(Here is yet another letter, written over a year ago, to the same friend/mentor. I post it here for my convenience. I tell him about having taught Elder's Quorum that day, and an additional symbolic meaning of baptism that had recently come to my attention—it symbolizes our trajectory through eternity, the plan of salvation. Additional thoughts added today are in brackets.)
As promised, here is the essence of my Elder's Quorum lesson:
I
have only physically baptized one person in my entire life. She was a
wealthy woman who felt an emptiness in her life, and had found the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to fill the emptiness. She
told her online friends that she was "doing the Mormon thing."
My
mission companion and I had been told that showing the baptismal font
to the prospective convert was a good idea, so we took her to the part
of the stake center where the font was housed.
As I parted the
curtain that separated the font from the rest of the room, the lady I
was going to baptize in it looked in over my shoulder. There was a
spider crawling in it. A precocious young man darted in front of me, saw
the spider, and declared, "Unholy water!" He left as quickly as he had
arrived.
Our
investigator expressed her apprehension at the thought of submitting to
baptism. When we asked her what the source of her misgivings was, she
declared that it was scary that "you drown people."
I grew up in
the Church, had been baptized at eight years of age, and took the
ordinance for granted—"I can't wait until I'm eight/for then I'll be
baptized you see" goes the primary song. But to an objective observer,
the idea of being immersed backwards in water seemed scary. It had never
occurred to me that there is a risk involved in baptism. Being dipped
backwards in water is a very compromising position. If the baptizer
chose to, he could hold you under water and drown you.
After she
was baptized, the lady we were teaching had a message for me to deliver
to someone else, with me as her representative. As far as my ability to
deliver a message on her behalf, she was not concerned. "I trust you,"
she said. That vote of confidence touched me,
but only later did I see the connection to baptism. If you are being
dipped backwards under water, you must have implicit trust in the one
performing the ordinance.
Birth, bath, burial and resurrection,
are all legitimate interpretations of the symbolism you can derive from
baptism. There is another, broader meaning to the ordinance, one that
recently came to my attention.
Baptism means to dunk, or immerse,
but art and film depictions of the ordinance do not portray that small
moment when the person being baptized is under the water. What is
happening under there? The person being baptized and the one performing
the ordinance stand together in the water, equals seeing the same light,
hearing and smelling and breathing from the same air. But once below
the surface, the one receiving the ordinance cannot breath. Hearing is
distorted, smell and taste are impossible, touch is limited to the
generic sensation of cool wetness, and sight is
obscured at best, or absent when eyes shut in response to the water.
All five senses are muffled and diminished in their effectiveness. Even
our sense of up and down is confounded.
The words of the
ordinance begin by naming the person to be baptized, but they also
explain who the baptizer represents: "...in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost..." The entire Godhead is represented
by one person.
Where did we begin, before the creation? We were
in the presence of God. We enjoyed his light, his love, and our Elder
Brother, Jesus Christ, was also there. Our perspective was from the top
of a mountain which we had spent countless eons climbing, "receiving our
first lessons" and subsequent ones from all-knowing Parents. (Can you
imagine living with almighty, all-knowing beings and having less than a
college education in philosophy and the sciences? I cannot. [I imagine the smartest mortal being a mental pygmy in comparison to anyone who had lived in the presence of God for millenia.])
Then
a plan was presented, and it was so intimidating
that one third of us opted not to go with it. What was the threat?
Spiritual death—falling from our exalted stations, leaving God's
presence and losing our memory of Him behind a veil—and physical death,
losing our bodies immediately after we had acquired them. How did we
have the courage to face these immense obstacles?
Rev. 12:11
"And they (we) overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the
death."
We had courage to face the enormous risks of this mortal
experience because we trusted Jesus' commitment to be our Savior, our
Rescuer. "Here am I; send me." He agreed to get us out of this dark and
dreary existence in one piece. Yes, we agreed to descend into the
murkiness of life, but in the eternal scheme, it was only a brief blink
of an eye: "Thine adversity and thine affliction
shall be but as small moment."
The Atonement is the way God
holds onto us, binds us to Him. Jesus holds on to us; He is bound to our
Father; they will get us out of this, and send the Spirit to guide us
as their personal representative. Together they will get us back up to
where we started, resurrected, reunited, At-One with our Heavenly
Parents again.
But our participation is also required. God holds onto us, but we must also hold onto Him. How?
Adam
was taught by messengers how to get back to the presence of God: Faith
in Jesus Christ (this engenders hope, charity, and general good works);
Repentance (stop doing bad, start doing good); Baptism (immersion in
water as a sign of covenant to always do the will of God and remember
His Son); and the baptism of the Holy Ghost (actively receiving and
following Him back into the presence of God). These principles
constitute the way in which we reach for and grasp God's redemptive
hand.
They allow us to access the justifying, sanctifying, purifying power of
the Atonement.
The ordinance of baptism symbolically
encapsulates the plan of salvation. We begin in the presence of God,
submit to His will and trust Him to get us out of this mess, and
hopefully reemerge with rejoicing, and warm embraces with those we
previously left before we started a new phase of existence. And there is
a spider lurking down here, but we need not fear, if we hold on to God.
He will bring us up again.
Are there any mysteries beyond the
first principles and ordinances of the Gospel? Yes, but if you review
the scriptures and other ordinances, you begin to understand that 1. The
"mysteries" are rearrangements of these original principles and
ordinances, and 2. Your introduction into these mysteries depends on how
successfully you live and apply them.
(That is the essence of my lesson to the Elder's quorum today; the following are supplemental
insights and quotations.)
Alma 26:22 "Yea, he that repenteth and
exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth
continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries
of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never
have been revealed..."
1Ne. 10:18 and 19 "if it so be that they
repent and come unto him....the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto
them, by the power of the Holy Ghost..." Our application of the simple
principles qualifies us to enjoy deeper insights and knowledge, which
the Lord is eager to bless us with (D&C 121:33).
Just as fire
is not always destructive, darkness is not always evil [at least, not without good uses]. The Jews were
descended from slaves who probably welcomed sundown as a relief from the
burdens of the day, a chance to interact with family. The Jewish
Sabbath begins on Friday night, at sundown. Night was more sacred than
day in Jewish tradition; the sun obscures the sky and
directs our eyes to the mundane temporal tasks, while the night unveils
the wonders of eternity to the eye and the mind. The sun points our
eyes downward, while its absence allows us to look up into infinite
wonders.
The old Temple is constructed to reflect this. The
outward ordinances of sacrifice were performed by Aaronic Priests, but
the Holy of Holies was hidden from all but the Melchizedek priesthood. 2
Chronicles 6: 1, 2 "The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness....But
I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy
dwelling for ever." The Holy of Holies was completely dark, separated
from all outward sources of light. When the high priest entered on the
Day of Atonement, the light of the Lord's presence would illuminate the
dark room as they conversed.
A pioneer who experienced
immense hardship as a member of the Martin and Willie handcart
companies said, "We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many
died of exposure
and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a
word of criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or left the
Church because every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge
that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities."
The darkest times are the moments when Jesus arrives in person.
Mosiah
24:13, 14 "And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them
in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good
comfort... I will...ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders,
that even you cannot feel them upon your backs...and this will I do
that...ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people
in their afflictions."
In a quiet moment, a group asked Brigham Young, “President
Young, why is it that the Lord is not always at our side promoting
universal happiness and seeing to it that the needs of people are met,
caring especially for His Saints? Why is it so difficult at times?” His response was instructive:
“Because man is destined to be a God, and he must be
able to demonstrate that he is for God and to develop his own resources
so that he can act independently and yet humbly.” Then he added, “It is
the way it is because we must learn to be righteous in the dark.”
(Brigham Young’s Office Journal, 28 January 1857; emphasis added.)
In
this small moment of submersion and darkness, we can still find the
Light of the world, and he is with us, holding our hand to bring us back
up again.
That's the guts of what I shared with you, and my
Elder's quorum today, and I hope you keep sharing those simple
principles with us in your class.
