal life.
This Easter I thank Him and the Father who gave Him
to us that Jesus still stands triumphant over death,
although He stands on wounded feet.
This Easter I thank Him and the Father who gave Him
to us that He still extends unending grace, although He
extends it with pierced palms and scarred wrists.
This Easter I thank Him and the Father who gave Him
to us that we can sing before a sweat-stained garden,
a nail-driven cross, and a gloriously empty tomb:
"How great, how glorious, how complete,
redemption's grand design, where justice,
love, and mercy meet in harmony divine!"
In the sacred name of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ,
amen.