President and Sister Kauwe, President and Sister Haws, Vice President Walker, beloved students, staff, faculty colleagues, and dear friends in the community, good morning and Aloha! I want to acknowledge past David O. McKay lecturers in attendance and thank the Faculty Action Council for the honor of giving this address. I want to acknowledge and thank my wife Suzy, and my children Zachariah, Nathan, and Adele, as well as Religious Education colleagues, [1] missionaries, and staff for their support.
I’ve chosen to focus this lecture on the establishment of Zion and a world in which “intercultural peace and unity” [2] can flourish. As a starting point, I want us to consider Jesus’s last moments on the cross when he felt divine abandonment to the utmost extreme. I will discuss the sacrament and temple rituals—ancient and modern—designed to maintain the connection of God’s people to his presence, bridging the gap in our own divine abandonment. Further, I will show that Isaiah’s Servant Songs, beyond describing Christ’s life and mission, provide his disciples a roadmap for using their own experiential suffering in the service of humanity, as Christ’s disciples are responsible not only to gather Israel, but to seek to establish justice and peace where they stand. This means renouncing and ceasing to practice injustice. Doing these things will facilitate the resurgence of Indigenous, colonized, and marginalized peoples. Jesus enables us to do His work, establish his righteousness or justice, and to arise in countless ways. He gives us “beauty for ashes” so that Zion may in her beauty rise. [3]
The Messiah and Humanity Feeling Divine Abandonment
The gospels of Mark and Matthew both record that after Jesus had spent hours hanging in agony on a Roman cross and as the heavens gathered blackness above him, he cried out “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” or “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” [4] These words are an Aramaic rendition of the opening Hebrew words of the twenty-second Psalm: ʾēlî ʾēlî lāmâ ʿăzabtānî. [5] Aramaic was Jesus’s everyday language.
A common Latter-day Saint approach to Jesus’s crying out with the words of Psalm 22:1 has been to treat it as a Messianic prophecy he was fulfilling. While it’s true that Jesus’s earliest followers saw prophetic correspondences between the Psalms—especially Psalm 22—and Jesus’s life, the Psalms did not constitute prophecy per se. They were temple liturgy. I want us to consider Jesus’s exclamation and its implications from that perspective.
The biblical psalms were the hymns of the Jerusalem temple. [6] As temple hymns, they were sung or recited countless times in worship within its precincts. Most ancient Judahites would have encountered and orally learned these Psalms within the context of temple experience. Jesus knew the words to this psalm just like many of us know the lyrics to hymns that move us deeply or have the liturgy of the temple endowment committed to memory. Jewish festivals like Pesach (or Passover), Shavuot (or Pentecost), the Feast of the Tabernacles, and Yom Kippurim (the great day of Atonement) brought Jesus into the temple of Herod, where he would have heard these Psalms recited.
Hebrew Bible scholar Richard J. Clifford describes Psalm 22 as “the painful cry of a loyal friend of the Lord who is persecuted and ostracized for being loyal.” [7] The words express the “terrible pain of separation.” [8] Tremper Longman III, another scholar, explains: “In its Old Testament context, the cry is uttered by the psalmist and taken up by later worshippers when they felt abandoned by God in the midst of their pain. The one praying has not yet given up on God.” [9]
Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Jr. write: “Such prayers of complaint and petition are characteristically prayed not by strangers but by those with a long history of positive interaction with YHWH. Indeed, in this case that long history has likely included promises of fidelity on the part of YHWH to the psalmist and his community.” [10] A crucial part of Latter-day Saint Christology is our knowledge that Yahweh, the God whom the Psalm addresses, is Jesus.
Psalms scholar Peter C. Craigie observes: “This psalm should probably be interpreted primarily as an individual psalm, though the liturgy sets the problem of the individual in the context of the community as a whole; thus the liturgy was clearly a communal affair.” [11] The communal implications of the divine abandonment expressed in Psalm 22:1 are powerful and I will discuss them momentarily. Jesus had heard Psalm 22 recited in the temple with his community—likely many times. He had almost certainly recited it Himself, perhaps with or in the company of others. The context and circumstances, however, in which He addressed them to His Father, alone on the cross, one final time, were infinitely more horrific.
In Gethsemane, “blood c[a]m[e] from every pore, so great … [was Jesus’s] anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.” [12] On the cross, Jesus felt and experienced divine abandonment such that He “descended below all things” and thus experientially “comprehended all things.” [13]
Why was Jesus’s feeling divine abandonment necessary? Recently, Psalm 22:1 has drawn me back to the prophetic words to Israel’s exiles in Isaiah 49:14-16: “But Zion said, The Lord [Yahweh] hath forsaken me [ʿăzābanî yhwh], and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” [14] . Scriptural accounts of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances allude to the “print” [15] of the wounds still present in his resurrected body. [16]
As we turn to the Book of Mormon, Jesus invited the Lamanites and Nephites at the temple in Bountiful: “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.” [17] These exiles from the tree of Israel saw, felt, and “knew of a surety” that they were engraved upon Jesus. Such assurances that we are never forsaken by the Father and the Son are abundantly and powerfully symbolized in rituals and gestures in the latter-day temple.
Nephi quotes Isaiah 48–49 within the context of Israel’s exile, an exile of which the families of Lehi and Ishmael had become a part. Zion of Isaiah’s and Nephi’s time—indeed, the Lord’s covenant people of other times—have individually and communally lamented “The Lord hath forsaken me” and asked “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The same God who had reassured Zion through his prophet “yet will I not forget thee” had to become acquainted with the depths of divine abandonment for Himself—to “taste” it.
The Meaning of “Tasting Death”
The author of Hebrews recalls Jesus’s crucifixion and experience with divine abandonment: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every[one]” [18]. To taste something idiomatically means to experience something. [19] Virtually every human being has experienced or will experience physical death, so Jesus’s vicariously “tasting death on behalf of everyone” must mean experiencing extremities beyond physical death. Jesus tasted spiritual death for everyone. President Jeffrey R. Holland explained:
“With all the conviction of my soul I testify that He did please His Father perfectly and that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.” [20]
Jesus suffered, in part, because we too “taste” feelings of divine abandonment—the withdrawal of the Spirit. In Doctrine and Covenants 19, scripture’s only first-person account of his suffering in Gethsemane and later on the cross, the Lord makes direct reference to this type of suffering as a “taste” of His own atoning suffering:
"For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; but if they would not repent they must suffer even as I, which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. Wherefore, I command you again to repent, … and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit." [21]
The Savior’s strong desire, born out of his own experience with divine withdrawal, is that our experiences with divine withdrawal—especially loss of the Spirit—be minimized and our experiences with the divine presence be maximalized.
Similar to Adam and Eve’s loss of the Garden of Eden as a prototype temple [22] and the immediate presence of God, the writers of ancient Israel’s and Judah’s monarchic history [23] viewed the loss of their lands of promise and the Jerusalem temple as the Lord “cast[ing his people] out from his presence,” [24] “removing [his people] out of [his] sight,” [25] “casting off [Jerusalem]” [26] “cast[ing his people] out of his sight.” [27]
The principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ enable us to enter into covenants which, if kept, restore us progressively from the exile of the Fall to the presence of God, at first individually, but also collectively. The Book of Mormon, which describes baptism, conferral of the Holy Ghost, and the sacrament, was written, in Moroni’s words, “to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever.” [28] Christ-centered ordinances, including temple ordinances, portray our eventual restoration to God’s full presence.
Anciently, the temple was the visible symbol of Jehovah dwelling among his people on earth. Today, the temple’s sealing ordinances promise that we can always be connected to him and to each other: we are never forsaken and never remain exiled from home forever. To use the language of king Benjamin, “the Lord God Omnipotent … seal[s] [us] ‘his.’” [29] We are bound and sealed to God, Christ, and each other as family. We “are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” [30]
“That They May Always Have His Spirit to Be with Them”: The Sacrament as an Ordinance of Divine Presence
Eternal, inseparable belonging begins with having the Savior’s Spirit always present with us. The night Jesus went into Gethsemane, the night preceding His crucifixion, He instituted an ordinance portraying His atoning suffering. Anticipating that His body would be “bruised, broken, [and] torn” [31] and His blood shed, He appropriated the unleavened bread and the wine from the Passover meal as emblems of the suffering He knew He would undergo. In a letter to the Corinth saints, predating the canonical gospels, the Apostle Paul recalls: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” [32] The Hebrew word for bread, leḥem sounds like and is etymologically related to lĕḥûm, another Hebrew word that means “flesh, body” [33] (also related to Arabic laḥm, “flesh”). Indeed, in Jesus’s Aramaic language, lĕḥēm or laḥmāʾ denoted both “bread” and “meat, flesh.” [34]
The lexical relationship between “bread” and “flesh” or “body” would have particularly evocative for His Aramaic-speaking disciples in that upper room as they ate torn bread with the flesh of the Passover lamb. Paul summarized, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” [35]
After His crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus described a somewhat different function for the sacrament. To those assembled at the temple in Bountiful, Jesus instructed: “And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.” [36] The Lamanite-Nephite sacrament prayer on the bread, which was drawn from this instruction and which we still use almost verbatim, emphasize the function: “that they may always have his Spirit to be with them.” [37] Having tasted spiritual death (or divine forsakenness) for all of us, the Savior seems particularly concerned that we not “taste” the withdrawal of his Spirit, let alone the totality of divine abandonment he felt upon the cross.
The sacrament has been described as a “maintenance ritual.” [38] In the restored gospel it is the ordinance that renews every gospel covenant, including temple and marriage covenants, for those who worthily partake. [39] Nevertheless, it is more than just a means of renewing covenants or “retain[ing] a remission of … sins.” [40] Like Alma’s people at the waters of Mormon, we covenant our “willing[ness] to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light ... and … to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” [41] (These are the works of the Messiah, according to Isaiah and Jesus!) [42] Partaking of the sacrament as ward families—community—is a stark reminder, in the words of my colleague Dr. Karamea Wright, that “the covenants we make and should keep do not just involve ourselves, but others.” [43]
The divine presence or face—Hebrew pānîm, the connection of God to his people—was always a focus and function of ancient Israel’s religious system. Bread ritually placed in the holy place in the wilderness tabernacle and later in the Jerusalem temple—often translated showbread—was literally the bread of the presence, leḥem (hap)pānîm. This bread, symbolic of the Lord’s presence in the temple, could be consumed by the Aaronic priests after it was changed out on the Sabbath. According to Numbers 6:23-26, Aaronic priests were also charged with blessing the children of Israel with the Lord’s presence or face (pānîm):
"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
the Lord make his face [pānâw] shine upon thee,
and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance [pānâw] upon thee,
and give thee peace." [44]
In this same blessing, they put the Lord’s name on his people. [45] Like the Latter-day Saint ordinance of the sacrament, the priestly blessing was an Aaronic priesthood rite that reconnected the Lord’s people, when they felt divine abandonment, to his presence and enabled them to receive his name. This priestly blessing can help each of us more deeply appreciate the sacrament and reconnect to the Lord and to each other through it.
The Necessity and Value of Experiential Suffering for the Lord’s Servants
New Testament scriptures describe the sacrament and shared suffering as a “fellowship” or “partnership” (Greek koinōnia) [46] involving the Lord and his servants, suffering which recalls Isaiah’s Servant Songs. Within the canonical book of Isaiah, scholars have identified four or five “Servant Songs,” poems that describe a special servant of the Lord who gathers Israel, brings justice to the nations, and suffers on behalf of others. [47] One of the best known of the Isaianic Servant Songs is Isaiah 53, which foretells the piercing, crushing, and scourging of the Servant: “‘He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with [or, one made to know] grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded [pierced] for our transgressions, he was bruised [crushed] for our iniquities: the chastisement [scourging] of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” [48]
Referencing Isaiah’s prophecy to faithful church members in the city of Gideon, Alma the Younger prophesied that the Messiah would “go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.” [49] Further interpreting Isaiah’s text, Alma explains that the Messiah “suffer[ed] according to the flesh”—that is, he chose to gain experiential knowledge, including being beaten, crushed, pierced, and having the Father withdraw the comfort of his Spirit. Moreover, he took upon him the pains and sicknesses of his people, “that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” [50]
In a similar but much more limited way, what we experience “according to the flesh”—including loss, abandonment, exile, and abuse—can shape our own extension of mercy and capacities to succor our fellow human beings according to their infirmities. Lehi promised his son, Jacob, who had received severe abuse from his brothers, “thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.” [51] The Lord wants His people, Israel, to become His peacemakers, cycle-breakers, repairers, and restorers.
The Servant and the Servants: Exiles Gathering Exiles
In another servant song, the prophet addresses Israel scattered and exiled on the “isles of the sea” [52] proclaiming: “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far.” [53] (This prophetic summons should have special resonance among the students, staff, and faculty of BYU–Hawai‘i.) The prophet then states that the Lord addressed him as “Israel” and commissioned him as his servant: “And [he] said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified”. [54] The affirmation, “Thou art my servant, O Israel”— echoes the royal enthronement declaration of Psalm 2:7, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” King Benjamin and later Alma the Elder found broader application of these texts to us. [55] They can designate not only kings and prophets, but all Israel as the Lord’s “sons and daughters” and thus, his special servants.
Though the Servant Songs fit Christ and his mission, it is also appropriate to read them more expansively: it is Israel’s responsibility is to gather Israel: “And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered [or alternatively translated, and that Israel might be gathered to him], yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”. [56] Yes, the Messiah does all these things, but it is not just him who is called to gather Israel, to raise up the tribes Jacob, to restore, and to be a light to the Gentiles or nations. Christ calls us to his work.
When Put to Grief, Put Grief to Work: What We Must Do and Not Do
The Abrahamic covenant work of the gathering of Israel on both sides of the veil “the work of the covenants of the Father” [57]—is ultimately Christ’s work of extending the blessings of his atonement into every human life inasmuch as such blessings will be received. When we speak of international peace, it is the same covenant work. [58] To accomplish that work of atonement, Christ’s servants must never covertly or overtly support injustice, and we cannot be bystanders.
Dietrich Bonhoffer, a German Lutheran clergyman and tireless anti-Nazi opponent, shows us the way to start: “Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and the poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the holy. Your Yes to God demands a brave No to everything that will ever hinder you from serving God alone, whether it be your profession, your property, your house, your honor before the world. Faith means decision.” [59] Bonhoffer lived his teachings, saying no to all evil, lies, and oppression and was murdered by the Nazis.
We must come to recognize that we all are, in so many ways, forced to participate in a worldwide economic system, built on colonial projects that have brought incalculable death, suffering, loss, and devastation to so many Indigenous and colonized peoples—a system that continues to perpetuate inequality, poverty, oppression, and unfairness. We can acknowledge what scholars have called the “structural facts” of this system in which we are positioned, [60] and yet, we are expected to use our moral agency to work to proclaim, work for, and provide “liberty to the captives” [61]—especially for the underprivileged and marginalized. One day, our collective covenant actions—in small and big ways—to establish the Lord’s “righteousness” [62] or justice, including causes that don’t seem to directly impact or concern us, will help bring about a “better world.”
Whatever injustices have befallen the Messiah’s servants—and their ancestors!—he can “consecrate [their] afflictions for their gain.” [63] When we come unto him and consecrate ourselves to his atoning work of restoration and peace on earth, we and our descendants will, in Isaiah’s words, “build the old waste places … [and] raise up the foundations of many generations.” [64] He promises that “the peacemakers … will be called the children of God.” [65] Participants in this work will also “be called, The repairer[s] of the breach, The restorer[s] of paths to dwell in.” [66] Because Zion is for everyone, this consecrated work is ultimately for everyone. How can each of us see beyond the narrow confines of our own little enclaves and do this work, which one might call “missionary work,” but in truth, includes much more?
The Role of the Restoration in Resurgence
Zenos’s allegory of the olive trees in Jacob 5 describes a divine process through which the systemic injustice and evil that now prevails in the vineyard (world) will gradually be removed and replaced by divine good and justice as room is made for them to grow. [67] The servants in the allegory, laboring together with the Lord, do the removing. This means they—we—will bring an end to what Richard E. Johnson described as the “interwoven evils … of materialism, consumerism, worldly vanity or pride, and social inequality.” [68] Zion has no place for sexism, racism, and the hatred of immigrants or anyone else we see as “different” from us.
Nephi in his own lifetime, had begun to witness the kingdom of Judah’s exile by the Babylonians. He found himself part of the Lord’s scattering of his people and believed that history and prophecy could repeat themselves. Like Assyria its predecessor, the nation of Babylon would be destroyed and the imperial and colonial projects of the future, which they and later empires inspired, would fail. Nephi saw that the “great and spacious building” or “the great and abominable church,” which symbolizes spiritual Babylon collapsing and Satan’s power being eliminated: “And every nation which shall war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the pit which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Zion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yea, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it. For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men” [69].
Adapting the words of Isaiah, Nephi foretold that the exiles, including those who have been dispossessed of their homelands, will “return to their lands of promise.” [70] Interpreting the prophecies of Isaiah for his people, Jacob declared that the exiles will eventually “be restored to the true church and fold of God; when they shall be gathered home to the lands of their inheritance, and shall be established in all their lands of promise.” [71] In the end, none of this is possible without the restoration of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whatever Indigenous resurgence looks like throughout the world in the big picture, we all have a role to play that includes, but goes beyond, spiritual liberation. As Latter-day Saints, our role in that resurgence involves extending the blessings of the temple—the supreme architectural symbol of Jesus Christ, His presence, power, and sovereignty—to all. But we must also feed the hungry, welcome the stranger (or foreigner), clothe the naked, and visit the sick—each of whom Jesus identified as symbols of Himself. [72] The ordinances of the house of the Lord will not only more fully restore his people to his presence, but endow them with His power—power to which perpetrators of injustice, wickedness, and oppression can never have access.
The proliferation of temples throughout the world is a prelude to the earth receiving its paradisaical glory. [73] In one of the great revelations on the temple in scripture, the Lord gave us a glimpse at the better world he intends to create—a “new heavens and a new earth,” in the language of Isaiah. [74] Describing the celestial resurrection of the righteous, he described the celestial resurrection of the earth:
"And the redemption of the soul is through him that quickeneth all things, in whose bosom it is decreed that the poor and the meek of the earth shall inherit it. Therefore, it must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial glory; for after it hath filled the measure of its creation, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father; that bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever; for, for this intent was it made and created, and for this intent are they sanctified." [75]
Conclusion
Jesus instructed His disciples to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” [76] because he wanted them to do the Father’s will as He did and help the kingdom of God roll forth. [77] If the earth is to be “sanctified from all unrighteousness”—sanctified from all injustice—we must cease from our own unrighteousness—that is, renounce injustice, cease to practice it, and work to dismantle the injustice oppressing others. We must “do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [our] God.” [78]
Citing the teachings of President Russell M. Nelson, [79] President Dallin H. Oaks reminds us: “As followers of Christ, we teach and testify of Jesus Christ, our Perfect Role Model. So let us follow Him by forgoing contention. As we pursue our preferred policies in public actions, let us qualify for His blessings by using the language and methods of peacemakers. In our families and other personal relationships, let us avoid what is harsh and hateful. Let us seek to be holy, like our Savior, in whose holy name I testify and invoke His blessing to help us be Saints.” [80]
It starts with our behavior toward our own family members and scales up from there. As the Lord continues to gather us, we will “return to [our] lands of promise” and be “established in all our lands of promise.” [81] Christ tasted “death”—divine absence—to the fullest, so He would know how to help and restore us. We must, in turn, help others to receive the full measure of the blessings of Christ’s atonement. As we do, we shall be counted among the “meek” who “shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” [82] I close with Moroni’s quotation of Isaiah as he concluded the Book of Mormon, an invitation to restoration and ultimately to a glorious resurrection “And awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled.” [83] Let Zion in her beauty rise, “for the set time has come to favor her.” [84]
Because of Jesus Christ we are never forsaken, but we will rise triumphant. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes:
[1] Sincerely thank my Religious Education colleagues Karamea Wright and Aaron Shumway who reviewed earlier drafts of this talk and gave valuable feedback.
[2] BYU–Hawaii Mission Statement and Vision
[3] Compare Isaiah 61:1-4 with Isaiah 51:1-2
[4] Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46
[5] Psalms 22:1
[6] Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix, 2008), 45. See further Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Psalms as Hymns in the Temple of Jerusalem,” in Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archaeological Explorations, ed. James A. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 95–122
[7] Richards J. Clifford, Psalms 1–72 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2022), 129.
[8] Richards J. Clifford, Psalms 1–72 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2022), 129.
[9] Tremper Longman III, Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 129. See also Nancy deClaisse-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 233. They write: “The first two verses are wrenching. The urgency of the words and the intimacy between the parties jump off the page. The cry is to My God, and there is no formal address or introduction. Instead, there are questions of why. Why has God abandoned? Often God has promised to not to ʿāzab (“forsake”; e.g., Deuteronomy 13:6, 8; Psalms 9:10; 37:28, 33; 94:14). Even if parents do, God will hold fast (Psalms 27:10).”
[10] Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Jr., Psalms (2014), 114
[11] Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50 (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), 97-198.
[12] Mosiah 3:9
[13] Doctrine and Covenants 88:6
[14] Isaiah 49:14-16
[15] Greek typon.
[16] See John 20:25; 3 Nephi 11:15; compare Luke 24:36-43
[17] 3 Nephi 11:15
[18] Hebrews 2:9
[19] For example, Hebrew ṭāʿam and Egyptian dp, “taste,” means to “experience” something.
[20] Jeffrey R. Holland, “None Were with Him,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 87-88.
[21] Doctrine and Covenants 19:16-20
[22] Donald W. Parry “Garden of Eden: Prototype Sanctuary,” in Temples of the Ancient World, ed. Donald W. Parry (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1994), 126–51.
[23] 1 Samuel–2 Kings.
[24] 2 Kings 24:20
[25] 2 Kings 23:27
[26] 2 Kings 23:27
[27] 2 Kings 17:20
[28] Title Page of the Book of Mormon
[29] Mosiah 5:15. See further John Gee, “Book of Mormon Word Usage: ‘Seal You His,’” Insights: A Window on the Ancient World 22, no. 1 (2002): 4.; Matthew L. Bowen, “Becoming Sons and Daughters at God’s Right Hand: King Benjamin’s Rhetorical Wordplay on His Own Name,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 21, no. 2 (2012): 2–13.”
[30] 1 Corinthians 3:23
[31] “Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King,” Hymns, no. 181
[32] 1 Corinthians 11:24
[33] Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 525.
[34] Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York: Judaica Press, 1996), 704
[35] 1 Corinthians 11:26
[36] 3 Nephi 18:7, compare 3 Nephi 18:11
[37] Moroni 4:3; Doctrine and Covenants 20:77
[38] Einar Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the Valentinians (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2006), 345; Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “The Covenant Path of the Ancient Temple in 2 Nephi 31:19-20,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 64 (2025): 196, 220.
[39] Delbert W. Stapley, , in Conference Report, October 1965, 14. According to When we worthily partake of the sacrament, we “renew all covenants entered into with the Lord” (Delbert L. Stapley; italics added; see also L. Tom Perry, “As Now We Take the Sacrament,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2006, 41).
[40] Mosiah 4:12; Alma 4:12-14. On “retaining a remission of … sins, see W. Ralph Pew, “For the Sake of Retaining a Remission of Your Sins” in The Book of Mormon: Mosiah, Salvation Only Through Christ, eds. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1991), 227–245.
[41] Mosiah 18:8-9
[42] Isaiah 61:1-4; Luke 4:18
[43] Karamea Wright, personal communication, 31 January 2026; emphasis added.
[44] Numbers 6:24-26
[45] Numbers 6:27; In 1979, two silver scrolls used as amulets were discovered in burial chambers in the Hinnom valley on the southwest of Jerusalem. These scrolls, dating to the 7th to 6th centuries BCE (the time of Lehi and Nephi), contain this priestly blessing and are the oldest attestations of any portion of the scriptures in human possession. Regarding the Ketef Hinnom scrolls and the Priestly Blessing, John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas (The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000], 147) write, “Two small silver scrolls (about one inch long) have been found in the area known as Keteph Hinnom in Jerusalem. They were amulets in a burial cave from the sixth or seventh century B.C., and they contained this benediction [i.e., the Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:24–27]. At present they represent the oldest example of any text of scripture.”
[46] See, for example, Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 10:16; Galatians 2:9; Philippians 1:5; 2:1-11; 3:10; Philemon 1:6; Hebrews 13:16; 1 John 1:3-7; Compare Hebrews 2:14; Romans 15:16.
[47] See Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-8; 50:4-11; 52:13-15; 53. Some scholars consider the last two passages as a single song.
[48] Isaiah 53:5
[49] Alma 7:11
[50] See Alma 7:11-13
[51] 2 Nephi 2:1-3. We learn later that Jacob had a soul that was particularly sensitive to the abuse of unrighteous men towards women and children (see Jacob 2–3).
[52] See Isaiah 11:11; 24:15
[53] Isaiah 49:1
[54] Isaiah 49:3
[55] Psalms 2:7; see Mosiah 5:7; 26:20
[56] Isaiah 49:5-6
[57] Moroni 7:31
[58] See Isaiah 2:2-5; 2 Nephi 12:2-5
[59] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Gift of Faith" (9 April 1938), in The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 203.
[60] See discussion in Karamea Wright, “‘Ka piki e te tai; piki tu, piki rere’: Sites of Diasporic Māori Movement and the LDS Church,” (PhD Dissertation; Ōtepoti, Aotearoa New Zealand: University of Otago, 2024), 31-32.
[61] Isaiah 61:1-4; Luke 4:18
[62] Matthew 6:33; 3 Nephi 13:33; see also Joseph Smith Translation, Matthew 6:38
[63] 2 Nephi 3:2
[64] Isaiah 58:13
[65] Matthew 5:9; 3 Nephi 12:9
[66] Isaiah 58:13
[67] See Jacob 5:65
[68] Richard E. Johnson, “Socioeconomic Inequality: The Haves and Have Nots,” BYU Today 44 (September 1990): 46-58
[69] 1 Nephi 22:14
[70] 2 Nephi 24:2
[71] 2 Nephi 9:2
[72] Matthew 25:31-46
[73] Articles of Faith 1:10
[74] Isaiah 65:17; 66:22
[75] Doctrine and Covenants 88:16-20
[76] Matthew 6:10; 3 Nephi 13:10; compare Matthew 26:42
[77] Compare Doctrine and Covenants 65
[78] Micah 6:8
[79] Russell M. Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” Liahona, May 2023
[80] Dallin H. Oaks, “Following Christ,” Liahona, November 2024
[81] 2 Nephi 24:2; 2 Nephi 9:2
[82] Psalms 37:11
[83] Moroni 10:31, quoting Isaiah 52:1-2; 54:2
[84] Doctrine and Covenants 124:6