OF OYSTERS AND DIGNITY

I Am the Way by Chris Brazelton

For some reason I became fascinated of late with the saying, “the world is your oyster”. I wondered why people use that saying as something encouraging to propel you forward in your life so I decided to look into the life of an oyster.

The idiom “the world is your oyster” is supposed to mean you have endless freedom, choices, and opportunities to do or go wherever you want in life. It is true that we are free to go anywhere and do anything, however, even though our potential is vast, not all endless possibilities culminate in success.

And here is an interesting analogy. In nature, only about 1 in every 10,000 wild oysters develops a pearl. Pearls form when an irritant like a parasite or a grain of sand enters the shell. The oyster covers the irritant with layers of mother-of-pearl to protect its soft body. In other words, the oyster is stronger than the irritant that comes into its life and it turns that irritant into a magnificent, rare pearl…..it turns its misfortune into a fortune. Honestly, I don’t know who the hero of this situation is, the oyster or the pearl. I’d say the oyster even though the pearl’s value is greater because the oyster is the creator of the pearl. The pearl is the success of the oyster.

Perhaps the oyster teaches us that real beauty cannot be born without the invading forces of opposition. Its resilience in protecting itself must yield beauty of character in the midst of survival. It’s something I am hoping for myself. Like a lot of people, I have had a hard life…..I am in my third major trial. It has been going for two years now. I am struggling with isolation, incapacity, depression and physical pain. Because of it, I have come to view myself in a very lowly way and have looked back on my life as a thing of insignificance. I struggle to put any value to it.

All this has made me reflect on the life of the Saviour and how bleak and unproductive His life seemed to so many when He ended up on the cross. Imagine the Saviour who had just been crucified and suffered an unimaginable death meeting the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who expressed their disappointment that His life did not culminate in redemption of Israel (Luke 24:17,21). They basically said, “we thought this was it”. Never did it occur to them that the Saviour had indeed just redeemed Israel but not in the way they thought.

While the Jews forced the disciples into hiding (John 20:19) and attempted to contain the movement by sealing the tomb (Matthew 27:63-66), Jesus was met with righteous spirits in the spirit world who recognised the triumph of His life and death….”they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand (D&C 138:15). How differently things are viewed from the earthly vantage point to the eternal one!

My lament of late has been the possibility of death devoid of dignity. Here again I have reflected on Christ who was spit upon, rejected, tortured and crucified naked on the side of a highway without any dignity whatsoever. The Romans were brutal with crucifixion seeking not just death but to degrade and humiliate their victims.

I wonder if some oysters think their life has not amounted to much because they never produced a pearl and therefore met with undignified death. I think I’ll focus on the Saviour and the pearl He produced beyond price.

I want to remember the beauty

Of my life like that

Surrendered by the withered rose;

I want to remember all the

moments of my life

Near and far,

I want to take them with me

Like priceless jewels

When I am called to cross the bar.

 

-      Cathryne Allen

AN HIGH PRIEST

 

Jesus of Nazareth by Cynthia Pottorff

“No one’s eyes were more penetrating than His, and much of what He saw pierced His heart. Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want amid despair. To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Indeed, to the layman in the streets of Judea, Christ’s career must have seemed a failure, a tragedy, a good man totally overwhelmed by the evils surrounding Him and the misdeeds of others.

“He was misunderstood or misrepresented, even hated from the beginning. No matter what He said or did, His statements were twisted, His actions suspected, His motives impugned. In the entire history of the world no one has ever loved so purely or served so selflessly – and been treated so diabolically for His effort. Yet nothing could break His faith in His Father’s plan or His Father’s promises. Even in those darkest hours at Gethsemane and Calvary, He pressed on, continuing to trust in the very God whom He momentarily feared had forsaken Him.

“Because Christ’s eyes were unfailingly fixed on the future, He could endure all that was required of Him, suffer as no man can suffer except it be “unto death”, as King Benjamin said, look upon the wreckage of individual lives and the promises of ancient Israel lying in ruins around Him, and still say then and now, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

“How could He do this? How could He believe it? Because He knows that for the faithful, things will be made right soon enough. He is a King; He speaks for the crown; He knows what can be promised. He knows that “the Lord….will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble….For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” He knows that “the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” He knows that “the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.”

-          Jeffrey R. Holland, “An High Priest of Good Things to Come”, GC Oct 1999

 

As Golgotha raged and tore

Your flesh without mercy,

The Garden sprang anew

As from every drop of blood You spilt

New flowers came into bloom.

How pitiful the cross that claimed You

Not knowing it sent a God to a

Darkened tomb!

 

-      CATHRYNE ALLEN 

ODE TO MARY

 

You carried your precious boy

So close to your beating heart,

Hoping it would protect Him

From the fate that would tear you apart.

You stood weeping at the foot of the cross

In the valley of humiliation and death,

Your pain and sorrow unable to suppress.

You are a mother, like no other……

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Pieta by Rose Datoc Dall)

A GOD YET A BOY

 

Elder Bruce R. McConkie has said that “the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus; they are a collection of faith-promoting accounts from the Saviour’s ministry that, if believed, will induce receptive souls to come unto Christ and partake of His goodness” (The Mortal Messiah Book 1, 371).

The story of the boy Jesus attending the Passover in Jerusalem when twelve years of age would have to be proof of that truth. This is the first and only event of His childhood recorded in holy writ; it would have to be counted as an event of His ministry when we consider Him teaching the doctors of the law in the temple (JST Luke 2:46); and it was the first noted declaration of His Sonship when He told Joseph and Mary that He was about His ‘Father’s business’ (Luke 2:49).

President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., the greatest LDS scholar pertaining to the life of Jesus, wrote a small booklet detailing Jesus’ Passover trip to Jerusalem, titled “Wist Ye Not That I Must Be About My Father’s Business”.

In his booklet, President Clark describes in great detail the sacrifices in the temple; of the slaying of the Paschal lamb; of the eating of the Passover meal; of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and of Jesus’ participation in the sacrificial and festive setting of the Passover, probably for the first time in His life.

At twelve years of age, Jesus was legally ‘a son of the law’ and attending the temple at Passover could very well have been His first time to do so as a rite of passage. If so, He could have had His biggest awakening as to His greatness and true identity as He witnessed for the first time the rites and performances of sacrifices and feasts in similitude of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God that He was.

Imagine how dazzled a youth of twelve would be coming to a crowded Jerusalem with throngs of men bearing their pascal lambs on their shoulders for temple sacrifice. We can only imagine what thoughts would have sailed through His mind as He saw the sacrifices performed. He knew who He was, no doubt due to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost who whispered such truths to Him, but did He understand what that really meant at such a tender age?

In the words of President Clark: “Did the Youth see and know, on this pre-anniversary of a day yet to come, the grief He was to suffer, the spiritual and physical agony He was to endure, the death that was to come to Him, as He was sacrificed as the Lamb of God?”

If such a vision came into the mind of any twelve-year old, it would be a nightmare that would drive the fear into him forever. The Youth Jesus did not shirk from such an awakening. Not at twelve years of age, not at thirty-three.

With the knowledge of His divine destiny, ‘the son of the law’ who could now be legally heard, advanced in confidence to converse with the doctors of the law within the courts of the temple, who ‘were hearing Him and asking Him questions’ (JST Luke 2:46)…..because ‘He could not be taught, for He needed not that any man should teach him’ (JST Matthew 3:25).

For three days Jesus remained in the Temple alone, bearing witness of His Father “making some of the most profound declarations ever to fall from mortal lips” (Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah Book 1, p 378). 

Perhaps because now more than ever He knew He was the Lamb of God.

 

Did You see me Father

Giving glory to Thy name?

My words of Thee

Flowing from my tongue

Like a holy flame.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Return From The Temple by Rose Datoc Dal)

THE MORTALITY OF A GOD

 

“Jesus walked the same road from infancy to manhood that has been trod by every adult mortal, from first to last….He learnt to crawl, to walk, to run. He spoke his first word, cut his first tooth, took His first step – the same as other children do.

“He learnt to speak; he played with toys like those of his brothers and sisters; and he played with them and with the neighbourhood children. He went to sleep at night and he awoke with the morning light.

“He was subject to disease and illness on the same basis as we all are. We know he was hungry, weary, and sorrowful; that his eyes wee keen, his ears alert, and his tongue fluent.

“It is also apparent that Jesus learned much from nature – from observing the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, and the foxes that have holes for homes.

“As a man, he felt what other men feel, did what other men do, had the same appetites and passions as others have.

“On Sabbaths and on week days He attended the synagogue, heard the prayers and sermons, the felt the spirit of the occasion. He participated in the regular worship during the feasts, particularly at Passover time.

“He brought with him from that eternal world the talents and capacities, the inclination to conform and obey, and the ability to recognize truth that he had acquired. Jesus, when yet a child, had spiritual talents that no other man in a hundred life-times could obtain.

-        Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah Book 1, 367-9”

Yet even though He was endowed with talents and spiritual capacities exceeding those of any other person, He participated in the normal activities and experiences of His time and was subject to the restrictions and testings of mortality (Hebrews 2:10-18; 4:15; 5:8-9; Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:111).

Such was the life of a God who became a mortal…..

What faith You had

In those who held You

by Your mortal hand;

How loyal to their charge

Were they who sustained You

When it all began.

How tender their heart

To see the Hope of Israel

And recognize The Great I am.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Child of Grace by Liz Lemon Swindle) 

THE GRANDEUR OF OUR GOD

 

 

I began to read The Mortal Messiah series again and could not get past the preface. I became so emotionally overcome that I could not read any further.

Many of us think that we are studying the life of Christ when we study the New Testament. This is far from the truth. The Gospels are not biographies of Jesus but a synopsis of faith promoting accounts from the Saviour’s ministry.

“No mortal can write the biography of a God. A biography is but the projection through the eyes of a penman of what the writer believes were the acts and what he feels were the thoughts and emotions of another man…. How, then, can any mortal plumb the depths of the feelings, or understand in full the doings, of an Eternal Being?

“The true Life of Jesus must be written by the spirit of revelation and of prophecy and cannot come forth until that millennial day when men have a perfect knowledge that God can show them all things [see D&C 101:32-34]. Only then will they be able to believe and rejoice in the heavenly account.”

-        (Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah Book 1, p xvi [1979].

Even the faith promoting accounts do not contain all the words and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Elder McConkie goes on to say that so sacred and holy were Christ’s teachings that only a selection of them were preserved for ‘presentation to the unbelieving and skeptical masses of men into whose hands the New Testament would come’ (ibid).

We do not fully know or understand the lonely road He travelled here. We do not fully understand the condescension of a God who stepped down from His gilded throne to traverse the dusty roads of Galilee.

 I am always touched when I see the humanity in Him through scripture….the hunger when He reached for the figs on the barren fig tree, the physical exhaustion that made Him sleep through a violent storm on the sea of Galilee. How did He cope with such overwhelming humility that kept at bay His godship and divinity?

And then the ultimate subjection to become a man whose ‘visage was so marred more than any man’ by being willingly lifted upon the cross of Calvary, allowing the nails to be driven into His hands and feet and His body to be broken to ensure our eternal destiny (Isaiah 52:14; John 19:17-18,32-34; see Old Institute Manual commentary for Isaiah 52:13-15). A God in a mangled body…..Could any of us possibly understand this?

This was the man from Nazareth, who sailed on the seas of Galilee and ascended to His exalted throne in glory and majesty. This was Christ the King, the eternal God of heaven and earth, the Son of God, the Saviour of my soul. I stand all amazed.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

 

 

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?

 

“From the perspective of man, the gospel is a better way of life. It is life bursting forth in a wilderness of darkness. It is faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is signs, gifts and miracles. It is persecution and suffering and trials. It is learning to live as becometh a saint. It is overcoming the world until, eventually, in glorious immortality, the true saints dwell with Him who is their Friend and into whose image they have been molded.

 

“From the perspective of him who is our Redeemer, the gospel is the atoning sacrifice which puts into full operation and makes binding and efficacious all that the Father has prepared for them that love Him. It is our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, his childhood in Nazareth,  his ministry in Judea and Perea. It is the miracles he wrought, the works he did, the laws he made known. It is the Garden of Gethsemane and the hill of Calvary. It is great drops of blood dripping from every pore, as he took upon himself the sins of the world. It is a Roman spear piercing a sinless side. It is an open tomb outside a city wall. It is all power given him in heaven and on earth. It is immortality as a free gift for all and eternal life for the faithful. 

 

“The gospel is all this and ten thousand times ten thousand things more. But all that it is, all that it has ever been, all that it shall ever be, all that appertains to it, centers in Him of whom the prophets testify….” 

(Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah, p 52-3)

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN

DIVINE PREPARATION

 

Never before have I considered how emotionally and spiritually charged was the preparation for the Saviour’s birth that involved four people: Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph. I marvel at the sacrifices these four people made to ensure the success of Christ’s mission on earth. 

 

Consider Zacharias and Elizabeth, both descendants of the priestly line of Aaron, ‘both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless’ (Luke 1:2), well stricken in age, denied children, until the fateful day when Zacharias was performing his priestly duties in the temple. As he burnt incense at the holy altar to importune God to hear the prayers of the multitude outside who prayed for deliverance from oppression and sin, glorious Gabriel came and announced the birth of John who would pave the way for the promised Messiah (Luke 1:8-11). Now consider two elderly parents protecting the life of their long awaited son from Herod’s murderous edict, raising him in the desert  on locusts and honey (Matthew 3:4). Zacharias paid dearly for preserving this  child of promise, being slain between the temple and the altar as he performed his priestly duties (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51).  

 

Now consider Joseph and Mary, first cousins and both descendants of mighty King David. Mary, just 15 years of age, the most pure and fair of all God’s daughters, inexperienced in meeting the trials of life, under contract to marry, accepts a pregnancy that would shame her among her fellowmen, well aware that it would quality her for death penalty. Who would believe her strange tale that an angel came to her or that she carried in her womb the son of God? One person would….Elizabeth! She, being filled with the Holy Ghost would validate Gabriel’s visit and Mary’s sacred mission as the mother of the Son of God (Luke 1:42-45).

 

And Joseph? He who had grown up with Mary and knew the nobility of her character, how he must have suffered and struggled to accept that she was with child by some other man. But Joseph was of noble character too and he believed what he was told in a dream and accepted his role in the life of the promised Messiah. What an incredible man and protector of Christ child and a noble servant of God he was. 

 

How grateful I am to these four people who prepared the way for the Saviour to be born so He could atone for my sins. My heart aches at the thought of His difficult mortal life but rejoices in the glory that is His now and forever. 

 

 

- Cathryne Allen

(ART by Liz Lemon Swindle)

THE CRUCIBLE OF HIS LIFE

 

 

As Easter approaches and many of us are struggling with ever increasing hardships, may we reflect on all that the Saviour suffered in HIS hard life:

• Members of His family did not at first accept Him as the Messiah (John 7:5);
• People in His home town sought to kill Him (Luke 4:16-30);
• His countrymen rejected His Messianic calling (John 1:11);
• One friend betrayed Him, another denied knowing Him (Luke 22:48, 54-62);
• In the end all His disciples forsook Him and fled (Matthew 25:56);
• His enemies demanded His crucifixion (Matthew 27:22-23)

We all know how the story ended.....the climax of His life, the crucible of Gethsemane and Calvary.....surely He who has 'borne our griefs and carried our sorrows' (Isaiah 53:4) has the ability to empower us to weather our storms and bear us up to endure the vicissitudes of life in these the last days.....

 

Be strong no matter what happens and believe……

 

I was tempted my problems

To lay to Your charge,

I considered them acutely unfair;

Then You opened my heart

And showed me Your godly task

Beyond human capacity to bear.

Knowing where you had gone

I would never need to go,

I sorrowed and sought my arrogance to bury;

In humility I assent ,

Your mortal burden:

So valiant, so holy

I would never in this life have to carry.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Jon McNaughton)