Never Alone

It's amazing how holidays tend to sneak up on us. You see them in stores a month or more early, then you forget about them until the holiday actually arrives. At least, I do. It still hasn't fully dawned on me that today is Easter.

Here's a seasonally appropriate message from one of my favorite General Authorities from a General Conference four years ago. The Mormon Messages version is only 5 minutes long. The full talk posted below it is almost 20 minutes long. Both versions are worth sharing.




I've never tried to share two videos at once before. I hope this works.

Watching these videos, especially the full message, I've been thinking about the bond between Christ and us, who have declared ourselves as His followers. His faithfulness is unfailing. Because of what He did that first Easter weekend, we will never need to feel alone or comfortless. As Elder Holland said, "Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are." God will never leave us alone.

But this bond between us cannot be one-sided. Again quoting from Elder Holland:

My other plea at Easter time is that these scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance... 

This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.

In other talk from Elder Holland, a more recent one, he speaks of an exchange between the resurrected Jesus and His chief apostle, Peter. Peter and many of the apostles had gone back to their old life of fishing, but citing the miracle He had performed when He first called Peter to be one of His disciples, the Savior (might have) said (something like), "Wasn’t it obvious then and isn’t it obvious now that if I want fish, I can get fish? What I need, Peter, are disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do."

 Our Lord has done a great work for us. At a great personal cost, He has made it possible for us to become free from sin. But as a token of our gratitude for what He has done, He wants us to do some good works for Him. He wants us to bless others and lead them to the light. He wants us to follow in His footsteps and become like Him by doing the kinds of things He did. He stood by us when we desperately needed Him to. He wants us to stand by him now. May we find the courage to be faithful to Him who has always been faithful to us.