FROM SACRIFICE TO SACRAMENT

The Hebrews were commanded to remember how the Lord God Jehovah delivered them from bondage in Egypt.  The Laws of Sacrifice and Obedience were reintroduced.  Because Israel had been slaves of a polytheistic people, they no longer knew the one true God.  But they had been asked to remember and remember they did.  Even today, those of Jewish ancestry celebrate the Passover, just as they did in Moses' day and Jesus Christ's day.  The last supper was the Feast of the Passover, or Seder.  

Traditional foods are served and rituals observed which help them remember the goodness of Jehovah.  Roasted lamb is served in remembrance of the sacrificial lambs of the Law. The bread is unleavened to remind them of the haste with which they had to leave Egypt.  Bitter herbs are served as a reminder of the bitter hardships they faced for forty years in the wilderness.  The red wine represented blood of the lamb on the doorposts and lintels.  The wine was lightly fermented so that it had a low alcohol content.

The Lord gave Moses and Aaron this commandment.  We read in Exodus 12: And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs shall they eat it. (v 8) And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. (v 12 emphasis added)

The Feast of the Passover was, therefore, not just a meal, but a meal that was symbolic, one that was an ordinance before God.  Jesus celebrated this Feast with his Apostles in the upper room. He took the emblems of the Seder and made them the emblems and tokens of His new Covenant with Israel.  While I'm sure they ate lamb, there was no lamb in Jesus' new covenant because He Himself was the Lamb. 

He took the unleavened bread, broke it and blessed it.  He told His apostles This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. No longer would the bread be in remembrance of the haste in God delivering them from Egypt; from then on, it would be in remembrance of His sacrifice of the great and infinite atonement.

He then took the wine and blessed it and said: This cup is the new testament (Covenant) in my blood, which is shed for you. The wine represented His blood shed for us, no longer in anticipation of an event yet to come, but in an unbelievable sacrifice that has occurred and whose saving reach is, in fact, infinite.

During the traditional Seder in a Jewish home today, the youngest child in the family is to ask the presiding priesthood holder: WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM  OTHER NIGHTS?  It is an invitation for the sage to teach his family about God and the miracle of the night that the destroying angel passed over the Children of Israel and did not slay them.  They remember the Exodus.

We as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remember each week when we partake of the Sacrament.  I am so grateful to have two worthy Priesthood holders in my family who can prepare, administer, and pass the sacrament to me and my family.  These are precious moments.  We remember the Atonement. 

Jesus Christ is at the center of both.

© April 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

This Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy Week leading to the triumphant resurrection on Easter morn. Beginning on Sunday, I will indicate the things that happened during the last week of the Savior's life. 

Somewhere just before Sunday, Jesus brought Lazarus back to life in Bethany.  It has always touched my heart that even though Jesus knew that Lazarus would live, he was so empathic to the suffering of His friends, Mary and Martha, that when they wept, Jesus wept. (Gospel of John)

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PASSOVER

The Lord God made His Covenant with Abram, that through his seed, all the earth would be blessed. He gave him a new name: Abraham. God renewed His Covenant with Abraham's son, Isaac. Isaac's son, Jacob, wrestled with God all night (much as Enos would do) and finally, Jacob received a reaffirmation of the Covenant which God made with His grandfather and father.  God also changed Jacob's name: Israel.

Fast forward to Israel's twelve sons.  Because of a famine, the family emigrated to Egypt, where Israel's eleventh son, Joseph, had been sold. The Covenant family was saved, and in the early days they prospered and multiplied.  Eventually, a new pharaoh came to power.  He didn't know Joseph and he was afraid of the multitude that was Israel now living on the eastern edge of his kingdom in Goshen.  Israel was enslaved. A later pharaoh heard rumors that Israel's God would send a deliverer to free them.  In a desperate measure to forestall that, pharaoh issued a decree that all male Hebrew children should be slain at birth.

But the Hebrew midwives feared God more than Pharaoh and kept some of the babies alive. One such baby was born to Jochebed  of the tribe of Levi. She and her husband hid the baby as long as they could, but finally Jochebed placed her baby in a watertight basket and set him adrift on the Nile, praying that God would direct him to safety.  He was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, who named him Moses and raised him as a prince. 

Whew! Long story short (too late!), Moses returned to Egypt, having been called by I AM (Jehovah) to free the Children of Israel. Pharaoh hardened his heart to the plea, "Let my people go," and God sent nine plagues upon Egypt,  hoping to get Pharaoh's attention. (Sound familiar yet?) But Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let Israel go. It took the tenth and final plague, the most chilling of all: the first born of every family in Egypt would die in one night.

The Great God Jehovah gave to Moses a way that the first born of Israel should be saved.  The people were to sacrifice a lamb and paint the door posts and lintels of their home with its blood.  The blood of the lamb was a signal to the destroying angels to pass over that home and not take the lives of the first born.

This brings us back to the Covenant.  Remember when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son?  On the way to the mount, Isaac asked his father, "Where is the lamb?" and Abraham said, "God will Himself provide the lamb."

God did provide Himself a Lamb.  He provided Himself to be the propitiator for our sins and fallen state. Saved by the Blood of the Lamb: The Lamb Slain from the Foundation of the World (Revelation 13:8.)  The Lamb of God (1 Nephi 11: 21.)  Cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb (Mormon 9:6.) 

The blood of the lamb on the doorposts and lintels saved God's children that night when they were passed over by physical death. We, too, are saved by the blood of the Lamb, both physically and spiritually.  Even today, observant Jews remember the night of Passover when they were saved by the blood of the Lamb.

© April 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

"SHELTER IN PLACE"

This is an old picture, but a great quote

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responded to the current crisis brought on by the spread of the deadly COVID-19.  He spoke to Church News on March 28, 2020* He said, among other things, that we should not view this as a time of punishment, but as a blessing.  In our everyday hectic world, we rarely have time to just sit with our thoughts and contemplate those things of eternal importance.  He called this time of isolation as a "kind of mandatory Sabbath, a time when we step away from out normal routine, from life as usual, and consider our dependence on God and the blessings from Him we so often take for granted."

This is a humbling time for the world.  Despite all of the economic hardship, illness, and even death, I think it is a humbling that is long overdue.  We learn that we don't need movie stars, sports heroes, or any other celebrity.  We do need farmers and healthcare workers and even truckers.  Most importantly, we need God.

In the United States (and, indeed, most of the world) we have driven God out of our governments, our schools, our public forums, and even from our homes. What do we expect God to do? 

I love to study the history of this nation and I am in awe of the great men and women who sought out the Americas as if led by God (which the considered themselves to be.) The founded this nation on Christian principles.  Read from the diaries of Columbus, the prayers of William Bradford, the faith of George Washington, the writings of Thomas Jefferson, and the Christ-like compassion of Abraham Lincoln. These people knew that this is a Covenant nation. 

God has kept His part of the Covenant.  He did so in two World Wars when this nation with its industrial might and natural resources saved brought the world back from the brink of destruction. He kept us free. He wants to bless us, but we are tying His hands.  He cannot bless us nor save us in our sins.

Have we kept our part of the Covenant? To worship the God of this land, (whom I believe to be Jesus Christ)? To keep God's commandments? The answer is obvious: we haven't.  How can we expect God to bless America when we thumb our noses at him? I don't even need to delineate all of the specific politically correct but morally deficient decisions made over that last 70 years (most of my lifetime.) 

I have family living in Salt Lake City who experienced a 5.7 magnitude earthquake just a few weeks ago.  One of them said he thinks God is trying to tell him something, between the earthquake and losing his job due to COVID-19 that day before the earthquake.  He was speaking somewhat in jest, just like whistling in the dark, but I think that is exactly what God is doing.  I read the history of ancient Israel and ancient America and see the pattern of righteousness, blessings, turning away from God, sinning, and dire consequences designed to being about repentance.  I used to think, "How on earth could they not see the pattern themselves?  Why didn't they heed the warnings?" I don't ask that anymore.

Swarms of locusts in East Africa

Many of us do see the signs of the times.  Wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters, pestilence and even plague are going unheeded by those who don't see them for what they are.  God is preparing us for His Second Coming.  Are we standing on His right hand with the wheat and the sheep or on His left hand with the tares and the goats?

'Nuff said.  Watch General Conference this weekend.  Come, listen to a prophet's voice and hear the Word of God.

© April 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

* You can read Elder Holland's complete remarks on the following link.
A Personal Sabbath

PREPARING FOR CONFERENCE

Two hundred years ago this spring, a young boy struggled with a troubling question: with all of the churches using the same Bible, but interpreting it so differently, how was he to know which church to join.  One day, he was reading a passage in the Book of James that said if one lacked wisdom on a subject, he could go directly to God and that the Lord would not upbraid him for doing so.

He went to a grove of trees on his father's farm, a place where it would be private and quiet, and there he uttered his first spoken out loud prayer, asking which church to join.  Two things happened immediately.  The first was that he was almost overpowered by a very dark and very real spirit that he feared was going to take him.  At this moment of anguish, he suddenly saw a light directly above his head.  The dark spirit was immediately gone.  The light was as bright as the sun at noonday, but he was able to realize that within the light were two personages.  One of them said, pointing to the other, This is my beloved Son. Hear Him.

He received counsel from his Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  He learned that they were real and tangible, resurrected and perfected human beings.  He noted that they were separate in substance and not some three-in-one formless deity as he had supposed.  He learned that these God's had a work for him.  That work would unfold over the next few years as he was visited by and tutored by an angel.

This year at General Conference, we will be celebrating the bicentennial of Joseph  Smith's First Vision. Please visit Church Website Link for it is full of wonderful resources about the First Vision. We can appreciate the Conference if we prepare ahead.

GOD'S BEEN PREPARING ME- a Personal Post

Wish I still looked this young and healthy.

I don't!

This has been has been quite a year.  I'm not feeling anxious about things despite what is going on in the world.  I believe that God has it all in His hands.

In 2018, I became very ill with constant dizziness that made getting around very difficult.  That fall, things were so bad, I experienced nausea every day.  I had spells of vertigo when the bed would spin or the room would spin.  It was so disconcerting that I asked God to send my husband, Carmon, to get me. Eventually, the vertigo and nausea subsided and I have learned to deal with the dizziness. 

 One of the blessings of this trial is that it slowed me down.  I have often felt as if I were addicted to my own adrenaline. My grandmother used to say, "I cleaned the house and went to town and killed a pig, all in one day." My life was a little like that. I simply did not know how to stop and smell the roses. I felt as if the world would stop turning on its axis if I stopped rushing around, trying to save the world. With this new ailment, I couldn't rush around, go to town, or even drive and I'm certainly not killing any pigs - not even the one in my book.  My life became one of working on my blog, doing puzzles on my phone, watching TV, and reading.  I found that when things became too out of focus in the larger world, I could focus on the tiny screen of my phone to play games or visit Facebook.  

When this epidemic hit and everyone was told to stay home, my life didn't change very much.  The difference is that I have found great peace this year, even with a scary diagnosis. This trying time has humbled me and put me on a timeline that I didn't set for my self: God designed it.  I don't know what will come of it all, but whatever comes, I will be all right. I'm no longer wishing to die, but neither am I afraid of it. As I said, it is in God's hands.

I don't know what will happen in the future.  Trusting God is also trusting His timing.  I don't know what God has been preparing me for, but whatever it is, I am ready.

A Prayer for a Pandemic

As an older person with many medical risk factors against me, I hope that by staying home, I can avoid becoming a COVID-19 statistic.  However, it is others whom I love and for whom I pray.  I dedicate this song to my children, children-in-law, step-children with their spouses and children, grandchildren, grandchildren-in-law, and great-grandchildren and to my siblings and to a special, dear friend, for whom I have prayed this prayer more times than I can count.  I wish I had a recording of my father singing Bring Him Home. He would have made a great Jean Valjean.

Bring Him Home

WORDS OF MORMON - A BRIDGE OF CLARIFICATION

Fast forward to 385 A.D., over 500 years after the time of Amaliki. The Nephite Nation is in grave peril because of wickedness that can hardly be described.  Mormon, the great Nephite prophet, has been working for decades compiling and editing the massive amounts of records in his possesion.  He knows that he will soon die, most likely in the great battle now raging.  He wants to give the stewardship of 1000 years of Nephite history and doctrine to his son Moroni.  But he has some concerns.  While he is finishing he abridgement of the large set of plates from the days of Lehi to Amaliki, he finds another, smaller record, of the people of Lehi.  He is inspired by God to attach the small set of plates to the large abridgment he has been making.  He doesn't know why, only the God commands, so he obeys.

Mormon wrote the Words of Mormon many hundred years after the coming of Christ. (Words of Mormon 1:2) So why did he insert them into the book where he did?  Let's look at the plates used by Mormon in his abridgement. Given all of this, it is no wonder Mormon wrote I cannot write the hundredth part of the things of my people! (Words of Mormon 1:5)

The books we have studied thus far are from the small plates of Nephi. They contain somewhat of the history of the people, but their primary focus was on the spiritual, prophetic doctrines of the gospel. When Nephi created the small plates, he said, I do not write anything upon the plates save it be that I think it to be sacred. (1 Nephi 19:6) The larger plates contained the temporal history of Lehi's family. 

Mormon wanted his readers to know about the multiple sources used and the authenticity of those sources.  He wanted them to understand their history, but more importantly, he wanted his readers, especially those descended from Lehi, to read about the prophecies of the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of those prophecies.  He said that the things which he wrote were pleasing to him.  

We know from the rest of the Book of Mormon how pleasing and prophetic were the things he chose to write.  His son, Moroni, witnessed the total destruction of the Nephites, including the death of his father, then added to the record.  He shared letters that his father, Mormon, had written to him explaining doctrine which had become distorted and misunderstood by the Nephites of his day.  Blessing our lives, these things are the same things which have been distorted within Christianity.  He restored many of the plain and precious truths that were lost through the annals of time, sometimes accidentally, but other times deliberately.

I am grateful to Mormon for his life's work, particularly given the unsettling times in which he lives.  I cannot imaging the immensity of the task he undertook. We also live in unsettling times full of wickedness and sin. One of the things for which I am particularly grateful is the fact that Mormon inserted his own thoughts to the text at critical junctures.  According to modern standards, that makes him a poor editor.  But I don't look at this by man's standards, but by God's.   Here was a man who had seen his entire civilization - friends and family alike - utterly destroyed because of their apostasy and wickedness.  Mormon knew that in the day that his abridgment would come forth, people - we - would also be on the verge of destruction through wickedness in our society.  So when Mormon added, and thus we see, he is driving home a point.  I would like to reread the book and underline every instance when he writes and thus we see.  I think it would help me know what is most important.

© April 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson