Swallowed up in the Joy of Christ

 This week in Come Follow Me we only had two chapters to study, Alma 30 and 31. In 30 Alma confronts the Anti-Christ, Korihor, and in 31, he comes in contact with the wicked Zoramites. He is so dismayed by these encounters, we see a little bit of world-weariness  befall this great religious leader, "O, how long, O Lord, wilt thou suffer that they servants shall dwell here below in the flesh, to behold such gross wickedness among the children of men?" (v. 26).  He then enumerates their sins and finishes he prayer with a plea for his fellow missionaries. "Wilt thou grant unto them that they may have strength, that they may bear their afflictions which shall come upon them because of the iniquity of this people." (v. 33)

In the final verse of the chapter we get the response of the Lord, as seen by Mormon.  "And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ" (v. 38).   

I was really touched by that last phrase this week.  The Lord isn't promising that they would not suffer afflictions, but just that their afflictions would be "swallowed up" in joy. We know from later chapters that Alma's afflictions had only just begun.  He and his people have years of brutal warfare ahead of them. Yet they are promised that the pain and suffering of the times ahead will be overbalanced with the joy of Christ. 

I think this was impactful for me because recently, (i.e. in the past few years) I have had a number of little physical changes in my body that cause mild pain.  I got plantar fasciitis that hasn't quite gone away so my feet hurt every day.  My hip often hurts, and I struggle with a sore tailbone if I sit in a hard chair too long.  Most recently, my gums have receded enough that my teeth have become really sensitive to temperature. I can't eat either hot or cold things without risking a jolt of pain from my teeth. I know these are really common ailments that befall the aging, but sometimes I feel world weary as I realize that these pains will likely be my constant companions for the rest of my life, which, since I am only 59, could be 20 or 30 more years.  What's more, they will probably be joined with other small aches and pains. Not only will I suffer this decline, I will have to watch those I love suffer as well.  How does one face this kind of future?  

I think the Lord has given Alma and Mormon the answer.  These afflictions can be swallowed up in joy through Christ. Yes, my body will hurt and bad things may happen to me, but I will also have the opportunity to see my children and grandchildren grow and progress. Spring flowers will bloom and autumn leaves will blaze every year.  I will pray and be comforted over and over, and I will have many opportunities to serve others. Even if the time comes, like it did for my brother who died of cancer, that I am confined to a bed, racked with pain, waiting for death, I will always have the hope of a life after this one full of family, love and creativity. I think that is what it means to have our afflictions "swallowed up in the joy of Christ." The pain will come, but so, also, will a greater measure of joy. 

Transgression

 Last week we went to the temple and did an endowment session.  In the endowment, there is symbolic portrayal of the plan of redemption that depicts the fall of Adam and Eve and their eventual return to the presence of God. In the final scene, Eve quotes Moses 5:11 "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient."  

I kept wondering why Adam and Eve's partaking of the forbidden fruit is always called a "transgression" in Latter-Day Saint theology instead of the "original sin" as in other Christian theologies. As a Latin reader, when I see the word "transgression" I break it down into its roots; trans=across, gression=travel or move. So in my mind transgression means to move across something.  The modern dictionary has the same definition that most people think of when they read "transgress" i.e. a sin or breaking a law, but could it here refer to the latin meaning? David suggested I look in a dictionary contemporary with Brigham Young who wrote down the temple ceremony.  I looked up the Webster's 1828 dictionary, and the first definition is "The act of passing over or beyond any law or rule of moral duty; the violation of a law or known principle of rectitude; breach of command."  So it does have more of the sense of crossing a boundary than our modern usage. 

So why is this important to me? I have long seen the story of Adam and Eve, and particularly of Eve's choice to partake of the fruit, as symbolic of our choice to leave pre-earth life and come into mortality.  To me the fall is not from Eden to the "Lone and dreary world" but from pre-Earth life into mortality. We all had to make Eve's choice to suffer the pains of mortality and eventual death in order to have "seed" and learn to distinguish between good and evil.  By making that choice, we all experienced spiritual death by leaving God's presence and have to rely on messengers to receive God's word. In this context, to say the Adam and Eve "transgressed" just means they traveled across the line from immortality to mortality, from "heaven" to earth.  

Another support for this symbolic interpretation is that Adam's name means "earth," and Eve's name means "life."  Eve decided that in order to bring human "life" to the "earth" they would need to transgress (cross over) and become mortal.  In other words, in order to begin procreation you have to have a physical body. The story is telling us the purpose of mortality and the reason why there is death and suffering. It is also giving us hope that, at the end of this life there is hope through obedience and faith in the Savior, our older brother and the creator of the world, Jesus Christ. People who spend too much time trying to interpret this story literally are missing the whole beautiful message. 

Anyway, to circle back around, I think this is why they call Eve's and Adam's partaking of the fruit a "transgression."  It symbolizes the spirit moving across the boundary from pre-earth life into mortality. 

Anti-Nephi-Lehi Swords

One of the most impactful scenes in this week's reading is found in Alma 24 when the new Lamanite converts make a covenant to never again wield a weapon against another human. They talk about how their swords were "stained" with the blood of their brethren (v. 12) but that they had become bright by the blood of Christ (v. 13). They feared if they took them up again they would never be able to make them clean again. A couple of the podcasters talked about the question, how could a metal sword become stained with blood? Metal washes right off. 

I had never been concerned with this question. I always just figured that it was metaphorical, like Lady MacBeth's spotted hands. But one of the podcasters, Bryce Dunford, mentioned that the Mayans did use wooden swords, which could, conceivably, become stained with blood. They are called a "macuahuitl" and they are like a cricket bat but with pieces of obsidian,or shark teeth embedded along the shaft.  At the time of Cortés' invasion of Central America one of the Spaniards saw a man sever a horse's head off with one of these weapons.

Of course, the Mayan civilization was hundreds of years later than the time of Alma. Still, I had never seen a weapon like this, and I thought it was cool.  Maybe this kind of weapon had been in use for centuries and was the kind that the Lamanites used. If it is, it supports another idea that I have had that I blogged about before. I think there is a lot of evidence that the Nephites were an iron age culture and understood metalworking, but the people of the New World were more primitive and didn't have the metallurgy skills Nephi used to make tools to make his boats. (1 Nephi 17). There is a Wikipedia Article about Metallurgy in Pre-Columbians America  that suggests the pre-Columbians did have some metalworking skills, but they didn't use them to make weapons. If the Nephites retained their ability to make metal swords, (Nephi said he used the Sword of Laban as a model to make many swords 2 Nephi 4:14) it would help explain why, as a smaller group, they were able to escape conquest from the Lamanites for so long. 

The important thing about this story is not what kind of sword the Lamanites used.  It is that they were willing to give up their past life style, their past sins, and even their lives because of their faith in Christ. The slaughter of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people is a brutal scene but it reminds us all, in times of trial, to take the long view. Whatever trials we endure in this life, if we endure them well, we will be blessed, even if it is in the next life.

Abish

 This week in our Come Follow Me readings we meet one of the six women named in the Book of Mormon.  The fact that we only have six named women in the Book of Mormon is notable. For comparison, there are about 200 named women in the Old Testament. I think one reason there might be very few women named is because of the editor. Mormon was a man who lived very much in a male centered world.  He was a military leader in a time of war, and these areas of focus were overwhelmingly the realm of men during his life. The fact that he mentions Abish by name here, therefore, means that he found her name significant. 

The name "Abish" is from two Hebrew words, ab (אָב) which means "father" and ish (איש) which means "man". So her name literally means, "father is a man".  So why would Mormon find this name significant? It is just a statement of fact: isn't everyone's father is a man?  The podcasters I listened two mentioned two possible reasons.  One is that she was converted to the gospel by "a remarkable vision of her father."  Here we have an ambiguity.  Who had the vision? One way to read this is that Abish's father had a vision and told Abish about it and Abish was converted.  A different way to read it is that Abish had a vision of her father that converted her to Christianity.  Of course, that begs the question, was it a vision of her earthly father, or is this referring to a vision of her Heavenly Father. The text just doesn't give us enough to answer these questions definitively. 

The other reason Mormon might have considered the name significant, is because it encapsulated the difference between the Nephite view of God and the Lamanite view of God.  In the the stories of Ammon preaching to Lamoni, and the one of Aaron preaching to Lamoni's father, it states that the Lamanites believed in a "Great Spirit". (Alma 18:5 and Alma 22:9)  This Great Spirit created the world, but didn't actively govern the affairs of men. The Nephites, on the other hand believed that God is in the form of a man and he is their Heavenly Father, i.e. Father is a Man--Abish. 

These are interesting speculations, but we don't reallyknow why Mormon included Abish's name and not, say, the name of Lamoni's queen who also played an important part in the story. I do find it remarkable that this name, which is not found it the Old Testament, is here in the Book of Mormon.  It is a very Hebrew sounding name and has a meaning in Hebrew that is clearly related to the story being told. Could Joseph Smith have made this up while crafting the Book of Mormon at age 21, before he had ever studies Hebrew?  It is only one of many many Hebraisms found the in book. Maybe they are all coincidences, but really? 

Why Melchizedek?

 When Alma and Amulek are preaching to the people of Ammonihah, Alma is explaining to Zeezrom the plan of redemption, starting with the fall of Adam (Alma 12). Then in the next chapter he seems to randomly launch into a discussion of the priesthood and how Melchizedek was a high priest after the order of the son of God (Alma 13).  What does Melchizedek have to do with the fall of Adam and the plan of redemption?

To answer that question, you have to remember a couple of things from the Old Testament. The story of the fall of Adam sets up the main conflict of the Old Testament.  Man is thrust out of the presence of God and cannot return without divine assistance. In the Old Testament that assistance comes with the establishment of temples and priesthood. In the First Temple Period, people are ritualistically cleansed through blood sacrifice and then the High Priest, acting as proxy for the whole nation, is admitted into a symbolic garden of Eden (i.e. Holy of Holies) and the presence of the Lord (before the Mercy Seat), thus overcoming spiritual death.

Of course, in the Old Testament, the only people who could be High Priests were direct descendants of Aaron. This was a problem for the Lehites when they left Jerusalem because they were descended from Manasseh, not Aaron. They built temples in the New World, but there was no one, according to the Jewish law, who could act as High Priest. It seems that they resolved that problem the same way that Paul resolved the problem of Jesus' claim to be a High Priest in the book of Hebrews chapter 7. I that chapter, Paul claims that Jesus' authority comes not through Aaron, but through an older priesthood, after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 7:17) In Alma 13, Alma seems to be using the same kind of argument to justify ordaining High Priests, not according to Levitical law, but through the older Melchizedek priesthood.  These priests could establish and run temples, which showed the people how to overcome original sin, and return to God's presence.  

Of course, Alma was not ignorant of another good reason to bring up Melchizedek.  Melchizedek was a religious leader to was able to take a wicked people and lead them into righteousness. That is what Alma was trying to do with the people of Ammonihah. Melchizedek is a type of Christ.  His name means, "Righteous King" which is also a title of Jesus. Alma hopes that the people of Ammonihah will be encouraged and inspired by the story of Melchizedek as a type of Jesus, to repent and have hope for eternal life.