In Him All Things Hold Together

Happy Sunday!  Today's Sunday brings a lot of snow, several meetings, an opportunity to see my sister Stephanie again, and an opportunity to teach. Due to an unexpected illness, I got to teach Sunday School today.  In all honesty, there are few things that make me happier than to hear that I will need to fill in for a Sunday School teacher who wasn't able to be there.  I don't get to teach very often these days, so any opportunity to teach is a welcome blessing! Today's lesson was on 1 Nephi 8-11, 15.

This is the perfect lesson to teach when you haven't had any notice or time to prepare earlier in the week.  You can't possibly mess Lehi's dream up.  Everyone knows the dream and everyone has insights.  So things went well despite my lack of preparation.

As I was teaching, I had a thought that I had never had about Lehi's dream.  It grew out of years worth of pondering what it was that distinguished the two groups who managed to arrive at the tree.  Of course the first group that arrived at the tree ended up leaving as they looked around and heard the mocking emanating from the Great and Spacious Building.  The second group, on the other hand, paid no attention to the mockers and remained faithfully at the tree.

Years ago it occurred to me that Lehi was an example of what those who remained faithfully at the tree had done after they partook of the fruit.  Whereas those who left began to "cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed" (1 Nephi 8:25) Lehi had "cast [his] eyes around about, that perhaps [he] might discover [his] family" (1 Nephi 8:13).  In other words, both groups began to look around after they had partaken of the fruit.  But while one group looked for validation from the world, the other group looked for others they could bring to the Tree (who in this dream is symbolic of the Savior); and they looked specifically for family.  And so it began to occur to me that the thing that would make the difference was what you are looking for after arriving at the Tree.

But as I taught my lesson today, that thought went a step further.  If the Tree is symbolic of the Savior--the embodiment of the perfect love of our perfect Father--then the fruit is symbolic of the atonement that He wrought, both the tree and the fruit being the love of God.  But unlike an apple or a mango or a pear, the atonement can never be fully enjoyed by a lone individual.  By it's very nature, the atonement is meant to bring disparate people to one.  Of course it brings us to one with God, reconciling us to heaven.  But the atonement also brings us to one with each other, and most powerfully within the family unit.  It is the power of the atonement that activates and validates the sealing keys that bind families forever.  It is the atonement that makes eternal marriages, eternal families, and eternal friendships "coupled with eternal glory" (D&C 130:2) an actual possibility.  In the words of Paul to the Colossians, "all things in him hold together" (Colossians 1:17, Greek Translation), or as the NIV renders the phrase, "in Him all things hold together" (NIV Colossians 1:17).  Foremost among those things that hold together in Christ, are the relationships we cherish and seek to make eternal.

With these thoughts of eternal marriages, eternal families, and eternal friendships in mind, it struck me that it is perfectly understandable why those like Lehi remained at the Tree while others left in search of validation from the world.  When Lehi and the faithful partook of the fruit and Christ's atonement, they did so with a view towards using it to becoming one, not only with God and Christ, but also to become one with those they loved.  Accordingly, they immediately went in search of their loved ones whom they might bring to the tree.  Those who left disenchanted, however, partook of the fruit and then sat around waiting for it to make them happy alone, never realizing that our very doctrine of salvation requires us to be bound to others by Christ.  Our very doctrine of salvation requires relationships.  As such, we must seek for others to bring to Him, "for their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation. . . that they without us cannot be made perfect--neither can we without [them] be made perfect" (D&C 128:15).  There is no such thing as being exalted alone.

How do we remain at the Tree?  How do we remain at the feet of Christ?  We bring others with us.  We search them out.  We love them.  And we invite them to partake of the fruit of at-one-ment with us, that in Christ, "all things [may] hold together," and do so eternally.

Brett