The Sacrament

This last Sunday was our fifth Sunday, combined Priesthood and Relief Society lesson. As is usually the case when I teach or speak, I usually feel pretty confident about my choice in topic until the last moment. Then I change. Luckily, that realization hit me sooner than later and I had time to really think about the doctrine that I felt impressed to teach.

So, as the title of the entry suggests, I determined to speak on the Sacrament. My hope was to get a little deeper than we usually do and help the members of my ward (including myself) really appreciate what we are doing each in week when we partake of the Sacrament. I will only mention a thing or two that I learned, and incidentally, didn't have time to teach or share on Sunday.

I read the transcript of a class that Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught at the University of Utah Institute of Religion in 1970 on the Passover and the Sacrament. One of the points he makes is on the use of the bread and water. He rhetorically asks why is it that we use traditionally bread and water and not something else? He goes on to explain that from the time of Adam to Christ, animal sacrifice was used Biblically as the Passover or Sacrifice to point the minds of the pre-Meridian Saints to the Great and Last Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He reasons that for those 4,000 years our ancestors live in tribal and familial clusters. They primarily raised their own animals and grains for food. Their who survival, for the most part, was based on and around an animal. Therefore, what better way to typify Heavenly Father's Sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son, than to ask His followers to offer a main source of sustenance as a type of Christ? In the same way, in the 3,000-4,000 years after the Meridian of Time (depending how long you look at the "little space of time" when Satan will be unleashed), we now live very different styles of life. We are in largely urban communities. For the most part, we do not raise our own food but rather buy or barter. However, we still require bread and water (or some form of beverage) for sustenance. And because we require bread and water as the most basic source of our survival, what better way than to point our minds back to the Great and Last Sacrifice of Jesus Christ?

The other aspect that I wish I had more time to develop was the doctrinal reasons for the Sacrament and its immediate benefits for our salvation. The key part of the Sacrament prayers is that the end result is that we will have His Spirit to be with us, always. In the Doctrine and Covenants we are promised that with the reception of the Holy Ghost, comes a remission of sins. To me that means in the Sacrament, when partaken of worthily, we can receive a literal forgiveness of sins. Which of course is the whole point of the Sacrament and its pointing us to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.


- Posted using my iPad