On the sweetness of Mormon life.

The young women sing for Easter.  The pianist looks tired.  You heard her saying that she has a recent Parkinson’s diagnosis and came down with a bad sinus headache the day before which made it hard to see the music.  She said she was worried people would criticize her playing; she knew she would not play her best.  She got a blessing before church started.  You think about the widow’s  mite.  To God struggle is beautiful.  She played well, but even if she hadn’t she would have pleased her main audience.

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The Servant Songs are well known passages in Isaiah in the middle third of the book (so called Second Isaiah). In Isaiah the Prophet, by J Alec Motyer, (perhaps the best book on Isaiah), he points out there are corresponding songs – poetic testimonies – in the latter third of the book (Third Isaiah). But that strongly suggests there should be corresponding songs/testimonies in the first third of the book (First Isaiah), following the Temporal/Spiritual/Synthesis pattern I have shown previously.

Please take a moment and read each of these. There is a reason Isaiah is called the 5th Gospel.

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The sun rises, the rainbow appears, the good times come again better than before, you are back home, the winter is over, singing breaks the silence, your friend and master defeats the grave.

Anderson

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Done is a Battle — 1500s

Woefully Arrayed — c. 1500

Seven Stanzas at Easter — Updike

Resurrection — 2000s

And in memory of Vader, for whom along with Bookslinger we look forward to our own resurrection day,

Nothing in Heaven Works as it Ought — 1985

If I have my dates right, it seems President Biden has declared this Sunday to be the Transgender Day of Visibility.  The document attacks people who are taking the other side in school issues and threatens them with the Department of Justice.  There is not as yet any proclamation related to Easter Sunday, unless this is the Easter Sunday proclamation.

It is odd to think that what on earth would have been a day full of grief for dead Jesus was in the Spirit World Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday rolled into one, Jesus making his triumphal entry and appearing in victory all in one.

But for the living, the end has happened.  The cryptic, puzzling remarks of your master aside, he seems to have been finally defeated.  Then you wake up the next day.  Life goes on apparently, even after it’s all over.  They killed the Savior last night.  Now what?

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I just read the 116 Lost Pages by Bradley.  After a long time away from reading any apologetic material, I had a prompting to read this one.  So what does the book have to do with Easter?

Quite a bit, by way of Laban.

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Christ raised up on  a tree.

The lamb slain at the paschal feast.

We will be fasting all tomorrow if anyone wants to join us.

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There once was a king who heard rumors of injustice and corruption in his city.   He decided to investigate.  Charging his trusted servants and loyal palace guard to keep his secret well, he disguised himself as a worker, let us say a woodworker, and slipped out into the city. (more…)

The last supper.  Gethsemane.  Betrayed by  his friends and apostles.

Last year’s post.  Really excellent links on why an angel appeared in the garden and why Christ had to atone twice.

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Tuesday, Wednesday.  Christ preaches and teaches.  He condemns the pharisees.  He gives a vivid and striking encouragement to parenthood.   He also preaches about the second coming.  Our usual impression is that he’s cramming in a lot of last minute teaching, knowing he’s about to leave.  What he is really doing is telling his disciples what comes next.   Judgment Day and the Second Coming are part and parcel of his fight with death and sin that is about to happen.  The Second Coming really begins with his resurrection.  The atonement is what gives him the right to judge.  There is an interesting verse in 2 Nephi 9:22 that says that Christ suffered so that He could judge us.  Obviously he suffered to give us the chance to repent.  He is a man of mercy.  But he is also a man of justice.  He also suffered because he wanted to condemn us should we remain in our sins.

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BYU President Reece has written and had published a call for BYU to be more BYU.   It is inspiring.  He identifies and rejects five secular false dichotomies

https://www.deseret.com/education/2024/03/25/religious-education-at-byu-school-mission/

He is also aware of what time it is:

1.  He correctly identifies the inevitable trend when religious institutions to date have tried to become more intellectually respectable and have completely lost their religious character and been subsumed into the academic mass as a result.

2. “it is worth noting that secular academics have not, by and large, escaped or abandoned orthodoxy. They have merely embraced secular orthodoxies in the place of religious ones.”

3. “the modern exaltation of authenticity often privileges untrammeled subjective experience above all else. ”

4. “To challenge the secular assumptions and ideological priors of the broader academy is not to flee from hard questions; it is rather to resist spiritual colonization at the hands of a dominant dogma. ”

You should read the whole thing, especially for the paean at the close. My hair literally stood on end.

https://www.deseret.com/education/2024/03/25/religious-education-at-byu-school-mission/

PS–there are probably various ways one could take the title of this post.  We mean it as an antonym to our series on what’s the matter at BYU?  That series showcases alarming indications and this showcases inspiring ones.

Holy Week – Monday – driving the exchangers from the temple.

Last year’s post, which is a meditation on peace and violence.

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Christ enters Jerusalem as King.

The entire holy week is a proclamation of his rule, including the death.

One little remarked aspect of today is how awesome worship and praise is when the object is truly worthy.  Being a follower is great if you have a great leader.

Last’s year’s Palm Sunday, which have what I hope is an interesting insight into how Palm Sunday connects to Christ’s death and entry into the next world.

This year, pursuant to my inspiration for reading the Book of Mormon, I am going to try to connect Holy Week to Lehi’s dream.  Pursuant to a specific inspiration, I am going to try to connect it to personal growth and crisis–“liken the scriptures unto us;” in other words, what are your holy weeks?  Those are below the fold.

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The Church put out a statement on church use of AI recently.

No. 1 Daughter, who is a cheery little bird, drew our attention to this passage:

Elder Gong acknowledged that some people will weaponize AI tools. Of particular concern are deepfakes, the fictitious or malicious use of someone’s name, image, and likeness. These are most likely to happen to people — such as Church leaders — who have a recognizable face and voice, a significant amount of video and audio in the public domain, and known and motivated antagonists.

Yep.

She speculates that something like this may be the reason we are emphasizing home church and other forms of personal, direct priesthood leadership.  Increasingly nothing that isn’t face to face is secure or reliable.