THE MESSIANIC HOPE

 

Behold the Man by Simon Dewey 

The messianic hope is the expectation of an Anointed Deliverer that has its roots in pre-mortal life and that was prophesied about extensively in the scriptures (Abraham 3:27; Moses 4:1,2).

The English word Messiah comes from the Hebrew Meshiach, meaning ‘anointed’. The Greek equivalent is Christos. The Hebrew word Yeshua (Jesus in Greek) means ‘Saviour’ or ‘deliverer’. The two words combined denote one anointed of God to save or deliver His people.

The Old Testament prophets prophesied of the Messiah in incredible detail. The prophecies tell of him being born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14); that He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); that He would be raised a  prophet like unto Moses (Deut 18:15); that  He would be of the lineage of David (Genesis 49:10; Jeremiah 23:5-6) and that He would have the government upon his shoulder (Isaiah 9:6,7).

The New Testament prophecies revealed the life and mission of the Messiah in detail. The writers of the four Gospels especially pointed out how Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies that referred to the coming Messiah, the references of which are too extensive to record here.

The most well known messianic prophecy belongs to Isaiah who spoke of Him dualistically. Isaiah 53 describes the role of Christ as a ‘suffering servant’, ‘a man of sorrows’, one who stands ‘as a sheep before her shearers’, one who takes our transgressions upon Himself. The other picture of the Messiah is that of the “King of Glory” contained in Isaiah 9, which paints a picture of deliverance, political power, and the destruction of the enemies of Israel. They speak of two time periods which the Jewish population of Christ’s time either did not understand or they chose to ignore. The ‘suffering servant’ was a reference to Messiah’s first advent when  He would deliver His people spiritually and the King of Glory who would be sitting on the throne of David and have the government upon His shoulder refers to the Millenial reign.

The Jews of Christ’s first advent recognized that Jesus was from the lineage of David  but when He refused to take up the sword against Rome and take upon himself the government of their nation, His crucifixion was seen by the majority as a proof that He could not have been the promised deliverer. Remember the mocking: “He saved others, himself he cannot save. Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.” ( Mark 15:31, 32).

This is where the Jewish nation went wrong in their expectation of the Messiah:

From the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70….the Palestinian remnant of Israel was subjected to the rule of many great powers: the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids, and finally the Romans.

During this great period of bondage to different powers, the Jewish people came to see the Messiah not as one who would provide Atonement for their sins but one who would deliver them from their enemies by physical force. They wanted freedom from people who ruled them.

And so the Jews looked beyond the mark which was Christ (Jacob 4:14) and crucified their God. When He did not come in a manner that they anticipated, they looked beyond Him for another who should come…..and they wait still.

Oh that I were an angel and could have the wish of mine heart!!!! I would shout from the rooftops to unbelieving Israel: your King will come!!!!

“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle….then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations….and his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives…and one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” (Zechariah 13:6; 14:1-4)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE PLAN

 

The Great Creator by Gabriel Heaton

“As Neal A. Maxwell has said, we rightly praise God when requested blessings are received, “but transcending all such praise should be our everlasting praise to God for His plan of happiness – for making us the very center of His work and purposes! (A Wonderful Flood of Light, p 59). Though we are here in mortality, separated from God by the veil, his “work and his glory” are to bring to pass our “immortality and eternal life” (Moses 1:39).

“While many people will live their mortal existence without even knowing of the plan, it is incumbent upon those who are members of the restored Church to have a deep and appropriate understanding of the plan. We cannot live our lives as “perpetual youth” with only a shallow knowledge of the work that God is preparing for us.

“When David O. McKay was only 13 years of age, John Smith, the Patriarch to the Church, stopped at the home of Bishop David McKay to give blessings to the children. The patriarch laid his hands on this young boy’s head and pronounced a powerful blessing, part of which included these words:

“The Lord has a work for thee to do, in which thou shalt see much of the world, assist in gathering scattered Israel, and also labour in the ministry. It shall be thy lot to sit in council with thy brethren and preside among the people and exhort the Saints to faithfulness.”

“After completing the blessing, the patriarch gave David O. a serious look and said, “My boy, you have something to do besides playing marbles.” Later the boy found his mother getting dinner ready and said, “If he thinks I am going to stop laying marbles, he is mistaken.” The mother then took her son aside and told him the meaning of the patriarch’s words. (Inspirational Stories From the Life of President David O. McKay, p 769)

“Each of us must understand theologically that we have more to do than “play marbles”, not only here in mortality but especially in the worlds to come. Each of us must know that our theology is more fundamentally encompassing than just a principle about tea and coffee. We are the children of God. He has a plan of happiness filled with powers, principles, and doctrines that are wonderfully promissory.”

-          Jerry A. Wilson, The Great Plan of Happiness, Insights from the Lectures on Faith,p 4

 

When in the realms of heaven

You created all the worlds that be,

You created with godly care

A divine plan for me.

 

Did you gaze long and hard into eternity

To see the path I would willingly follow

To find Your love waiting for me

In my every tomorrow?

 

Each step I took brought me closer

To where I needed to be,

Each mountain You gave me to climb

Grew easier because You carried me.

 

Your mercy, Your love, Your infinite care,

It all spoke to me that You were always there.

It helped me follow to do my part

And seal You forever in the depths my heart.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

HIS LOVE

 

Love's Pure Light by Simon Dewey

Your love, O Your love!

Like a soothing balm

From gilded courts on high;

It flows, and it calms,

It seeks and it finds the troubled mind.

 

It gathers and it lifts the sorrowing,

the lame, the weak;

Ever and ever Your mercy divine

Looks for those who achingly weep.

 

-       CATHRYNE ALLEN 

HUMILITY

 

My Solace by LDS Bookstore

To be sick and incapacitated turns even the smallest tasks into mountains. Seeing mountains before you all the time, makes you feel very small. It’s a place of powerlessness, a place of vulnerability and a place I didn’t expect, that of humility.

By being dependent on others shows you what you cannot otherwise see – your sense of self-importance. It brings you closer to the understanding that you are not as powerful as you thought you were and that you cannot survive and rise to higher ground on your own merit. In a world of ego that we live in, the lessons that lead to humility are imperative.

Herein is the necessity for humility….. Mortality is a state of weakness which we cannot rise above on our own. The good news is that a path has been provided to a power that can lift us. That path leads to Calvary and is laced with humility.

You might say the Saviour experienced mortal life at ‘ground zero’. And in doing so he ‘descended below all things that he might comprehend all things’: our difficulties, our sorrows, our sins, our imperfections, our sufferings, our inabilities, our mortal weakness (D&C 88:6; 62:1). He descended below all things that He might know the state of weakness of mortal life.

Imagine a God leaving His exalted throne and all that comes with it, to be rejected, spat upon, scourged, reviled and crucified. Imagine the humility it would take to subject yourself to all that, despite the power within your grasp....and all this for the sake of someone else and not yourself. Does it not make you wonder about your self-worth? Embrace the beating of your cherished heart, you were worth it.

I have been keeping a list of the Saviour’s characteristics for many years. So far I have 18. One year I noticed a scripture that stunned me and opened my eyes to the Saviour’s humility:

“Therefore, I command you to build a house unto me, for the gathering together of my saints, that they may WORSHIP ME” (D&C 115:8). Can you imagine the amount of humility it would take for a God totally devoid of pride to say such a thing? It would have to be someone who knows perfectly well who he is, is confident in that knowledge and most of all, has a purity of spirit and heart. Compare this to Lucifer’s desire to be worshipped (Moses 4:1-4; 1:16-19).

It amazes me that someone so powerful who calls himself ‘the king of heaven’ (2 N 10:14), who can create worlds and annihilate them by the power of His word can also be so humble (Helaman 12:9-17; D&C 63:4; Isaiah 11:4). This is the perfection of God, the balance is indisputable.

My mountains have shown me that I can do nothing of myself to rise to the summit but herein lies my hope:

“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” (Ether 12:27)

Note that ‘weakness’ at the beginning of this scripture refers to the state of mortality. The ‘weak things’ mentioned at the end of the scripture refers to our individual ‘weaknesses’.

Whether the mountains will be removed or I will be carried to the summit, I know not. I only know that the Saviour of my soul has the power to do both.

O the pain that seared Your heart

As You encountered human misery

On the dusty roads of Galilee!

You embraced it all so lovingly

And took it with You to the hill of Calvary.

You, who ached for our misery,

Became the beacon of hope

For all who accept Your suffering.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE HOUR OF AGONY

 

Offering Up Our Brokeness by Mindi Oaten

You opened my heart

And searched for what

You there did not see;

My feeble faith and lack of trust

Stood in contrast to your will for me.

You sorrowed at the tears I shed

With every step I was led to take

To find You in my hour of agony.

How patiently You stood waiting

With open arms hoping I would come to Thee;

How patiently You hoped

I would give You all that was lacking in me.

- Cathryne Allen 

THE STRENGTH OF FAITH

 

Stop Doubting and Believe by Mindi Oaten

True faith can never show its strength in the absence of resistance. Resistance comes when nothing is going right, when your pain is at its highest level, when fulfilment of God’s promises is slow in coming, when your friends sew doubts in your mind, when God seems far away and you feel abandoned…..

Resistance comes when your trust in God needs to be tested. I discovered that you can have faith in God and His existence and even in a multitude of proofs of His love but you can still waver in your trust of Him. For fifty years since I joined the Church, I thrived in my faith in God  and then my health was taken away and the real test came. The resistance manifested itself through trust. I had to ask myself many times if I trusted in everything I believed about Him.

In Lecture 3 of Lectures On Faith, Joseph Smith said that “three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation”: 1. The idea that He actually exists; 2. A correct idea of His character, perfections, and attributes; and 3. An actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to His will.

Some years ago I decided to follow up on this advice and studied the Book of Mormon that year looking for the Saviour’s attributes and traits within its pages. I wanted to know Him. I wrote what I came across in the margins of the book. When I had finished I flicked through the book and I found two particular attributes on just about every page. They told me that the Saviour was merciful and that He always fulfils His promises.

Trusting the mercy has been an easy one but fulfilment of promises is much harder, for two reasons…..1. we do not know HOW  He will fulfil His promise as our ways are not God’s ways (Isaiah 55:8) and 2. We do not know WHEN the fulfilment will come as the Lord works on a different time schedule for ‘all is as one day with God and time only is measured unto men’ (Alma 40:8).

When the promised something is not happening, especially when you are in dire need, the resistance steps in whispering doubts. I have been there, I know. Instead of stepping up my faith in the face of resistance, my faith has wavered through questions such as: do I really know Him? Do I really trust Him? Does He really love me? Does he want the best for me? Well, yes that last one could go either way. He always wants the best for you and you might not know how that best is going to play out in the fulfilment of his promise. Another consideration is that His priority is our eternal ‘best’ opposed to the ‘best’ here and now.

I have a testimony that the strength of our faith indeed brings about rewards from heaven. When I was going through my divorce some years ago, I was in terrible emotional pain. It felt like it was going to rip my chest open. That was the time I delved into the scriptures and studied about the Atonement because I was convinced that only God could take that pain away.

For weeks I prayed ‘through my faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Atonement’ for a healing of my broken heart. Every time I experienced a wave of pain throughout the day, I would utter the same prayer calling upon the power of the Atonement to heal me. Never once did I think it could not happen or that it would not happen. My faith was infallible despite the unrelenting pain.  I persisted and persisted and after some weeks the pain was gone. All my negative emotions towards my ex-husband disappeared and I was able to embrace him and his new life and move on with mine.

Some years ago I was going through a difficult time and as I was studying the scriptures one day, looking for answers, into my mind came a voice which said: “You were fearless in your pre-mortality.”  I was rather stunned and answered: “It was easy then. Here it is harder because I have to walk by faith.” The voice came back: “Nevertheless, this is what is needful. This is why you are here. You cannot become gods without faith which creates reality.”

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE GATE KEEPER

 

Clouds of Glory by Greg Sargent

“If there is an imagery upon which I would focus, it is two scriptures from the Book of Mormon. The one in which we are reminded that Jesus himself is the gate keeper and that ‘he employeth no servant there’ (2 Nephi 9:41).

“I will tell you….out of the conviction of my soul….what I think the major reason is (why he ‘employeth no servant there’), as contained in another Book of Mormon scripture which says He waits for you ‘with open arms’ (Mormon 6:17). That’s why He’s there!

“He waits for you with open arms. That imagery is too powerful to brush aside….It is imagery that should work itself into the very center core of one’s mind – a rendezvous impending, a moment in time and space, the likes of which there is none other. And that rendezvous is a reality. I certify that to you. He does wait for us with open arms, because His love for us is perfect.”

-          Neal A. Maxwell, But A Few Days, p 7

 

I have no life but this,

To know the scope of You.

I have no wish but this,

To feel that You want this too.

I have no life but this,

To know Thy approving glance;

To kneel at Thy feet,

To know there is a chance.

I have no life but this

To follow the path to Thy throne

To be greeted with a holy kiss,

And know the reality of such bliss.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN