HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL

We are coming to an event in Book of Mormon history that everyone who has ever read the book will remember: the conversion of Alma the Younger. I was watching Tyler and Taylor on Book of Mormon Central.

Book of Mormon Central


They introduced these chapters from Mosiah by quoting a nursery rhyme: Humpty Dumpty.  You recall:

HUMPTY DUMPTY

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

What a mess! If you've ever dropped an egg on the floor, you know that it seems pretty irretrievable. All you can do is clean it off the floor (a challenge in itself) and chalk it up as lost.

How many people feel like this broken egg? How many have chalked themselves up as lost? How many have avoided even trying to clean themselves up because they feel they are an irretrievable mess?

Far too many.

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again - 

But then Tyler added an addendum:

But the King could. And the King would. And the King did.

After everyone in Zarahemla took upon themselves the name Nephite, they accepter Mosiah as their king and Alma as the prophet of the Church.  It was the first time the Church was seen as an organized entity, with seven branches meeting in different places but teaching the same gospel truths.  

As time went on, there arose dissenters in the Church who did not accept Alma's teachings (and often, not Mosiah's laws.) They led many away from the Church and huge problems arose as a result of their immoral and often illegal behaviors.  Alma found himself in the role of Judge in Israel and it was difficult for him.  If the person broke a temporal law, he was sent to the King for adjudication, but if he broke a moral law, the King sent him back to Alma.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the most destructive of these dissenters was Alma's own son, called Alma the Younger. His four best friends and partners in disruption were the four sons of King Mosiah, Aaron, Ammon, Omner and Himni.  They were all broken eggs.  All had fallen and had fallen far and hard.  And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put these five back together again.  Even the Prophet was helpless before this challenge.  The good news is that in wisdom, this Prophet and many of his people fasted and prayed that God would somehow wake them up to the awfulness of their situation.  He knew that only God could put them back together again.

© May 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson