Hans-Micael: My faith and values

Speech planned for the Sacrament meeting Easter Sunday, Nykøbing Falster, 31.3.2024.

I invite you to ponder, “Why was this day and night so different from other days and nights?”

The Last Supper was not just the observance of a holy Day—the Jewish Passover—with all that it contains. The celebration of Moses, God’s punishments on Pharaoh, and the liberation of the people of Israel, the wonders that led to the Law of Moses and the restoration of the Abrahamic Covenant (now the covenant of Moses). It was also the end of Jesus’ time with the disciples and sanctification (anointing) and preparation for his suffering and death. The days leading up to Jesus’ trial and suffering in Gethsemane were the last opportunity to show the world who he was on Temple Square with teaching and preaching, but also his confrontations with the temporal commotion and the money changers, Pharisees and Saducees.

These are the days when Christ definitively demonstrates with what legitimacy, authority, or formal rights He teaches. Namely, about the celestial Kingdom where we are taught the difference between Caesar’s taxes and the temple treasure with the poor widow’s sacrifice!

We also hear of the disciples’ discouragement, weakness and betrayal, guilt and shame. that they should resist temptation, denial, and that despite all adversity they can overcome their fears. Christ knows all their emotions and fears and their short comings. In Math. 26:30 He prophesies, “In this night you will all forsake Me!”

The 12 disciples gathered around a final Passover meal with their teacher and Master Jesus. Although they still did not grasp the magnitude of the task incumbent upon Christ.

In our time, we celebrate the birth of Jesus and embrace the great love for mankind – Humanity – that this unique event entails. But it is Easter that is the most important event of our modern church. It bridges the gap between our preexistence and eternal life and fulfills the promises of the Plan of Salvation. I would like to refresh our understanding by quoting from the Church’s reference work: “The plan of salvation is the fulness of the gospel. It includes the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and all the laws, ordinances, and teachings of the gospel. Moral agency, the ability to choose and act for ourselves, is also central to Heavenly Father’s plan. Because of this plan, we can be perfected through the Atonement, receive a fulness of joy, and live forever in God’s presence. Our family relationships can last through the eternities.” (Mosiah 3:9) “And behold, he comes to his own, that salvation may be granted to the children of men, even by faith in his name;”

Everything depended on this particular Easter, that Christ our High Priest and the Son of God should suffer and die. It was the only way to open the gate to eternal life in the celestial Kingdom. Mosiah 3:11 “For behold, his blood also atones for the sins of those who have fallen by Adam’s transgression, who died without knowing God’s will concerning him, or who have sinned in ignorance.”

God became human because His time of service was necessary for His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had to become human to take on all our pain and thereby finding the empathy – that comes from His love for us – by walking among ordinary people. Jesus was a perfect human being who could contain and feel all our weaknesses, sins, and frailties. Nothing was hidden from him. In His ministry, in all the many testimonies of wonders, healings, and teachings, we find parables in our scriptures, all pointing to our Heavenly Father and the power of Heaven over which Jesus had power.

This is the Jesus they find hard to believe when he tells them time and time again that his time with them should be very short. The power that makes Peter unable to understand that Jesus is going to die!

Jesus knows that this Passover he is going up to Jerusalem one last time to fulfill his earthly ministry. He has tried several times to make the disciples understand that although he has power as God on earth, his Kingdom is not earthly.

However, the Passover meal is shaken when Jesus announces that he will be betrayed in this night. Which fulfills another prophecy in Psalm 41:10 “Even my friend whom I trusted, and who ate the bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.”

Judas the traitor attends the meal and also participates in Jesus’ Last Supper, which will be the first consecrated by Christ, in remembrance of His flesh and blood.

Christ knows that He must prepare for this night, and so He goes with the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. (Oil presses the garden).

What happened when they reached the garden? Christ knows that His preparation was spiritual, that He should surrender completely to the task assigned to Him by the Great Council.

Luke 22:39-46 “Then he broke up and went as usual to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed.  When He came out there, He said to them, “Pray not to fall into temptation!”  And he moved away from them a stone’s throw away, fell to his knees, and prayed, “Father, if thou wilt, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will be done, but thine.”  Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  In his anguish, he prayed even more urgently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.  After rising from prayer and returning to the disciples, He found them asleep, overcome with grief, and He said to them, “Why are ye asleep? Arise, and pray not to fall into temptation.”

The great tension that caused Jesus to ask the disciples to be vigilant. Not in the face of mortal danger, but of temptation. That is, that they did not allow themselves to be tempted by the dark powers that gathered around Christ. This was enough to make the disciples anxious, frightened, and shaken, and their fear of the future probably reflected the fear of death that gripped Christ.

How, then, are we to judge their efforts on this night today? I would say that it was very human and not only the fragility of the flesh, but the last resort of the mind and spirit, that they fell asleep under the exertion to which they were subjected.

However, this has not stopped the disciples from feeling guilt and shame for their lack of vigilance. But they do not hide this shame and guilt—on the contrary, it becomes an important element in their testimony of this last night with Jesus.

Precisely because that night in Gethsemane was so terrifying, the testimonies we have of this day and night become all the more valuable. It was a fulfillment of prophecies from both the Old and New Worlds. Testimonies that are confirmed again and again through revelation and our prophets.

Testimonies from our scriptures:

Jesus called Himself the Son of Man, whom we know from Daniel’s prophecy. So in Gethsemane, Jesus already had a complete knowledge of what was to come after His sacrifice and suffering.

We meet the Son of Man in Daniel 7:13-14 “In the night visions I saw this: With the clouds of heaven came one who looked like a son of man; He came to the old of days and was brought before him. Lordship, honor, and kingdom were given to him; All peoples, tribes and tongues served him. His dominion is an eternal dominion which shall not perish, his kingdom shall not perish.”

We get an idea of the suffering Christ had to endure in the prophecies of the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, of the three synoptic gospels, and of our modern prophecies in the Doctrine and Covenants, but it is only when we realize that it was also about you personally that you understand how little we can really comprehend. Christ will this night contain the history of the whole world and the sins and sufferings of all people.

In Alma 34:14, Almulek testifies of the Law of Moses pointing to a great and final sacrifice that justifies God’s people according to the Law.

In Isaiah 53:3- The suffering servant of the Lord is the sacrificial lamb and the scapegoat who makes amends for our sins, “but he bore the sins of the many, and took the place of sinners” (Isaiah 53:12) “But it was our sicknesses that he took, it was our sufferings that he bore; and we counted him as one afflicted, beaten, and tormented by God.But he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our sins. He was punished that we might have peace, by His wounds we were healed. We all wandered about like sheep, we turned our separate ways; but the Lord let all our guilt fall upon him.”

But there is also comfort and hope to be found in Isaiah 53:11: “After his suffering he sees light, he saturates by his insight.”

It was difficult for Jesus’ contemporaries and even for his disciples to understand that the highness and majesty inherent in the concepts of “Son of Man” and “Messiah/Krisus” (the anointed King) were to be expressed in a suffering form in the Garden of Gethsemane and later death on the cross. Math. 26:24 “The Son of man passes away, as it is written about him, but woe to that man,  by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It was better for that man if he had never been born.”

I Alma 7:11-13 “And he shall go about suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word may be fulfilled which reads: He will take upon himself the pains and sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon himself death, that he may loosen the bonds of death which bind his people; and he will take upon himself their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy as to the flesh, that he may know, as for the flesh, how to succor his people according to their infirmities. Behold, the Spirit knows all things; yet the Son of God suffers according to the flesh, that he may take upon himself the sins of his people, that he may erase their transgressions according to his power of deliverance; and behold, that is the testimony which is in me.”

I Mosiah 3:7+11 “And behold, he shall suffer temptations and bodily pains, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, yes, more than men can endure without causing death; For behold, there comes blood from every pore, so great shall his anguish be upon the wickedness and abominations of his people. For behold, his blood also atones for the sins committed by those who have fallen at Adam’s transgression, who died without knowing God’s will concerning them, or who have sinned in ignorance.”

Our modern prophets have also spoken of the Plan of Salvation in D&C 18:10-11: “Remember that the worth of souls  is great before God; for behold, the Lord, your Redeemer, suffered death in the flesh; so  He suffered the pains of  all men, that all men might repent and come unto Him.”

D&P 19:16-19 “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they  should not suffer if they will  repent; but if they will not repent, they must suffer, as I do;

what affliction caused me, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble with pain, and to bleed from every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and I desired that I  should not drink the bitter cup, but abstain from it—yet, glory be to the Father, I drank and completed my preparations for the children of men.”

Jesus Christ is our eternal High Priest, and it is also in this sense that He takes it upon Himself to be an atoning sacrifice in Gethsemane, which therefore became the Holy of Holies of the Temple, where Christ takes upon Himself all our sins.

Hebrews 7:15-26 ” (15) “Christ became High Priest on the model of Melchizedek. 16 After all, he did not become a priest by virtue of a law that requires one to come from a particular tribe, but by virtue of the eternal and indestructible life he represents…. the high priestly service Jesus performs will never end. After all, he lives forever. (25) Because He lives forever and always prays fervently for us, He is able to lead all people who desire to come unto God through Him to perfect salvation. (26) It is just such a high priest that we need, one who is holy and without sin, untainted by evil and exalted above all heavens.”

I testify of this in the name of Jesus Christ