In Provo this year, it snowed on Good Friday—I walked to school with my ski-jacket and scarf. On Easter Sunday, I woke up to a clear Spring day—looking out my window I see budding locust trees and further East the nearly snowless mountains; there will be no need for a jacket today.
These past three days illustrate what I feel is the message of the Gospel: Winter eventually yields to spring; sin can be replaced by forgiveness; death opens to life; and apostasy gives way to restoration. Rebirth, renewal, and redemption.
All things denote there is this God—the God of Easter; the God who so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life; the Christ who, though sinless, chose to take upon Himself the sins of the world, who descended below all things, …that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth. (D&C 88:6-7).
Which truth shineth!
In Romans 6:4, Paul said, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
We will each die physically, but we will walk in newness of life. We each also sin and in so doing die spiritually, but we can walk in newness of life: though your sins be as scarlet [or] red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isaiah 1:18). We may each, one by one, come and reason with the Lord. And God assures us, “As often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me” (Mosiah 26:30). Indeed, it was He who taught that we should forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven (Matt. 18:22). Surely He is no less merciful than what He requires of His disciples.
As individuals go astray, so too can entire churches and nations. In Matt. 24:11-12, the Savior foretold a time of apostasy: “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Yet even this kind of wintery apostasy will melt away. No matter how cold the winter or how widespread the wandering, the Sun will rise, “for [God] maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good.” In fact, His Son did rise, and He goes in search of lost sheep and anxiously awaits prodigal sons. The God of Easter is a God of restoration, restoring wayward children to their forfeited inheritance and reestablishing truth and understanding among His children.
Alma, a prophet in the Book of Mormon, spoke of yet another restoration: Although we will all die, “The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame” (Alma 40:23). Just as God restores truth to the Church and brings wholeness back to the body of Christ, the resurrection of our physical bodies will be an act of restoration. Although truths may be lost and although we will each lose our lives, ultimately “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” (Matt. 16:18) us or against the Church. On Easter, we celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death and hell: because of Him, “the prisoners shall go free,” (D&C 128:22) and the captives shall be delivered (Luke 4:18).
I believe that winter eventually yields to spring; sin can be replaced by forgiveness; death opens to life; and apostasy gives way to restoration. Rebirth, renewal, and redemption. In this—in Him—I believe. Alleluia.
