[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add on Education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend and this show's producer, Nate Pyfer. Yo, yo.
It's good to be back.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Always good to be back, Jason.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we had a fun discussion on baptism covenants last week. We appreciated you guys kind of sending in some feedback, so thank you.
This week is our Easter message.
This will be our fourth Easter message and looking at what we wanted to do for an Easter message, Nate was listening through last year's, really liked it, and I think we're on something on to.
You would think after an hour and a half talking about baptism, that we would have hit all the points we wanted to hit.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: How wrong you would be.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: There's a few things that I think we can roll into Easter about death and resurrection and rebirth with baptism that we didn't talk about last week to kind of bridge off of that discussion.
I think there's just a brief discussion we can have on that and then kind of take opportunity to take our Easter message from last year and roll it into this week's as well.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Let me just say it. I'll just say it, dude.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Let's hear it.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Last year's Easter bonus episode, I went back and re listened to it again because I was asked the question from my wife to kind of go over the timeline of the week with her. Jason, last year we proposed that a more accurate week, final week of Christ's earthly ministry before his resurrection, that we should maybe be considering John's account and that that actually lines up and makes a lot more sense with the whole actual Passover and the entire symbolism of the whole thing. And so I went back and re listened to it again and was deeply impressed that we should at least splice out some stuff and edit in this week a lot of the points from that. So even though to begin this week's podcast, we're still going to give you some new thoughts and whatnot, I would encourage you, even if you did listen to our episode last year, to listen to.
It's worth listening again, is all I'm saying. But to save you the trouble of having to go and find the thing, we're just going to take some excerpts out of that and just splice it into this week's episode.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Well said. Thank you. Let's do it. Let's do it. So I've got two main things I want to talk about to introduce our Easter message before we splice in the old.
And one of them that I've been impressed with this year, especially coming off the heels of Isaiah and Nephi's use of Isaiah and Jacob's. Looking at Isaiah, and if you guys remember going back a few weeks, Jacob had the vision of being able to see Isaiah talking about the destruction of the Jews from Assyria, the destruction of the Assyrians by God, the destruction of the Jews by Babylon, the destruction of Babylon by the Persians, and this pattern of death and life.
And he looked at that and said, every time he destroys them, he brings them back to life. And he takes that by extension and says, you know what? We are all going to face death and we're all going to face a resurrection of sorts. And I appreciate Jacob's take on Isaiah and being able to understand death and resurrection from those stories, because Isaiah is not explicitly stating that. It's more kind of a read between the lines to get there. And so as we've gone through this, and with that on my mind, the phrase or the saying that keeps coming to my mind is to live is to die.
And for a long time, I would take that line and interpret it as whenever we're born in this world to live, we're born with an expiration date or just the very fact that we're born, we're born to die.
But I've kind of taken that, and I look at it differently now, in the sense that Christ in the New Testament says, anyone that loses their life for his sake shall find it, even life eternal. And anyone who tries to hold on to their life shall lose it.
And so for him, in this kind of perspective, in order to live, one must die. And so you look at that saying again, to live is to die. In order to obtain life, even life eternal, we must die first. And I think there's a lot of symbolism with that or a lot of power with that. We know that we are going to have to die, but we also know that we're going to have to make decisions in this life that aren't always perfect, that we're going to be making mistakes. And I think we can take a look at this physical death and associate it with spiritual death as well. Because often in these discussions we're talking about death and hell, physical death, spiritual death, our mistakes, our experiences are not an afterthought, a screw up or something that's frustrating the plan.
It was always part of the plan, and that death is necessary in order for us to live, we cannot be resurrected without first dying. We don't obtain, I don't think, a higher level of obedience, a higher level of living and understanding the experience without going through a lot of hard knocks and a lot of the process along the way. Right. It's the process and something that you're apt to say, Nate, trust the process.
And sometimes we're hard on ourselves and we don't trust the process. Sometimes we justifiably, I think we become our own worst enemies and we look down and we kind of beat ourselves up when we don't realize that that death is necessary in order for us to find life.
And so that's where I wanted to take baptism, and I kind of wanted to bridge that in with our discussion last week when we talked about baptism and covenants and entering in. By the way, one thing that we didn't talk about is when Nicodemus came to Christ and said, what should a man do to enter into the kingdom of God? And Christ says that he must be born again. Right? And that created questions in his mind. How can a man go back into his mother's womb? And Christ doubles down on that statement. Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless a man is born again by the water, unless he's baptized, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. And Christ makes some powerful similarities with baptism and birth. And I wanted to take what Christ was saying in John chapter three, and I wanted to blend it with the teaching that we get from Enoch as he's going and explaining Adam's baptism. This is Moses, chapter six.
And I'm going to read 59 and 60, and then I'm going to come back and read 58 at the end. I think that's where I want to go with this. 58 when they're talking about what the purpose of this is, so 59, that by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death. And so, I mean, even this first line, this introduction, we've get transgression and death grouped together, this physical and spiritual death, right? This process. And inasmuch as you were born into the world by water and blood and the spirit which I have made, and so become of dust a living soul, even so must you be born again in the kingdom of heaven, of water and of the spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine only begotten, that you may be sanctified from all sin and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: I love the connection made there, but obviously, there's the representation of the blood as the water. Right. When we take the sacrament, that's the symbolism. That's the connection. And so in theory, you could probably make that same connection with the baptismal font. Right. The being born again. But I do think that it's also really important that there's a separation there, that it wasn't the water that cleansed you, it was the blood. It's the atonement. It's Jesus Christ. And that even in the scriptures that you just read there, it makes a point to differentiate those to being born of water, being born of the spirit, but that it is the blood of Christ that saves us.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: It does. In fact, the very next verse kind of hits that even harder. For by the water, ye keep the commandment. And so when I think of this by water, we're talking about the actual act of baptism. You are doing something. You're showing obedience, you're accepting. This is you taking on the terms of that covenant.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Well, again, it's what Christ in third Nephi tells us is the reason that we need to be partaking of the sacrament is to witness to our heavenly Father that we will always remember. We are doing this act as a physical witness of a commitment. We're doing this to keep a commandment, to be obedient to a physical ordinance, to a show of something.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yes.
And even when we take the sacrament, it's not like we get a voice and we say yes. Instead, it's by our actions. Right. Actions speak louder than words. We are witnessing or testifying. By doing this, we show obedience to the commandments. And that's. Right. That's the first step. That's baptism.
And then it goes on, by the spirit, you are justified.
And I think it's interesting that we use the word justified in this case. And I have to assume, right, if we're saying that by water is baptism, and then I look at by spirit, I think of confirmation of the Holy Ghost.
And I see interesting parallels, as we talked last week about washing and anointing, where anointing was always symbolic of the oil. Was always symbolic of the spirit. Right. You have a cleansing, and then you have the oil. And here when it talks about the spirit, it says, by the spirit, you are justified. And I thought justified is an interesting word.
And it's in English, right. Moses. But he's also translating it from the Old Testament. Moses is Joseph Smith's translation of the Old Testament. And I thought, let's look at how they use justified in the ancient ways. And I looked at the Old Testament, and justified is always used. The Hebrew is zadic, which means righteous.
And when we say justified, it means to be made right, to be made correct.
And I look at what the spirit does for us when we do something wrong. Is it not the spirit that maybe makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable, whether it's the spirit itself that's making us feel that way or the departure of the spirit that makes us feel that way? Is it not that role that helps us realize that we are out of alignment? And when we make adjustments and we repent and we come back in alignment, is it not the spirit that's guiding us to help us repent, to help us to come in align, so that we are made right? That is the process, right through the spirit, you are made right, you are made correct, you are course correcting, you are in the way.
So by the water, you're obedient. Through the spirit, you learn how to walk the path, to stay in the way. And that's what Nephi even said last week when he says, why are you puzzled after you've entered in the way? The Holy Ghost will show you all things that you should do. And by following the Holy Ghost, you are made right. You walk that path. And is it not the Holy Ghost? The word of God lines that path so that you can follow that.
So you've got the first two parts made. And then you notice in neither case in this explanation to Adam for why there's baptism, has remission of sins been mentioned?
It's obedience, and it's course correcting and being justified, made right in what you're doing, until you get to the third element, and by the blood you are sanctified. Now comes the cleansing. Without the atonement of Christ, without the shedding of his blood, there is no remission of sins. So baptism is for the remission of sins in the sense that you must obey. Only through keeping his commandments can you, and only through realigning and coming in course with that can you. But it's through the blood of Christ. And that's where I think baptism really is linked with sacrament in a powerful way, is the sacrament becomes the symbol of shedding of his blood, and we partaking of the body that's broken and the blood that was shed so that we can be now finally sanctified in a sense. Sure.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: That'S interesting.
I think that if anything, maybe more, the connection would be the promises that were given at the end of the sacrament prayer, which is that we'll always have his spirit to be with them, to be with us.
We were talking today about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel faith, repentance, and then baptism, and just the order of that is important for me. And even when we were. If you've ever had the chance to conduct a baptismal interview for, like, a convert, baptism on your mission, you're very much not encouraging the person looking to get baptized to go and just live it up for the next few hours before they go and get put under the water because you're not teaching them, hopefully, that, hey, this is a great thing that you're going to do, because anything that you've done to this point, as soon as you're baptized, it's all good. It's like, well, yeah, I guess I can see where the draw would be to explain it that way. But at least in all of the interviews I conducted or was around for very much, we were going, do you have faith?
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Have you gone through the repentance process? Like, have you already done that part of it? Have you already come with a broken heart and a contrary spirit? Have you already realized the course correction that you've needed to make up to this point? Okay, great. Now let's enter into that promise. Now let's kill that old self and be reborn as a follower of Christ.
But so much of that repentance needed to have already been taken place before that.
Yeah. The link still with baptism and the sacrament. I get it. I think we went thoroughly into that last week, so I don't think that we need to necessarily hit that again. What I did want to ask you about is we read so much and we talked about so much in both the Old Testament and even in the New Testament of how much of a maternal figure Christ takes in a lot of things, a mother to the hens and things like that. And even when we talk about. We did a whole bonus episode on the Songs of Solomon, which talk very explicitly about a very intimate relationship with Christ and his church or Christ and his people, and hopefully Christ with us as we strive to not only become like him, but to become one with him. There's just a lot of that that takes place.
It's something that stood out to me and kind of struck me as we were talking about it this week, is that like you've just mentioned being baptized in water and having that represent the blood of Christ, that there is very much a birth. There's very much like kind of a maternal relationship there, right? We're born again into Christ's church, or we're born again and take upon ourselves his name, or however you want to look at that covenant again. We talked a lot about this last week, but also within that same thing, within that same covenant, or within that same ordinance is where we get, I think, where we call Christ also Father.
And so I wanted to see if you wanted to kind of at least touch upon any of those things, because I do think that they're really important that Christ takes on both a father and a mother role in the symbolisms of the baptismal ordinance.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: That's a great point. And it's going to tie well into Isaiah. Isaiah is the one that kind of got us down this path. Isaiah is the one that, for me, drives home that idea of Christ taking this motherly role. If we look at Isaiah 53, it says, as a lamb before her shears is dumb. And you'll notice that in the English, the word there is her.
And it's the right translation, it's the right word, because the lamb there is Rachel, it's in Hebrew. It's the female sheep.
Why not compare Christ to a male sheep without blemish? The high priest, the role he's going to play, why are they making connections to him as a female sheep?
And to play on what you're saying, they use words, surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. And you think about bearing and childbearing and carrying this nine months of carrying a child.
Isaiah is intentionally using a lot of motherly images, and he's talking about Christ being cut off from the land of the living. Who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off. He didn't have children.
But it says, but when you shall make his soul an offering for your sin, he shall see. And then notice the word that they use here, the travail of his soul.
He's laboring now. He was caring, he was bearing, and now he is laboring, and he is going to deliver. And it says, just as a mother who forgets her pains because she's overcome with the joy in seeing the child, you get into this with Isaiah 53, he shall see the travail of his soul, and he shall be satisfied.
And now who shall declare his generation, even though he was cut off in the land of living? Who are his seeds? And we'll get into this even more, because Abinadai latches on to these Isaiah teachings, and he teaches the priests of Noah about what this really means.
Who are his seed? His seed are those who listen to the prophets, those who keep his commandments and follow him. It's that baptismal covenant. What is the baptismal covenant? It is the same covenant that has always existed. It is the covenant that he made with Abraham. It's the covenant that he made with Adam. It is essentially, I will be your God and you will be my people if you do what I say. But Christ takes on a very motherly role. And I find it special that he is using a mom.
In this case. He could have been a male bowl. He could have been a male whatever, right? But he's taking on different aspects, and it's showing this as a process through which we are able to be born again.
And the only way that we can be born again. Right.
In Isaiah 53, Christ takes on the role of a mother. But through the rest of the scriptures and the imagery, you've got to understand that Israel is the bride, the wife, and it's going to breach into this branch, into this in Isaiah 54 when it talks about enlarge your tents, because more are going to be the children of the desolate than the baron. And they're going to inherit and they're going to spread out and they're going to inherit. The Gentiles and all nations are going to be born into this covenant, and he's going to go back into this role of a father. And the covenant relationship between him and Israel becomes a husband and a wife type relationship. Even though he gave his life and travailed like a mother and like a mother hen, like you said, Nate would gather often within her wings. And how many times does he compare himself to a mother over and over again?
Yet he's going to take this side role and say, okay, because think about what happens in the process of creating life. The father, the husband, is giving part of himself to the mother so that the mother can create life.
And now think about that in terms of Israel, the covenant relationship between God and Israel, or God and his church. The church becomes this covenant bride, this marriage relationship. As long as they're connected with him, he will give part of himself or the atonement, his sacrifice, so that she can bear children. And so baptism really does become this new birth process, just like water, spirit and blood that's outlined so beautifully in Moses that through the church, the bride of Christ, we are able to be born again. He gave his life to the church so that she could bear us and that we can be born in this covenant and we can grow up and accept this covenant and we become, it's interesting family dynamic, love it.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Nailed it. Anything else you wanted to talk about with this?
[00:23:19] Speaker A: One last thing, and I'll be done.
I want to go back to Moses, chapter six, verse 58, and just finish with this.
Therefore, I give unto you a commandment to teach these things freely unto your children.
And I looked up that word freely, and I looked it up in the Old Testament. It only shows up seven times in the English anyways. And of those, only three or four actually had the same sense or the same meaning. And so when I looked at the translation of that word, what it meant freely means spontaneously or not being asked freely of your own. And they even used the word agency of your own free agency. You do it because you want to.
Also, the way we use free without price kind of takes on this same meaning.
What is a price? If I go to get something for free, it's without charge. And what is a charge is a responsibility or a burden to pay or to do something, an obligation. So when I'm getting something for free, I'm getting it without obligation. And so even how we use the word with free and talking about money in those dynamics comes from that same root, that same thing, that what they're saying is spontaneously, without responsibility or the burden to have to do it.
And so when he says teach these things freely, I think there's a big difference in how we teach our children. If we only teach them because we feel like we have to, we're not coming across as very invested in it. We're only doing it because we're obliged to. We only do it because this is the price that we have to pay. And our kids see that, and they can see through that. But if the reason why I'm teaching these things to my kids is because I feel that desire, that need, and of my own feeling of concern for them and love that I have for understanding this, and I teach them that because of its importance to me not being asked, not because I'm fulfilling a commandment to be a minister, or I'm fulfilling a commandment to do my come follow me or my family home evening. But because, like, look, kids, this means a lot to me, and let me talk about it whenever I can freely, without necessarily having that responsibility there. Then they see my interest, my love, my investment, and they see past the, oh, he's just doing it because he has to. But I don't know. There's a difference there. So I really like the way that he says that, to teach these things freely to our kids so that they understand it, I love it at a deeper level.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: It's great. I think it's great.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Anything else you want to hit before we jump into kind of the highlights of the Easter?
[00:26:31] Speaker A: I think I covered what I wanted to hit. I think. Leah.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Dope.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: Let the good times roll.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Dope.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Well, without further ado, I am going to punch you guys into last year's Easter special episode.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: I feel like passover has been dislocated. Oh, excuse me.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Passed over.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Passed over. I thought for sure you were going there.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Come on, dude.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Dude, that's better than I was going to say because I messed it all up. But you saved it.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: I thought for sure you were literally going. I feel like Passover has been. And I was actually finding I was going to look for the whole thing.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: All right. I feel like Easter's been dislocated. Okay, Easter or Passover? Easter. Okay.
So last week, Nate, we talked about something we weren't even really going to focus much on, but it came up. We talked about Christ's family, and we talked about how Christ came to knock down some barriers and to help us feel like he is one of us. He came to be man so that we could be like him and eroding those differences. But for whatever reason, we're trying to rebuild those walls and look at it like, he couldn't have been like us and separating. Right?
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: I feel like Easter, in a sense, has been building walls to separate it from its past and building walls to separate it from its future, its modern. So I think historically, Easter has been dislocated from its past history and its current history.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Okay, tell us. Explain that. Go into that out of place.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Well, first, the name Easter itself. Right? So maybe let's talk about the history of Easter, where Easter comes from. How did Easter get associated with Christ and the resurrection? What does Easter even mean? And you know, the funny thing about Easter, and I think we can see this, actually, if we even do some comparative analysis here.
What's the spanish word for Easter?
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Or a star.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: No, that's a good guess. A star, but not accurate. Ea. Star. No Easters. You're getting close to German.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: It's where my heritage is from. Dude, that's got to be dossa sergut.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: No, the Spanish is the pasqua. Okay? In Latin, the Pasak.
In Greek, it's Pasca. And all of that to say comes from the german word pesach, which is Passover.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: I knew the Germans were going to end up back here somehow.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: So in just about every language, with the exception of English and german, Easter is Passover. Not Easter. It all comes from the Hebrew Pesach, which is Passover. And so in Spanish, when you say the difference between Passover and Easter, Pasqua, is Easter, Pasqua de Judeos, the Passover of the Jews versus the Passover of the Christians, but it's called the same. So where does this Easter come from? Easter comes from the English. And in the old English, when Christianity goes to England and they're celebrating whatever, they already had their spring festival, and Easter was the name of the goddess of fertility, right? So instead of celebrating Easter as the resurrection of Christ, it switches to this almost aphrodite celebration, the goddess of love, the goddess of fertility.
And why is it that we take this holy, special holiday and dislocate it from celebrating Christ and what he came to do? And now we're going to celebrate the goddess of fertility and commemorate this with bunnies and eggs?
I don't know.
It feels like in this celebration, we're trying to bridge common ground. And I look at Alma in the book of Mormon, who does this when they talk to. He's talking to the lamenite king who believes that God is this great spirit. And he says, ok, let me tell you about this great spirit. We see this great spirit, and now he's creating a bridge, but he's bringing him over from his point of view to the bridge, back over to this great spirit is called God. And let me tell you about this and give you this context instead with Easter, it's like we crossed the bridge and then burned the bridge and didn't want to come back from the bridge. Right. We've embraced this other celebration, this other holiday, and it's almost eroding the past, the context, the story of what Easter is in favor of a different celebration. We lose some of our roots with this. And I think there's power in connecting Easter with the Passover, historically speaking.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
We do still understand, though, like, what we're celebrating.
You're just saying that we've kind of used now all of the symbology and all of the fun, very non Jesus related parts of that tradition. So even though we acknowledge that, yeah, this is about, we are celebrating the resurrection, Easter itself, as that holiday actually has kind of taken a turn from that. So we're walking both worlds is what you're saying. We're kind of celebrating both.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: We are. And I can see when we're celebrating spring, we're celebrating a renewal of life, and it fits with the resurrection, and we talk about the bunnies and being able to reproduce and eggs and the symbols of life. And I get how some of the fertility symbols can be applied to resurrection. And we've kind of blended it and we've made it work. But I want to try to talk about the atonement and what happened in the events leading up to the atonement, not in context of a dislocated space and what we're adapting it to, but where it came from and its roots, to see if I can't plug it back in and why that's significant and not just talk about that from the past, but also go into the future. So to do that, we're going to go into John, chapter twelve and try to talk about the events surrounding Easter.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: Okay, let's do it.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Okay. John, chapter twelve, verse one. And this is important. Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany. So remember that math for a second. This is six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which was dead, whom he had raised from the dead. And they made him a supper, and Martha served, and Lazarus was one that sat at the table. Now, this is the story where Mary takes the ointment and anoints his feet. And Judas is upset because she spent this money out of the purse on the ointment that he was going to be stealing because he had his hand in the purse. Right. This is the story of that. Now, when we finish up this story, so I'm going to fast forward to it says after that.
So, verse twelve, on the next day, much people were come to the feast. And when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him and cried Hosanna. Blessed is the king of Israel who cometh in the name of the Lord. So the next day is going to be the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. So if the day previous when he had this meal where Mary anointed him was six days before Passover, then the next day, which we refer to as Palm Sunday, which came up a lot in conference, is going to be five days before Passover. So if we do the math, now that we have this kind of fixed. So Sunday's Sunday, Palm Sunday, Monday. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is going to be the first day of Passover, according to the Gospel of John.
And we're going to keep going through this story.
So John doesn't go through every day. And it is interesting if we go and we pull all of the gospel accounts and we try to look at the week, the final week of Christ's life here on earth, we can account for Sunday being Palm Sunday. And we can talk about Christ chasing the money changers out of the table, cleansing the temple, and we can talk about him teaching in the temple. So we get these three days, and then we lose a day. It disappears. And nobody knows what happened on Wednesday. So they call it silent Wednesday because the scriptures don't say anything about Wednesday. And then they skip to Thursday when he has the last Supper, and then Friday when he's crucified. And the reason why they say that Christ was crucified on Friday is because it says that as the sun was setting, the next day was the Sabbath. And the day starts with the sun setting. They couldn't have him dying on the Sabbath. They couldn't be taking his body down and doing the work on the Sabbath. So they had to go and break the legs of the thieves on either side of him to speed things up in preparation for the Sabbath. So if the jewish Sabbath is on a Saturday, then obviously he had to have been crucified on a Friday. So then we go back to Psalm Sunday on one end, and then Friday he dies. And then we're missing one day in between that silent Wednesday. But I'm looking at John's account, and I don't see a day that's missing. I'm going to keep going. This is John, chapter 13, verse one. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the father, having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end, and supper being ended. So this is kind of critical now, before the feast of the Passover, but after supper was ended.
So I think in a lot of christian tradition, and we even heard it in conference a little bit, that the last Supper was the Passover meal. But you look at what John's saying here. He's saying that after supper was over, but before Passover had happened.
It's not the same.
And it's not just saying that before Passover began, he said, now, before the feast of the Passover, the feast is being what happens the evening of. And so there's a little bit of a problem with the timeline that we have. And I'm going to go back to Exodus chapter twelve and point something out with this.
Exodus Chapter twelve when we're talking about the Passover and what it means. This is verse 16.
And in the first day there shall be a holy convocation. And in the 7th day there shall be a holy convocation to you no manner of work shall be done in them save that which is every man must eat, that only may be done.
So the first day of Passover, you can't do any work. And it became a holy day or a Sabbath day.
And in John, you're going to read that he refers to. Let's go back to where they have to speed up the death of these prisoners.
And it actually takes us a couple of chapters before we get here. So John, chapter 19, Christ is on the cross.
And we're going to skip into verse 31, the Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day. And then we have this right here in parentheses. For that Sabbath day was an high day, and that's separating it. Not saying that it's a normal Sabbath day, but this is a high Sabbath. And in the jewish tradition, you had seven high Sabbath days associated with the holidays. And the first day of Passover was a high Sabbath.
So according to John, they had a preparation that needed to be done for the high Sabbath. And you look at this, Passover begins with the nightfall, but before the night falls, you have to prepare the Passover meal, you have to kill the lamb, you have to take the blood from the lamb, and you have to mark the posts of your door. And this happened the evening of Christ being crucified. You go back to what John said. The Passover meal hadn't even been eaten after the last Supper yet. So if we look at John's timeline, this makes a big difference when we look at the gospel accounts.
And if we assume that Christ died on a Friday, things don't quite add up for us, because Christ says multiple times when we see this in the New Testament, the only sign I will give you is the sign of Jonah, that for three days and three nights, the son of man will be in the earth.
And if you look at Christ dying on Good Friday, so you've got Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And I can look at that and say, okay, I can see where you're getting your three days from. But if you tell me Friday night, Saturday night, and then what, Sunday night, then you're resurrecting on Monday. You've only got two nights. And if Christ isn't being honest about that, what else is he not being honest about? Or where are we getting this disconnect? But if you look at what John's saying, and he's saying that Passover falls on a Friday, and if this is the case, then you're not crucifying Christ on a Friday, because according to the law of Moses, no work can be done on the first day of Passover.
The Sanhedrin's not going to be meeting and holding a council to crucify Christ on the first day of Passover. It's not going to happen. You're breaking the holiday. They're not going to be meeting with Rome. They're not going to be conspiring. And then, least of all, they're not going to say, oh, well, tomorrow is a Sabbath day, so we better make sure we finish the work on this high Sabbath day. That doesn't make sense. But if you look at it in a sense that Christ was crucified Thursday and that that night was the night of the Passover meal, then all of a sudden, you get Thursday to Fridays one day, Friday to Saturday's two day. Saturday to Sunday is three days. Then you have Thursday night, Friday night, and Sunday night. Now it makes sense. Oh, sorry, I said it wrong. Three days and three nights, and Christ rises, and it becomes really kind of cool, because not only do you have three days and three nights, but very unique in history, you have three Sabbaths in a row, Friday being the first day of Passover, the high Sabbath, Saturday being your normal Sabbath, and then Sunday, the resurrection of Christ, marking the first Christian Sabbath. You have almost this trinity of Sabbaths marking the greatest event of all of history.
And so I look at John's account, and it's very convincing to look at this differently. And then you don't have silent Wednesday. You don't have a missing day in the gap. It fixes a lot of problems for me.
And it's not just that you have to rely on John for this. It's interesting because you look at some of the other witnesses or testimonies of what happened out here outside of Christianity.
And one that you would see that probably not going to be very favorable to Christianity is from Judaism in the Talmud. And the Talmud is going to be writing from about 70 AD to 200 AD. And they're covering the events that happen at this time. And in the Talmud, it says that Christ was hung. In fact, I'll just pull it up right quick, and I'll read it for you so I don't misquote it. It says, on the eve of the Passover, Yeshu, who is Jesus, was hanged for 40 days before the execution took place. A herald cried, he is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. And the idea that he's trying to get them to worship him as a son of God. They looked at him as trying to lead Israel to apostasy. But they say that on the eve of Passover, he was hanged.
Why does it make such a difference? And why am I trying to bring this out and care so much?
The symbolism of this, if we look at the last Supper, is Passover. That's neat. They have this meal together before they die. That's great. But that's about the extent of it. If we look at Christ as dying at the same time that everyone else in Jerusalem, and not just Jerusalem, mind you, this holiday required everyone to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So Christ is from Galilee. In fact, that's why Pilate refuses to make judgment. Pilate's over Jerusalem and he says, this guy is from Galilee. I'm going to send him to Herod, because Herod's the one that's over there. And Herod looks at him and sends him back to Pilate and said, I'm not getting involved. It's this whole. Right.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: I'm not doing it.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And they really hesitated with it. But the reason why is because he's not from Jerusalem.
Not a lot of people are. They're coming from outside for this holiday, and they've come here special to sacrifice a lamb. And at the same time that they are killing a lamb, the lamb of God is being hung on a cross.
And the requirement that they take the blood of that lamb and stain the vertical and horizontal posts of their door with the blood from that lamb so that the angel of death would pass over their homes. Well, at the same time, Christ has been stripped of skin on his back as he was flogged. He's got this crown of thorns pressed down on his head. And I'm sure as a father, Nate, you've seen head wounds. When your kids. Those bleed.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: They're a mess.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: They bleed? Yeah, tons.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Like, tons even. Like just the.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: Just little ones.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Nicks.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
And not only that, but then he had nails driven through his hands, his wrists, his feet.
His blood is literally staining the horizontal and vertical posts of this cross at the same time that everyone else in Israel is doing the same thing.
And so you look at it, and you realize that the significance of Easter is not an isolated event in history, a one time thing that God just did a flash in the pan.
Easter was a part of a celebration thousands of years beforehand, from the beginning of the world, in a sense, ever since Adam Partook of the fruit and God covers him by killing a lamb. And covering his nakedness. There's going to be a lamb that's going to be sacrificed. And when he institutes Passover and says the lamb is going to die, and you're going to take its blood and put it on the doorposts of your home so that you can be passed over and saved, you can be redeemed or brought out of Egypt. And you look at Egypt as bondage, slavery, whether it's physical slavery in the sense that your death is going to be a cage, a captivity for you, or spiritual slavery in sin, whatever the case, he's going to liberate you and set you free. By sacrificing this lamb, it makes more sense realizing that he is the Passover lamb. When John the Baptist testifies that Christ is the lamb of God, that doesn't make sense. If he sacrificed any other day, but being sacrificed on the day of Passover, now it makes a lot more sense.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Completely agree.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: And the details, mind you, of this festivity, this holiday, this is the oldest religious tradition in the world today. And the details of it prophesy such finite details of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Because what do you serve the lamb with?
Let's go to the Old Testament, back to real quick exodus, chapter twelve, and let's just read some of this out of here.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: I know that there's some bitter herbs.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: That's it?
That's it.
You take the lamb and let's see, verse eight. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread. And with bitter herbs, they shall eat it. So you think of Christ being the lamb.
What's the significance of bitter herbs? And when he's on the cross and he thirsts, what do they do? They take a sponge and dip it in vinegar, or they dip it in ball and gall, and they feed him bitterness. The lamb served with bitter herbs while he's on the cross.
And another thing that's interesting, in jewish tradition, even today, there's this idea that you can't have leavened bread. It has to be unleavened for eight days. You eat this, you can't have any leavening during the Passover, from the first day to the last. So the day before Passover, they do a search, a hunt for leaven, and they've got to get rid of it. And you'll go to stores today and they'll cover up all the sections of the store that sell leavening. And in houses, if you have alcoholic beverage, the alcohol oftentimes is fermented because of the yeast or the leaven that's in it. And so what they'll do is they'll sell their alcohol back to an alcohol shop, and the alcohol oftentimes stays in the home. They just make this agreement saying, I'm going to sell this back to you for eight days. And after eight days, I will buy it back for the same price. And the money and the alcohol might not even switch hands, but it's accounted for. And saying that, I am ridding myself of all leaven. So they do a hunt for the leaven.
So the day that Christ is going to be crucified. And when we talk about leaven, the word leaven really means almost what it sounds like to make alive.
And you look at the process of making bread, you harvest the grain, which means, literally, you kill it. And you take this dead grain, and you mix it into a dough, and the dough is dead. And then you put yeast in it, which is going to liven it. And that's the leavening. And the proof of it being alive is that it grows. So as you see the bread start to grow, then you can say, oh, it's got life. It's got the leaven. And so the leaven brings the bread back to life. And because they're in a hurry, you say, no, leaven. It doesn't really make sense in the context of ancient Egypt and trying to get out and not having leaven. But fast forward to this final week of Christ's life. And what happened on the day that he's going to be crucified is people searching for the followers of Christ.
And if you think of the light of Christ being this leaven, what lightens you or makes you alive? And the people denying that or trying to hunt that out of them, what happens when they ask Peter, you were with him. You were one of his followers. We saw you. And he vehemently denies it to the point where he's angry. And you've got this day where you're hunting the leaven, the light of Christ, or this out of your lives, and it's almost fulfilling these steps that you see in Passover.
And then you get to the part where John says that because the preparation, where they have to go and prepare their meal and eat it and paint the blood on the doors is drawing near, and they have to speed things up, and they go. And the two guys on either side are still alive. They have to break their legs to speed up the process of death. But Christ is already dead, so they don't have to break his legs and the Passover lamb that was supposed to be served with very great care not to break a single bone because his bones were not broken. It's a prophecy. It's part of that. And so you have this old religious tradition that prophesies the very day, the very hour and the very manner of his death, and the details surrounding what's going to happen. And it's maintained by a people that don't accept him, which is fascinating, because if the Jews had accepted Christ and had accepted the messiah, it would be very easy for us to look at it and say, you changed the Passover to fit the narrative so that we would believe in your messiah. But to now have a people that didn't accept, that rejected the messiah, hold this tradition for 2000 years before he came and 2000 years after he came and still hold to it, and it prophesied all of these details, and yet they didn't accept it. How much more powerful of a testimony is that?
So I feel like a lot has been done to try to disconnect Easter from its past and to try to shake it from the testimony that stands from the beginning of time, that Christ was always this lamb that was supposed to come and instead try to make this almost a flash in the pan. Does that make sense?
[00:51:54] Speaker B: No, I'm just letting you cook baby sounds. I mean, you're nailing it. So, yeah, not only does it make sense, but it makes more sense than I feel like we're probably used to making of it.
Yeah.
In our religious practices specifically, we understand, I feel like the Passover generally. I feel like we understand generally, you know what I mean, that week of the atonement situation.
But it is nice to, I think, maybe understand and just kind of put a finer point on it and kind of help us connect to really where our roots in Christianity come from, too, which is being adopted into the chosen people. It's good for us to understand Judaism. It's good for us to understand, I feel like, the traditions and practices of that stuff. So it's great.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I feel like there was a lot of hostility with the early Jews and the early Christians. I say early Jews with the Jews at the time of the early Christians. And there was pushback, and I think as Christianity developed to try to push back on the Judaism and separate themselves and make themselves, and you get this kind of. This dislocation of Easter to be something different than what it was, to try to separate from where they came from. And I feel like we lose some of that tradition.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: Just out of curiosity, do modern hebrew, jewish celebrators of Passover, do they still kill lambs and do the blood on the door and everything?
[00:53:39] Speaker A: That's a good question.
I don't know.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Because you know how there's definitely some kind of like the ancient traditions that we read about in the scriptures that you don't read about necessarily actually happening anymore.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: It sounds like even that feast has taken on, it's picked up different aspects of it throughout time and it's changed, right, because originally in Exodus, it doesn't say anything about setting a plate for Elijah.
But now we believe that the Jews believe that Elijah is going to come back. He's going to be this forerunner. And so we've got to have a place ready and set for him. So this tradition has picked up a few changes over time, but it still maintains a lot of these same symbols and shadows of Christ.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: I just don't see ever on the news, like everybody over in Jerusalem murdering, painting their mean, but it might still be happening and they just don't cover it in the news. But you think that they would, right? You would think that at some point in your life you would see a news story, know a bunch of cameras in, I don't know, Israel with a bunch of blood over everybody's doorways, but I don't know, maybe they do and I just have never seen it.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: I wish I knew more about that. And when it comes to modern Judaism, I admit a lot of my knowledge goes back before Alexander the Great. And I don't keep up with what's going on as well today. I'll look that up. It'd be good to know. Sweet. And speaking of modern, I feel like Easter is also taken out of context from a modern perspective.
So we talked about it being dislocated from it, not just in the past, but look at.
Well, maybe it's worth even just going through the witnesses of the. Okay, and first, the very first person to see the resurrected Christ is Mary. And I think there's some significance to that.
Did you want to talk about that or do you want to.
[00:55:44] Speaker B: Well, we got plenty of time to talk about that down the.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: There.
There's a good point to be made. Why is she the first?
[00:55:55] Speaker B: Because it's his wife.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: And because she is the first. She is known as the apostle to the apostles because she bears the news to them that Christ has disappeared. And then you have John and Peter running to the tomb. And then you're going to have. Christ is also going to appear to the apostles individually. He's going to appear to them collectively.
[00:56:16] Speaker B: But he also appears to the two dudes that are just walking on the road.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: He does. He appears to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. Right.
And then interesting.
So far it's disciples, apostles, loved ones, spouses.
However. However you want to qualify that, I'm not backing down.
And then he shows up to Saul.
And Saul's not a Christian. He's not a disciple. In fact, he's persecuting the Christians. He's murdering the disciples. And to have a testimony of the resurrected Christ coming from the enemy of Christianity, there's something powerful to that, too.
And he shows him, and Saul changes to Paul and he changes and he realizes. But you start to get different stories, different witnesses of the resurrected Christ that are not just partial and favorable. It's easy for us to believe, oh, well, Mary just said that he's resurrected, that maybe it's just because she's family, she's making things up, if you want to make that claim.
Or the apostles, maybe they're making things up because they want people to buy into the church that they're creating. Fair. But when you start getting the enemies of the church and you appear to them, you create complexity in the testimonies that Christ has risen.
[00:57:46] Speaker B: It's very similar to the testimonies of the gold plates and early church history witnesses, right? Yes. There was a lot of nuance and even the people that stayed as part of the church and didn't stay as part of the church, you know what I mean? There's a lot of nuance even in the witnesses that you have early on in church history.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: I think there's a lot of power in that. When you have three witnesses witness to the plates and what they saw and leave the church but still hold fast to their witness. I saw what I saw, and I'm not going to change that. Even though they're enemies to the church. Right.
[00:58:22] Speaker B: There's power in that.
[00:58:23] Speaker A: There's power in that. There's power in knowing that both sides can at least agree that this happened.
And there's some interesting texts that talk about Christ having resurrected. Josephus writes about Christ having come back from the dead. You get some different accounts from people outside of just Christianity testifying to him. And it makes it interesting. You have Christ appearing to 500 people, which is mentioned but not in great detail in the New Testament. And so you have these witnesses of Christ, but you also have, which was.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: Talked about a lot in conference today as we read in the Book of Mormon, Christ appearing to an entire group of people.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: And that's where I feel you start to get a lot of power when you start seeing now in a different book entirely, because the New Testament, you just look at that and say, okay, well, maybe this book is just leaning towards one side, but now all of a sudden you have another book coming out and testifying that, oh, by the way, he came here too, and he testified to us and we saw him. And it's interesting we don't have to go down this road. But I do find it interesting when he does show up to Mary, he says, touch me not.
[00:59:30] Speaker B: He says, embrace me not.
Just touch me not, embrace me not. It's different.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: It is different.
Do you want to go down that road or you want to go down.
[00:59:40] Speaker B: That road another time?
[00:59:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:59:42] Speaker B: I know that we read it in this version of things as touch me not, but we'll get into why it's actually embrace me not.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: Well, because in a lot of the other stories that we're going to see in a lot of the witnesses, it's not don't touch me. It's in fact, please touch me. I need you to verify that I am who I claim to be. And these are my marks, my tokens for you to know that I am the resurrected Christ. Put your hand in my side. Touch my hands. Right.
[01:00:10] Speaker B: Yes. That's why I'm really excited to when we eventually need to get into this.
[01:00:15] Speaker A: Okay. I'm looking forward to it.
[01:00:17] Speaker B: Because don't you think that would change the context of that relationship if it was instead of just, oh, hey, don't touch me. Clearly.
What do you think the reaction of Mary probably was when she saw her.
[01:00:30] Speaker A: Husband throw arms around him and kiss.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: Him and hold him? Yeah, you brought up a great point. It's like, embrace me not makes it be like, okay, hold still. But with everybody else, he's like, no, feel all of these wounds and feel this whole thing. So, yeah, I'm setting this up. I'm giving a little preview here because I feel like that changes the context of that entire situation.
[01:00:57] Speaker A: And I like it. I'm looking forward to the discussion.
[01:01:05] Speaker B: I'm going to try to win you over by the end of this.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: I am where I am. All right.
[01:01:11] Speaker B: I'm going to try to move you from where you are right now. I'm going to try to get you to commit.
Whether it's important or not, I'm going to try to get you to commit.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: I appreciate that.
Going back to Easter, if you will, being dislocated in time, I feel like all of these testimonies are important, but they're all ancient testimonies. And if that was the end of it, how do we know if we can believe it today?
And I think it's important that we have continuation of witnesses and testimonies and a continuation of testimonies, not just from. Right. If you're looking at the New Testament and saying these are Jews that are turned to Christians, well, what happens in 1820 when a gentile boy is visited by Christ? Right? Because now it's the testimony of Jews with Paul and the early Christians who were Jews. But now you've got a completely different nation and you've got a boy in modern times who claims to see Christ not just once.
And this is what I love, the Kirtland temple when it's dedicated in 1836, April 3.
And when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery separate themselves from the rest of the group behind the curtain, Christ appears to them in his temple and stands on the pulpit. What's significant about that event is April 3, 136, was Passover.
And here you have all of these people who are setting the places, waiting for Elijah to come. And not only does Christ come to visit his temple, but Elijah also comes with him to his temple on Passover and hands the keys to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowry. And part of this restoration of bringing the gospel back and this continuity is tied to the atonement and it's tied to ancient history going back thousands of years, tied to ancient prophets with Elijah, but all of it tied with the singular event of Passover.
It's a very powerful event.
Joseph Smith also sees Christ when he's translating the New Testament with Sydney Rigdon.
He's by himself at the first vision. He's with Oliver cowdry when he sees him in the Kirtland temple and then with Sidney Riggedon when he's translating John, chapter five, verse 29, they have a vision and they see the heaven and the different degrees of glory and doctrine. Covenant 76. And they see Christ again. And so now all of a sudden you have three witnesses involving three different people that Christ is resurrected.
I said three. I'm sorry. It would be three people.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: It would be Joseph Smith, Sydney, Reagan and Coucher.
[01:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. The math adds up.
Just because Joseph Smith was there for all three of those doesn't mean that there was still not three different people. Yes.
[01:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: You were worried about that for a.
See the wheels turning in your head?
[01:04:24] Speaker A: That common denominator was disappearing.
[01:04:26] Speaker B: All right.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: No. Okay, keep going.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: So we have the three modern witnesses.
[01:04:30] Speaker A: And it's not just that I don't know how much time we have. We've got plenty of time, dog, because I would love to go in and read these testimonies. They're so powerful. But for sake of right now, I'm not going to go into them. Maybe if we have time at the end, I'll come back and hit them, because the witnesses to me are extremely powerful. But I think some of us are very familiar with those, so I want to build on to them. 1844. Brigham Young is praying in the upper room of the Navu temple, and he writes, quote, while I was praying, the vision of my mind was opened, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, came in the glory of the Father, and I saw him as plainly as I see you. He said nothing, but looked upon me with feelings no language can express, and my whole soul was penetrated with his gaze.
1856. Brigham Young saw him again saying, quote, I saw the son of God. And he rode upon a horse, and his garments were fluttering in the wind as though they were alive. And he came and stood before me, and he said, I have been riding on the earth these 2000 years and more, and I perceive that the people are all corrupt. They have all gone astray. They do not understand the principles of righteousness. And that helped him get through a very difficult time in church history.
1877. John Taylor writes, quote, I testify before God, angels, and men, that I know that my redeemer lives, that I have seen him with these eyes, and I have heard his voice with these ears, and that he has communed with me face to face, that I have received of his fullness and of his glory, then that his grace has been sufficient for me, notwithstanding my weakness and affirmative of the flesh.
1880. Wilford Woodruff. I saw the Son of God, and his countenance was as clear as the sun at noonday. His hair was a bright silver gray and waved in the most beautiful manner. He was clean and well dressed, and his hands and feet were without blemish. He stood before me in a most majestic manner. His greatness is beyond description, and his love for me was most intense. He spoke to me and said, I am the savior of the world.
1898. Lorenzo snow saw Jesus in the Salt Lake temple. Jesus said to him, quote, as man now is, God once was, as God is now, man may become.
1918, Joseph F. Smith. Quote, I sat there, and I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears and smelt with my own nose, and felt with my own hands the glory of the Son of God. That was a revelation from God to me that the things of which I was testifying were true.
And I see a plethora of witnesses, not just in the New Testament, not just in the Book of Mormon, not just in ancient jewish traditions that go back 2000 years before Christ came, but stretching even to our times and modern times with people that see Christ.
This is the most significant event that has ever happened in history.
And to my knowledge, it is the best documented event that has ever happened in history. I can't think of another event that was prophesied in such great detail and foretold 2000 years beforehand with how many people that saw Christ coming and dying and being resurrected before he came. Nephi tells us he saw that. Jacob tells us he saw that. A lot of the prophets write about it. Isaiah writes about what happens before he even came. It's very well attested from many different sources across the globe. He comes and he does it. It's written about in the four different gospels. It's talked about by Josephus, it's talked about by early christian fathers. It's talked about from a lot of different people. Very well documented. And now you have witness after witness after witness that this is the case. This is the most important thing. We have to get this right. If we missed nothing else, and it's extremely well documented.
I love it.
[01:08:47] Speaker B: Amen, brother.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: But I feel like if we deny revelation, if we say that Christ has already done everything he's going to do, we're creating that gulf between us and him. We don't need him. He doesn't need to come and appear us. We don't need to see him. Easter's not Easter. If Christ isn't here, if Christ doesn't live, and if we don't have people seeing him today, is there still Easter?
And if it wasn't Passover, I don't know.
[01:09:23] Speaker B: That makes sense to me. I do think that there is a large swath of the christian world today that I think that celebrates Easter, like you said, is kind of like a one time definitive kind of, you know what I mean? We celebrate it as the resurrection happened, but in a weird sort of way, but we're disconnected from that currently. What you're saying, I feel like, and I agree with, is, well, if that's the case, why wouldn't more people, you know what I mean? Why would revelation stop? Why would more people not be testifying? I mean, he came to people after he was resurrected in the New Testament. Why would he stop coming to man now?
[01:10:09] Speaker A: And how many times when he performed a miracle. Did he tell people? Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. But when he resurrects, it's a different thing.
[01:10:17] Speaker B: He's like, tell everybody.
[01:10:18] Speaker A: Come fill my hands. Come see what's going on. Come see with yourself. It's important that people know and understand this.
[01:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I like the idea that when we celebrate Easter now, it should be very much a very alive holiday. It's a holiday that we continue to, again, in our religion, celebrate as continued revelation as a very living church. You know what I mean? Like a very living gospel. Like there, it's. It's. Revelation is not dead. And just because the miracle of the resurrection happened one time doesn't mean that we celebrate it as kind of a well that happened. And now we have everything that we need to at that point, it's complete.
[01:11:08] Speaker A: And here in my mind also, this is what Easter is without Passover.
If it's just Easter, we're celebrating the fact that one man became God, that one man overcame death.
But if you connect that with Passover, didn't he do it so that the entire nation could come out of Egypt so that everybody could be free?
It's not about one man overcoming death, because if that's the end of the story, what value is that?
[01:11:42] Speaker B: What value is that for us?
[01:11:45] Speaker A: He's going to be God.
[01:11:47] Speaker B: I know. I'm totally with you, and that's nice.
[01:11:51] Speaker A: And he was God before, and he resumed being God. Yeah. Fantastic.
[01:11:57] Speaker B: Love it, man. That's awesome stuff.
I'm just sitting here listening and learning. Man, that's incredible. Any other details you wanted to add to this?
[01:12:12] Speaker A: I wouldn't mind just reading some of the witnesses.
[01:12:14] Speaker B: Okay, let's do just.
[01:12:15] Speaker A: Let's just read some of the witnesses and then just end this, if that sounds good.
[01:12:21] Speaker B: That's perfect.
[01:12:23] Speaker A: And I'd like to go, if you don't mind. I'll just go with Joseph Smith, history.
We'll just read a little bit of this, and then doctrine, covenants, and then just see where we go. Okay. Verse 17. Joseph, history. And no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description. Standing above me in the air, one of them spake unto me, calling me by name and saying, pointing to the other, this is my beloved son. Hear him doctrine covenants.
Let's go to section 110. And this is going to be Passover at the celebration we're talking about. The dedication of the Kirtland temple, verse one. The veil was taken from our minds and the eyes of our understanding were opened. We saw the Lord standing before the breastwork of the pulpit before us, and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, and the color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire. The hair of his head was white like the pure stone. His countenance shone above the brightness of the sun, and his voice was as the sound of rushing of great waters. Even the voice of Jehovah saying, I am the first and the last. I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain. I am your advocate with the father.
And to wrap this up with their testimonies, doctrine covenant, section 76, verse 22. And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony last of all which we give of him, that he lives for we saw him even on the right hand of God, and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the only begotten of the father, that by him and through him and of him the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters of God.
And I know it's not typically our place in this podcast. In these episodes, a lot of what we're doing is talking about the scriptures and talking about the events, but with something as important as this and as central to this, I just wanted to add my voice, not that I've seen to the extent that they've seen or know, maybe to the extent that they know, but I do know that Christ lives, and I do know that because as I've read the prophecies that talk about him, the feelings that I feel and the impressions that I get, and as I speak of him, the joy that it creates, and I've felt what it feels like to be in his presence. And I know without a shadow of doubt that he lives.
And it's because he lives today, not because he lived 1000 years ago or 2000 years ago, but he continues to live, that I have hope that we can live again.
[01:15:31] Speaker B: Thanks for well stated.
Appreciate you sharing that with us. Really great stuff today, man. And as always, I can't thank you enough for the prep that you put into this and for the time and for the years worth of study and all of that. But most importantly, I appreciate your testimony at the end of that. Thank you.
We appreciate you listening. I hope you got something good out of this. We appreciate any of the questions or comments that we get.
It was awesome. We got a lot of really awesome response to last week's episode, and it was overwhelmingly positive, which was nice. I don't want to say it was a total surprise, but I am a bit surprised that we didn't get at least a few scathing your heretic whatever.
Maybe, Jason, you and I are the only ones that actually think it's that controversial of a take. But anyways, we do appreciate listening. You can get a hold of us at the email address.
[email protected] we love coming at you each week. Until next week, the.
