NEXT WEEK
Exodus 14-17
TRIUMPHAL ENTRY
“The story of the triumphal entry is one of contrasts, and those contrasts contain applications to believers. It is the story of the King who came as a lowly servant on a donkey, not a prancing steed, not in royal robes, but on the clothes of the poor and humble. Jesus Christ comes not to conquer by force as earthly kings but by love, grace, mercy, and His own sacrifice for His people. His is not a kingdom of armies and splendor but of lowliness and servanthood. He conquers not nations but hearts and minds. His message is one of peace with God, not of temporal peace. If Jesus has made a triumphal entry into our hearts, He reigns there in peace and love. As His followers, we exhibit those same qualities, and the world sees the true King living and reigning in triumph in us.”
https://www.gotquestions.org/triumphal-entry.html
THE LORD’S PASSOVER
“Why, then, did Jesus institute the Lord’s Supper on the Passover the night before His crucifixion? In the first place, it is because He is the fulfillment of all that was foreshadowed by the Passover lamb. His blood, the blood of the new covenant, averts the destruction for those who place their faith in Him. Second, it is because the Last Supper was the eve of the prophesied greater new covenant act of redemption—the promised act of redemption that the prophets described in terms of a new exodus—and just as the first exodus was preceded by the institution of the Passover, the greater new exodus was preceded by the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper on this night to signify that this new exodus was about to begin. This act indicated that the time of redemption had come.”
Dr. Keith Mathison, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/teachers/keith-mathison
ISAIAH 53 (Oxford NRSV Translation)
1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
GETHSEMANE AND CALVARY
“John G. Turner, a Protestant scholar, explained that for Latter-day Saints, ‘the principal scene of Christ’s suffering and, thus, his atonement, was at Gethsemane rather than on the cross.’ Anglican theologian Douglas J. Davies wrote that ‘Mormonism relocates the centre of gravity of Christ’s passion in Gethsemane rather than upon the cross and Calvary.’ Scholars within the Church have made similar observations; Robert Millet wrote, ‘It is probably the case that if one hundred Protestants were asked where the atonement of Christ took place, those one hundred persons would answer: At Golgotha, on the cross. It is also no doubt true that if one hundred Latter-day Saints were asked the same question, a large percentage would respond: In Gethsemane, in the garden.’”
“Professor Anthony Sweat and I asked 752 BYU students in an online class survey, ‘Where would you say Christ’s Atonement mostly took place? A. In the Garden of Gethsemane, or B. On the Cross at Calvary.’ Eighty-eight percent responded, ‘In the Garden of Gethsemane,’ and only 12 percent said, ‘On the Cross at Calvary.’ When I shared this result with Scott Esplin, a BYU religion professor, he observed, ‘You forced people into a false choice. You should have given people a third option of “Christ atoned for our sins equally in Gethsemane and Calvary.’ Anthony and I acted on this suggestion by surveying an additional 792 BYU students on where Christ mostly atoned for our sins, asking the same question we had previously. Even with a third option of 'Equally in Gethsemane and Calvary,’ a majority (58 percent) chose ‘Gethsemane only.’ Additional, less-formal surveys of Latter-day Saint adults inside and outside of the United States yielded similar results.”
Hilton III, John. Considering the Cross: How Calvary Connects Us with Christ (pp. 42-43).
“I have been asked to speak on ‘Christ’s Crucifixion: The Reclamation of the Cross.’ Before turning to this subject, I would like to make two caveat statements. First, I want to say that the nature of my topic means that I will not be discussing much about Gethsemane. Even so, I want to make it clear that I recognize that the events that took place in the Garden of Gethsemane are absolutely seminal to our understanding of the Atonement. Second, I want to be clear that in this paper I am not advocating that the Church should start putting up crosses on our chapels or temples. That is certainly not my place. What I do want to argue, however, is that if we fail to appreciate or if we minimize the importance of the cross and what it stands for, then we ignore a very significant part of our scriptural texts: both in the Bible and in our Restoration scriptures, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.”
Gaye Strathearn, https://rsc.byu.edu/healing-his-wings/christs-crucifixion-reclamation-cross
THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS
“The events on the cross are an integral part of the Atonement. The most important reason that we should consider the cross is that both doctrinally and functionally, it is part of Christ’s Atonement.
I am struck by the number of times that the teachings on the Atonement and redemption in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants specifically include Christ’s death in the equation.
For the Book of Mormon, the cross is not a marginal footnote to the Atonement. Rather, the phrase “sufferings and death” is at the very heart of some important sermons.
Many passages from our Restoration scripture support the biblical message of Paul that the Crucifixion of our Lord was an essential part of the Atonement, and thus that it is an essential part of our personal and collective redemption. Elder Holland described Easter Friday as ‘atoning Friday with its cross.’ I like that description because it reminds me of why Easter Friday should be an important part of the Easter season.”
“The scriptural metaphor that we can be ‘lifted up’ because Christ was lifted up on the cross is a symbol of God’s great love for us. The phrase ‘lifted up’ thus becomes in the scriptures a frequent way to describe salvation. Nephi teaches his brothers, “The righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day” (1 Nephi 16:2). In the Doctrine and Covenants we find this image used frequently. The Lord tells Martin Harris, “And if thou art faithful in keeping my commandments, thou shalt be lifted up at the last day” (D&C 5:35). Oliver Cowdery is instructed, ‘Stand fast in the work wherewith I have called you, and a hair of your head shall not be lost, and you shall be lifted up at the last day’ (D&C 9:14). Likewise, the Three Witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, are all promised, 'And if you do these last commandments of mine, which I have given you, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; for my grace is sufficient for you, and you shall be lifted up at the last day’ (D&C 17:8).”
“In the New Testament the invitation to take up our cross was the symbol of discipleship. In the synoptic Gospels, just after Jesus had promised Peter that he would give to him the sealing keys, Jesus began to speak openly about his destiny to go to Jerusalem, where he would ‘suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day' (Matthew 16:21; see Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22). What does it mean for us to ‘take up our cross’? It means to deny ourselves. Both Matthew and Mark use the Greek word aparneomai. It suggests that discipleship entails the breaking of every link that ties a person even to themselves. It is about being able, like the Savior, to submit our will to the will of the Father. As Elder Maxwell taught, ‘That is the only truly unique thing that we have to offer.’ Just as there was a cost for the Savior on Calvary, there is also a cost to be a disciple. Thus the symbol of the cross is not a postbiblical symbol adopted by Christians; rather it is a symbol identified by the Savior himself, and emphasized by Paul. The symbol of the cross is important because in the New Testament it is the symbol of our discipleship and commitment to leave behind the allurements of the world and dedicate ourselves to the Lord and his kingdom.”
“The signs of the Crucifixion were so important for Christ that he kept them even after he received a glorified, resurrected body. When Jesus first came to the temple in Bountiful, the people were not initially sure who appeared to them. The signs of the Crucifixion did not cause mourning but were a reason to rejoice. Here stood the Son of God in a glorified, resurrected body; a body that was perfect in every way, except for the fact that, as prophesied by Zechariah (see Zechariah 13:6), he chose to retain the marks of his Crucifixion. For the people of 3 Nephi, this retention was one of the tangible proofs that this being was not an angel but was in fact the Savior of the world. I wonder how many of those present at that supernal time might have remembered what Jehovah had said to the prophet Isaiah, and what had been recorded in the Nephite records, “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” (Isaiah 49:15–16; 1 Nephi 21:16). In this instance, the signs of the Crucifixion did not cause mourning but were a reason to rejoice!”
Gaye Strathearn, https://rsc.byu.edu/healing-his-wings/christs-crucifixion-reclamation-cross
GOOD FRIDAY
“Good Friday is celebrated throughout much of Christendom as a solemn day commemorating Jesus’ trial before Pilate, his abuse at the hands of the Roman soldiers, his suffering and death on the cross, and finally his burial in a borrowed tomb. The heaviness and sadness of the events that this day recalls often makes many, including Latter-day Saints, wonder, ‘What is so good about Good Friday?’ The customary understanding that Good Friday is ‘holy' Friday is certainly appropriate, for it recalls how on the last day of his life, Jesus Christ, our great high priest, offered himself as a sacrifice for our sakes: ‘Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us’ (Heb 9:12).
While formally commemorating the sad events of Good Friday is not a regular part of Latter-day Saint practice, marking the day as individuals or as families can be a powerful experience that can deepen our appreciation for all the Lord has done for us”
Eric Huntsman, https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/04/good-friday.html
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