A PROMISED LAND

 

I have always had the Brother of Jared on a pedestal because of his perfect faith that rent the veil and revealed the Saviour standing before him. This faith has been the identifier we use in the Church for this man but I am fascinated with a couple of things that occurred prior to this event.

The Brother of Jared was ‘highly favoured of the Lord’ and his mighty and frequent prayers were ‘cries’ unto God to separate him and his company of family and friends from the situation of the Tower of Babel (Ether 1:34; 43). The Lord obliged and promised to lead them to ‘the choice land above all other lands’ (Ether 1:42; 2:13).  

The company travelled in the wilderness and crossed many waters in the barges they had made and were constantly led by God (Ether 2:5,6). And this is the puzzling thing. When they arrived to the coast, they pitched their tents and settled there for four whole years! (2:13). Were they tired of all the travel? Did they survey the area and thought, ‘this is good enough’, we’ll stay here? Did they get too comfortable in having been removed from the situation they tried to evade and accepted the coast as their promised land?

I rather suspect it was this. The Brother of Jared did something uncharacteristic when they arrived there. He stopped praying….and so the guidance to keep going stopped too.  Did he think it was no longer necessary? When the Lord came to him after four years, He ‘stood in a cloud and talked with him and chastened him for the space of three hours ‘because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord’ (2:14). Obviously, it was very much necessary.

Can we relate this to us? Often we settle for something that is ‘good enough’ when in reality God has something so much better for us. We take the reins of our lives and think we don’t need to be guided so much so we stop turning to God.  I know many people who are very grateful to be on this earth and don’t want to go further because there is much to be liked and enjoyed here. The promise of eternal life seems just too costly and far away.

People of the world fear death and view it as something dark and terrible. I know someone who is 101 years old and has a 10 year plan. He is determined not to die. The world is invested in anti-aging and longevity. This earth however, is our coast, and the promised land is waiting. There is more, so much more, if we are brave enough to cross the great waters to enter ‘the choice land above all other lands’.

Let’s not settle and become too comfortable. The Brother of Jared didn’t. He repented and the next step of the journey surpassed all his expectations. The heavens parted, he saw the premortal Christ and he stepped through the veil to see the mysteries of eternity (Ether 3:18,20).

This brings me to more food for thought. The Lord solved the problem of needed air in the barges but he asked the Brother of Jared to solve the problem of needed light (Ether 2:25). I don’t know why this man thought of the stones which could be illuminated. There are a number of Jewish sources that say that God had Noah suspend precious stones or pearls inside the ark to lighten it (Tvedtnes, John A., “Ancient Texts in Support of the Book of Mormon”). Perhaps the Brother of Jared had heard about this and reasoned he should do the same.

The important thing here is that the Lord asked him to think deeply and see the possibilities beyond the obvious which require faith to be brought into reality. Following the illumination of the stones came the greatest spiritual illumination known to man (Ether 4:4). So great were the things that the Brother of Jared was permitted to see, that he was forbidden to tell no man (Ether 3:21).

This knowledge remains hidden from the world to this day in the sealed portion of the gold plates to be revealed when we, the Gentiles ‘become clean before the Lord’ and exercise faith in Him as the Brother of Jared did (Ether 4:6,7). This knowledge of eternity is more valuable than the promised land of America the Jaredites arrived at. This knowledge is a glimpse into our eternal home. This is the real promised land.

“Come unto me, O ye house of Israel, and it shall be made manifest unto you how great things the Father hath laid up for you, from the foundation of the world……” (Ether 4:15)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Worlds by Greg Olsen)