My journey back from darkness taught me about relationships and love. I’ve learned our chasings of the wrong are based in selfishness; they are the immature heart trying to fill the void caused by lack of fulfilling love. I also learned that recovery from these is nearly impossible, and usually is impossible, without relationships with others, without love from others and from God.
What I used to see as an irrelevant throw-away line by the angel in Nephi’s re-experiencing of Lehi’s vision I now see as a fundamental truth: that God’s love is “the most joyous to the soul.” From this truth, Christ naturally taught that the two great foundational commandments are to love God and to love each other.
I’ve come to see the Church as the organized opportunities that God gave us to learn to love each other. By serving in our callings, we are practicing how to love our neighbor and by supporting each other in our callings, we are practicing love for others by helping them perfect their love offerings. In this, the Church fulfills its purpose of helping us come “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
This prepared me for an important insight during a sacramental service. In visiting Catholic services with a friend some ten years ago, I noticed the many adornments they had in their churches in contrast to the spare LDS chapels. As I pondered them, I realized their purpose was to remind the congregants of different meanings. I then realized that our chapels are not barren; they are focused upon the one symbol in them and that one symbol, the Sacrament, is to remind us of Christ. Other Christians have many leaders and they use many symbols to remind them of Christ. As Latter-day Saints, Christ is our leader and so we use the symbol that he gave us: “THIS do in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)
This lead me to ponder the Sacrament. I observed that the draped Sacramental trays looked very much like a shrouded body. From that came a fuller appreciation for the Sacrament’s symbolism of the bread and water representing Christ’s body that was offered for us through God’s love. “God so loved the world…”
Then I came to see that after Christ’s flesh and blood are consecrated (“committed to the Lord’s purpose”), those with the least authority, the least experienced go out among the people to offer Christ to them. As each person accepts Christ and takes Christ into themselves, they turn to offer Christ to their neighbor. Interestingly, this is to their proximate neighbor, not to their closest-relational person, answering the lawyer’s question, “who is my neighbour.” The Sacrament removes the barriers in our hearts and in our minds, connecting us with everyone. In this process, we act out the fulfillment of Christ’s plea in Gethsemane — just before his body became the broken original of which the the Sacrament is an emblem — that all his believers would be “one.”
As each person in turn receives Christ from their neighbor and takes him into themself, they offer Christ to their next neighbor until all have had Christ offered to them. If someone does not accept Christ during this mutual process, we neither question them nor judge them. Instead, we encourage them to return for our next gathering and to remain in our fellowship, in which we will continue to offer Christ to them.
My ward’s chapel has taupe-painted walls and a stonework front. This helps me to see us all as gathered in Christ’s tomb to hold our weekly wake for him — for us to “always remember him.” I’ve been gladdened to realize that as I’ve visited other wards and as visitors have come to mine, that the Sacrament has caused us to offer Christ to each other during these once-in-a-lifetime encounters. I find beauty in that we offered Christ to each other the only time we met and this then defines our relationship.
After having the Sacramental service lead us together through this pattern, we are sent out to world — probably for us to continue meekly offering Christ to our neighbors. We then come back each week to relive this experience and to be retaught its lesson.
Since coming to these insights, I’m overwhelmed by watching a chapelful of people, some unknown to each other, join in acting-out the Sacrament’s Christ-sharing. Even in this, the Sacrament connects me with my neighbors. When I ponder, I fix my eyes upon the represented body of my Savior and use it to focus my thoughts upon His sacrifice for me and what it calls me to do for my neighbors.
It’s a very relational experience.