Review of Saints, Vol. 2: No Unhallowed Hand, 1846–1893

Review of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. Volume 2, No Unhallowed Hand, 1846–1893

General editors: Matthew J. Grow, Jed L. Woodworth, Scott A. Hales, and Lisa Olsen Tait. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2020. Paperback, first printing, 833 pages.

Reviewed by Devan Jensen, executive editor at the BYU Religious Studies Center

No Unhallowed Hand ranges widely, beginning with the Saints’ expulsion from the Nauvoo area, their travels to the Great Salt Lake Valley, the recruitment of the Mormon Battalion, and the challenges of settling Utah’s Wasatch Front, including working through tense relations with indigenous people and the federal government.

Thousands of pioneers crossed the Great Plains, seeking to build dugouts and frontier homes in the Great Basin. Sam Brannan, an emigrant leader, urged all to keep traveling to San Francisco. He was overruled by Brigham Young, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who soon became territorial governor. 

Settlers quickly displaced and created stressful living conditions for the indigenous Ute, Shoshone, and Paiute tribes in Utah. Tension resulted in the Walker War (192–97), the Bear River Massacre (402), and the Black Hawk War (336–48). Indian missions struggled for decades but eventually resulted in conversions described “like fire in the dry grass” (405). Many of those Shoshone converts helped build the Logan Temple and performed vicarious baptisms for the dead, including those who died in the massacre (509–11). These stories are important to share.

Men and women struggled to forge communities while hundreds of missionaries traveled to distant lands, including Hawaii, Tahiti, Scandinavia, and South Africa. George Q. Cannon, Joseph F. Smith, and his “dear sister” Martha Ann Smith Harris played major roles in many of these stories.

The book takes a refreshingly candid look at complex issues such as adoption sealings (41–42), plural marriage (152–54), the temple and priesthood restriction against blacks (181–82), and the Utah War and related Mountain Meadows Massacre (254–63). Of course, race was a hotly debated issue in the stormy decades before the US Civil War. In the 1852 territorial debate on slavery, Governor Young “declared publicly for the first time that people of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood. Before this time, a few black men had been ordained.” Elder Orson Pratt strongly objected to slavery in Utah without “any authority from heaven.” Governor Young’s views “echoed a widespread but mistaken idea that God had cursed people of black African descent” (182). “Can a prophet or an apostle be mistaken?” he asked in 1858. “Do not ask me any such question, for I will acknowledge that all the time” (279). (Yes, even prophets are fallible.) Many decades later, black member Jane Manning James sought First Presidency permission to be sealed, with the poignant plea, “Is there no blessing for me?” (590). Her letters went unanswered. (Church leaders eventually returned to the original unrestricted policy toward blacks nearly a hundred years later, in 1978.)

Throughout Utah, the Saints began building temples to perform ordinances for the living and the dead. Many felt complex emotions while enduring federal prosecution to restrict the practice of plural marriage, and many felt equally complicated feelings when the Manifesto overturned that practice (602–7). President Wilford Woodruff reassured them, “The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray” (609). Most members adapted. Others struggled to change and continued the practice. (As human beings, we swim in powerful currents of culture. If currents sweep us out to sea, we need to change direction.)

The book concludes with the joyful dedication of the Salt Lake Temple (661–65). Overall, I highly recommend this book. I congratulate the authors, editors, and publisher for demonstrating integrity to the historical sources and nuances of history. 

When Did Latter-day Saints Start Leaning Republican?

In the United States, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disbanded its “People's Party” in 1891. Church leaders invited members to join either the Democrats or the Republicans. These leaders wanted to become more mainstream and help the cause of Utah statehood. They also thought that political diversity could help members shape local and national elections.

That contest to win voters to the two major political parties created more heat than light. In the April 1892 general conference, President Wilford Woodruff counseled the Saints to stop fighting. “Every man has as much right—prophets, apostles, saints, and sinners—to his political convictions as he has to his religious opinions,” he said, adding, “Don't throw filth and dirt and nonsense at one another because of any difference on political matters" (“General Conference,” Deseret Evening News, 5 April 1892, 4).

At that time, many felt that believing members could only be Democrats and not Republicans because Republicans were the leaders of the antipolygamy crusade. During a priesthood session in St. George, apostle Francis Lyman said believing members were needed in both political parties. “We don't want anyone who is a Democrat to change,” he told them. “There is much less difference between the two parties than at first thought” (Francis Marion Lyman, Journal, 11 September 1982).

So when did Latter-day Saints start leaning Republican? Here's excellent analysis by my friend Joseph Stuart, a PhD student in history at the University of Utah:

In 1904, the United States Senate convened hearings to ascertain whether Reed Smoot, Utah’s junior senator and an apostle for the LDS Church, could hold his seat in Congress. Senate Republicans, largely self-identified Protestants, questioned whether Smoot could serve the people of Utah in an unbiased matter, given his connection to his church, which they argued, had never followed through on promises to Americanize. These Republicans viewed Smoot as the LDS Church’s puppet, incapable of making moral decisions because of his professed faith, which they viewed as a “false” religion. Kathleen Flake has shown in her book The Politics of American Religious Identity that Smoot and the Republican Party came to a political agreement during the trial’s three-year duration. Smoot would support their policy platforms and work to flip Utah’s residents to the Grand Old Party. In return, they would stop calling LDS leaders to answer questions about their church on the Senate floor. The deal worked for both sides. However, there’s no question as to who wielded the most power in the relationship. Mormons acquiesced to a national political party and won political influence. Republican Party leaders gained a crucial electoral constituency and did not have to recognize Mormonism as a religion on the same level as Protestant Christianity.  

Utah’s white Mormons became more Republican over time. The Beehive State and its Latter-day Saint citizens did not align strictly with Republicans or Democrats through the mid-twentieth century, despite some LDS leaders who identified the New Deal’s social safety net as bad for the nation’s spiritual health. The partisanship expressed by individual leaders did not stop Latter-day Saints from voting for Franklin Roosevelt in each of his four presidential campaigns.

Many Latter-day Saint Democrats, including Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, promoted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, feeling that his leadership was the best pathway out of the Great Depression.

The Red Scare of 1950 changed the trajectory of the country. “In the early months of 1950,” wrote Richard Swanson, “Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin embarked on what may be recorded as a most energetic attempt to rid the United States of persons linked, even remotely, with Communist sympathies or associations. . . . Capitalizing on the prevalent mood of disgust with foreign policy failures, the junior senator offered the oversimplified explanation that Communists had infiltrated high-level State and Defense Department positions” (Richard Swanson, “McCarthyism in Utah” [master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1977], 1). Swanson wrote that “the use of slanderous insinuations to give the impression that a politician was pro-Communist was widespread and effective in Utah,” and “the first victim of this deluge of McCarthyism was the state’s senior senator, Democrat Elbert Thomas” (Swanson, “McCarthyism in Utah,” 99). 

During the 1950 senatorial campaign, attack ads “accused [Thomas] of presiding at Communist meetings and of sponsoring leftist organizations. He was cartooned as a puppet of the Communists and the radical unionists,” and “the Republican candidate, Wallace Bennett, did nothing to deter the attacks,” wrote historian Richard D. Poll (Richard D. Poll, David E. Miller, Eugene E. Campbell, and Thomas G. Alexander, eds., Utah’s History [Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1978], 518). Even though Senator Thomas was not a Communist, his critics “publicized enough implicative insinuations and accusations” that Thomas was defeated in the election cycle of 1950.

President David O. McKay and Elder Ezra Taft Benson passionately preached against communism during the 1950s and 1960s, and this sometimes led to tension within church leadership, particularly the First Presidency. Elder Benson was so vocal in his crusade against socialism that the First Presidency censured and then called him to preside in the European Mission to keep him out from US politics. When President McKay died in 1970, Elder Benson subdued his political activity until 1973 when he became President of the Twelve and spoke out against socialism (see Matthew L. Harris, Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics [Urbana: University of Illinois, 2019], and http://www.mormonpress.com/ezra-taft-benson-and-politics).

Membership in both parties continued to be divided fairly evenly until the mid-1970s when abortion became, for many members, a big issue leading them to affiliate with Republicans. (It is noteworthy that nearly all believing Democrats likewise oppose abortion.)

For many years Utah, like several other states, allowed abortions only to save a mother’s life. In 1973 the US Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade struck down state abortion laws. Roe v. Wade proved to be a continental divide for American political parties. Before the decision, Democrats were more pro-life because more Catholics were Democrats. More Republicans were pro-choice. After the decision, leaders in Congress helped define each party's stance, with some voters changing parties. From that time onward, as former Deseret News reporter Rod Decker noted, “more religious people tended Republican, and less religious people went with the Democrats. Utah followed that national pattern. . . . As positions clarified, Utah voters became more Republican. After Roe, Utah never voted for another Democrat for president or senator” (Rod Decker, Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2019], 56).

Rod Decker. Courtesy of KUTV.

America’s bicentennial year of 1976 was the year the vast majority of membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints went Republican. “1976 was what the Republican ascendancy started, right after Roe v. Wade,” Decker said in a recent KUTV interview. That continental divide continues in Utah—and in our nation.

No One Knows My Editing

Patty and I at the Provo Utah Temple.

“No man knows my history,” Joseph Smith Jr. said, later adding, “I don’t blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself” (http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-e-1-1-july-1843-30-april-1844/351). With a nod to Joseph Smith, no one knows my editing!

All my jobs have been marvelous adventures. I started my career at Deseret Book, the Church Curriculum Department (now Publishing Services), and the Ensign magazine. Then in 2001 Richard Draper, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, hired me as the executive editor/associate director of publications to help take the Religious Studies Center, in his words, to “a higher level of professionalism, efficiency, and organization.” We have certainly done that, and we continue to grow. Over the years, publications directors such as Richard Draper, Richard Holzapfel, Robert Millet, Richard Bennett, Dana Pike, Thomas Wayment, Scott Esplin, and Jared Ludlow each supervised and handled peer review of manucripts. Whereas the original annual output of the RSC was two books and a two-color newsletter, we now produce about thirteen to fifteen high-quality books (winning many awards), a journal, a magazine, a robust website, and social media output for both our college and the center.

When initially hired, I told Andrew Skinner, dean of Religious Education, that I felt OK committing to five years and then reevaluating. During that five-year period, Covenant Communications copublished many books with the RSC. Richard Holzapfel firmly established the Religious Educator as a viable journal. We began relying even more on BYU editing students to shoulder the increased editing load that Richard Draper, then Richard Holzapfel encouraged through their proactive recruitment of authors. Designer Carmen Cole redesigned the RSC Newsletter. Student Matt Grey started Studia Antiqua to publish student papers on the ancient world. Our students have always shouldered much of the editing load.

At the end of that five years, I told the new dean, Terry Ball, that I felt comfortable staying another five years. It was tricky to keep up with Richard Holzapfel's creative mind, new projects, teaching, and travel schedule. He asked us to push hard to get all past content on the RSC website and translate selected materials into Spanish, Portuguese, and German. He encouraged us to create a magazine, which we designed with the help of Hales Creative and named BYU Religious Education Review. I recommended that we hire a publicity/production superviser to build the RSC brand. That spot was filled by Stephanie Wilson (part-time and then full-time) and then Brent Nordgren. Richard and Brent did an admirable job negotiating a copublication agreement with Deseret Book that dramatically increased our distribution network. That laid the foundation for financial stability.

After Richard Holzapfel's departure, we had another five or so years with quick transitions between publications directors—leading to greater staff autonomy. Publications directors were Robert Millet, Richard Bennett (interim), and Dana Pike. While working under Richard Bennett, Religious Education began to pay for a staff member to take a professional development course each year. After I asked if he would send me to the Mormon History Association conference, he said that he couldn't unless I had a paper accepted. So I began to craft and submit history presentations. That turned into a personal challenge—to document many interesting Church history and family history stories, branching out into related areas. Writing was done nearly always in my personal time but occasionally on RSC time when projects slowed down.

BYU Religious Education began sponsoring its Church History Symposium in 2006, and the Religious Studies Center soon published the proceedings with Deseret Book. Alexander L. Baugh initiated the event by proposing a conference to acknowledge the two hundredth anniversary of Oliver Cowdery’s birth. Since that time, this event has become a premier venue for rigorous and faithful scholarship on Church history. The topics have been Oliver Cowdery, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, preserving the history of the Latter-day Saints, church organization and administration, Latter-day Saint missionary work, Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Smith’s study of the ancient world, the international church, Mormon women’s history, the intersection of business and religion, and religious liberty and Latter-day Saints.

The next five-year segment began when Thom Wayment began serving as publications director. His leadership contributions included pushing for greater quality in our books and journal, expanding the author pool, adding strong members to our team, and promoting staff training that resulted in an increase in social media outreach and thus better sales. Challenges during this period were redoing contracts, increasing book production, dropping the review board, wrestling with design issues, and holding fewer RSC team meetings to coordinate efforts. After we resumed RSC team meetings to coordinate efforts, productivity soared. Brent hired Madison Swapp and then Emily Strong, a 3/4-time designer. Both have worked hard. Thom asked me to attend a conference of the Association of American University Presses, and I realized that we could do much more to build the RSC brand and promote our books. As an editor, I was inundated each year with editing sixteen academic books, two journals, and a magazine. When I mentioned that I was struggling to keep up with the workload, Thom invited in two editors from the Maxwell Institute. That has been a boon to our organization because Don Brugger and Shirley Ricks have been marvelous team members. (Shirley has since retired, and talented editors Julie Newman, Alaina Dunn, and Becky Call have worked here.)

In about 2015, we started social media pages for the BYU Religious Studies Center, Religious Educator, BYU Religious Education, and Y Religion podcast. We began hiring student media specialists and creating a digital format of the RSC Newsletter that now included videos and suggested readings for Come, Follow Me. We began cross-promoting our work with BYU Studies, Book of Mormon Central, Latter-day Saint Insights, and Seminaries and Institutes. Such partnerships continue to seem productive.

Scott C. Esplin became publications director, followed by Jared W. Ludlow. The Religious Studies Center has extended its outreach to a broader audience by copublishing with other partners. In 2016 we teamed up with Abilene Christian University to copublish Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith: Nineteenth-Century Restorationists. In 2018 we worked with the Maxwell Institute to publish a Maxwell Institute Study Edition of the Book of Mormon. In 2020 we partnered with the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Understanding Covenants and Communities: Jews and Latter-day Saints in Dialogue. In 2022 we partnered with the John Whitmer Historical Association to publish Restorations: Scholars in Dialogue from Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And in 2023 we partnered with the Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Studies to publish Battlefields to Temple Grounds: Latter-day Saints in Guam and Micronesia.

In June 2019 the Board of Trustees approved a document for the Church Educational System titled "Strengthening Religious Education in Higher Education," which recommended hiring faculty members who are role models with teaching experience in the Church Educational System. The document emphasized doctrinal soundness over professional credentials or scholarship, which led some to wonder if the pendulum had swung from assimilation to retrenchment.

In 2022 Reid L. Neilson was appointed as an associate academic vice president over a new campus entity called BYU Religious Scholarly Publications that included the BYU Religious Studies Center, BYU Studies, and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Several course corrections affirmed that the pendulum had moved toward cautious retrenchment.

During my career, I have mentored about sixty-five interns. Leah Welker, who worked with me at the RSC and LDSPMA, shared a kind email: "I thought I would drop a note and give you a belated thank-you for your mentorship toward me during that time. It came at a very important point in my life, and you helped connect me with some special and formative experiences. I also always appreciated your kindness, empathetic nature, and unassuming leadership. You made the RSC a wonderful, safe place to work and grow. You let us try things and fail, but you tried to set us up to succeed. You treated everyone equally, no matter their gender, age, or ethnicity, and you always valued our well-being above the work. You taught me a lot, and about far more than just editing: about writing, publishing, administration, leadership, and being a good leader and authentic disciple of Christ. I have been so very lucky to have had so many good bosses, but I count you as one of the best."

Beyond Dogmatism

Religion is sometimes attacked as a source of ignorance and conflict. While, as human beings, all of us are subject to confirmation bias, perhaps the real danger is dogmatism, or the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others, especially when it leads to prejudice or violence. That condition may affect both the religious and the nonreligious. Militants in any ideology can become destructive.

Is Snoopy being "dog”matic?

As this article points out, people who dogmatically hold to any topic without being able to consider other perspectives "typically pay a high price for their dogmatism. Not only do they alienate many people, but they actually imprison their own egos inside their figurative fortress of conviction."

The solution is keeping an open mind. Higher thinking allows us to see beyond simple black and white categories and to see the full, multicolored spectrum of human experience.

Option B

After diagnosis of a serious medical condition in a beloved family member, I began reading Option B, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. This book shares stories of people who’ve dealt with a traumatic event, helping us face adversity, become more resilient, and find joy again after life punches us in the face.

When she was 45 years old, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and mother of two, found her husband collapsed on the floor of the gym. He never woke again. Sheryl was devastated. Why him? Why so young? How could she have avoided this?

Two weeks later, as she prepared for what would have been a father-child activity, she cried in front of a friend, “But I want Dave!” Her friend replied: “Option A is not available. So let’s make the most out of Option B.” Sooner or later in our lives, we all lose Option A. This book is about learning to thrive with Option B. We can develop our resilience muscles, or “strength and speed of our resistance to adversity” (10). 

Here are two main lessons:

1. Trauma leads to three P’s to deal with: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence.
2. “Grounded hope” speeds up the healing process, which is aided by spending time with others.

Lesson 1: Deal with the three P’s.

1. Personalization. It’s natural to blame ourselves, but let’s not blame ourselves for trauma (16).
2. Pervasiveness. Instead of the song “Everything is awesome,” we can stuck on “Everything is awful” (16). It’s important to accept feelings and embrace grief: “Lean into the suck” (23). It is also helpful to remember that “all life involves suffering” (24). And it’s OK to take “cry breaks” (24).
3. Permanence. Watch out for exaggerations such as “Everything is awful” and “I can never be happy again.” Substitute minimizing language such as “I sometimes struggle with this” and “Lately I feel sad” (21). Counterintuitively, ponder how things could be worse, then how grateful we are (25). Journaling can become a powerful tool for reinforcing gratitude and creating goals (67).

Lesson 2: Spend time in groups to develop "grounded hope," which helps us move on.

Often, people assume grieving folks want to be left alone, but isolation usually leads to despair.  Being among friends after trauma is helpful but can be awkward. If people feel awkward about talking with you, remind that that you want to be connected (38). Sheryl talked a lot with friends one-on-one, but spending time in groups is beneficial too, especially when it leads to something called "grounded hope" (hope with action). In 1972, the Uruguayan rugby team’s plane crashed in the Andes (128). Of the 33 people on board, 16 survived, thanks to being a group, not alone. They were stuck in the freezing mountains for 72 days, facing starvation, freezing temperatures and avalanches. These individuals had resilience within them, but also between them. When their broken radio received a message that the search was called off, they shared their dreams of what they’d do when they get back to civilization, keeping hope alive. On top of this psychological boost, they took practical next steps to improve their immediate future. These included locating the tail end of the plane to sleep in and sending small groups to get food. These are examples of hope grounded in action, which can turn trauma into triumph.

What Is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?

The Atonement is the sacrifice Jesus Christ offered to help humankind overcome sin and death—to make us “at one” with God. This redeeming sacrifice occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Golgotha. Jesus Christ atoned for our sins, died, and was resurrected. The Atonement is the supreme expression of the love of Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Christians around the world gratefully acknowledge the matchless gift of God’s Only Begotten Son. We rejoice that the Life and Light of the World descended from His throne divine to be born in humble circumstances in a stable in Bethlehem.

As the young Jesus learned lessons under the tutelage of Joseph and Mary, He increased in favor with God and man, growing to maturity until fully prepared to work His mortal ministry. We note with gratitude that He experienced all the challenges of mortality, becoming hungry, thirsty, and fatigued so that He might know how to succor us in our afflictions (see Mosiah 3:7).

Baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness, the Messiah received the gift of the Holy Ghost in its fullness and went about doing good, preaching the gospel, healing the sick and afflicted, and preparing His disciples to lead the Church after He was gone. When His mortal ministry reached its climax, He taught His disciples in the Upper Room, blessed and broke bread and offered wine as a symbol of His sacrifice, and then suffered for our sins in Gethsemane. Then on Golgotha, He cared for us enough to die for us. And on the third day, He broke the bands of death, rising from the Garden Tomb and making the gift of Resurrection available for all.

Christ Kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane. Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

Gethsemane

After Jesus completed His tutoring of the Apostles in the Upper Room, He took the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, a place they frequently visited to pray and listen to their Master. We can picture the gnarled and twisted trunks of the olive trees in the moonlight, an image that suggests the suffering of the Savior for our sins.

Jesus then invited His beloved disciples Peter, James, and John to sit and watch with Him, seeking comfort and strength from His friends. He commanded them to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation. Moving away from them a short distance, He began to be pressed down by the weight of our sins, feeling “sore amazed,” “very heavy,” and “exceeding sorrowful unto death” (Mark 14:33–34). There He experienced all the problems of humanity, or “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” (Alma 7:11; emphasis added).

Regarding this experience, President Joseph Fielding Smith writes: “He carried, in some way that I cannot understand and you cannot understand, the burden of the combined sins of the world. It is hard enough for me to carry my own transgressions, and it is hard enough for you to carry yours. . . . I have seen [people] cry out in anguish because of their transgressions—just one individual’s sins. Can you comprehend the suffering of Jesus when he carried, not merely by physical manifestation but in some spiritual and mental condition or manner, the combined weight of sin?”[1]

Under this tremendous weight of our sins and afflictions, our beloved Savior fell to the ground and prayed, saying, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). From unknown eons before the foundations of the earth were laid, the Firstborn Son had volunteered to become our Savior, saying, “Thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever” (Moses 4:2). Jesus had always put the Father before His own, and the welfare of His siblings before His own. But now the awful weight of the combined sins and anguish of all mankind caused Him to shrink and wish that He might not partake of the bitter cup.

“Our finite mortal minds cannot grasp the tremendous load borne by the Savior in Gethsemane,” writes Andrew C. Skinner. “But we begin to comprehend what this means in practical terms by remembering that this earth alone has had some 60 to 70 billion people live upon it during its temporal history. Each one of these 60 to 70 billion people has committed sin. . . . Multiply the sins, sorrows, heartaches, and injustices of these 60 to 70 billion souls by the millions of earths that the Savior created and redeemed, and we may begin to view the term ‘infinite atonement’ in a different light.”[2] The glorious news of the gospel is that the Atonement is not only infinite but also intimate in its personal reach—all of us are within the embrace of God’s love.

Stephen E. Robinson offers this perspective: “All the negative aspects of human existence brought about by the Fall, Jesus Christ absorbed into himself. He experienced vicariously in Gethsemane all the private griefs and heartaches, all the physical pains and handicaps, all the emotional burdens and depressions of the human family. He knows the loneliness of those who don’t fit in, or who aren’t handsome or pretty. . . . He knows the anguish of parents whose children go wrong. He knows these things personally and intimately because he lived them in the Gethsemane experience. Having personally lived a perfect life, he then chose to experience our imperfect lives. In that infinite Gethsemane experience, in the meridian of time, the center of eternity, he lived a billion billion lifetimes of sin, pain, disease, and sorrow.”[3]

Though Jesus was willing to bear our burdens from before the foundations of the world, the agony of that moment caused Him, “the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore” (D&C 19:18). The word Gethsemane means “olive press.” In the garden, olives were pressed under a great stone wheel to release their precious oil, which initially comes out a blood-red color, then later turns clear. In a similar manner, our Savior “was literally pressed under the weight of the sins of the world,” writes Elder Russell M. Nelson. “He sweated great drops of blood—his life’s ‘oil’—which issued from every pore.”[4] Today when we are anointed with consecrated oil, we remember the symbolism of the oil press of Gethsemane.

Elder Orson F. Whitney shares a dream that he had of Gethsemane: “I seemed to be in the Garden of Gethsemane, a witness of the Savior’s agony. I saw Him as plainly as ever I have seen anyone. Standing behind a tree in the foreground, I beheld Jesus, with Peter, James and John, as they came through a little wicket gate at my right. Leaving the three Apostles there, after telling them to kneel and pray, the Son of God passed over to the other side, where He also knelt and prayed. It was the same prayer with which all Bible readers are familiar: ‘Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’

“As He prayed the tears streamed down his face, which was toward me. I was so moved at the sight that I also wept, out of pure sympathy. My whole heart went out to him; I loved him with all my soul, and longed to be with him as I longed for nothing else.   

“Presently He arose and walked to where those Apostles were kneeling—fast asleep! He shook them gently, awoke them, and in a tone of tender reproach, untinctured by the least show of anger or impatience, asked them plaintively if they could not watch with him one hour. There He was, with the awful weight of the world's sin upon his shoulders, with the pangs of every man, woman and child shooting through his sensitive soul—and they could not watch with him one poor hour!”[5] Applying this to our own lives, may we never fall asleep at our post but serve faithfully always.

As Christ suffered, the Father sent an angel to comfort and strengthen Him in His hour of need (see Luke 22:43). If heaven offered help for the Savior of the world in His hour of need, surely mercy is available for us, who are much weaker. In this light, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland says, “I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. ‘[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.’ On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.”[6]

After the Savior finished praying the third time, He woke the Apostles, saying that the betrayer was on his way. Judas immediately came to betray our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.

Golgotha

Late that night and into the next day, our Lord and Savior was accused by Annas and Caiaphas, arraigned before Pilate, mocked by Herod, and finally sentenced to die at Golgotha, the place of the skull.

President Spencer W. Kimball writes movingly of the Savior’s patience: “He who created the world and all that is in it, he who made the silver from which the pieces were stamped which bought him, he who could command defenders on both sides of the veil—stood and suffered.”

Then he adds:

Unworthy men lashed him, the pure and the Holy One, the Son of God. One word from his lips and all his enemies would have fallen to the earth, helpless. All would have perished, all could have been as dust and ashes. Yet, in calmness, he suffered. . . .

How he must have suffered when they violated his privacy by stripping off his clothes and then putting on him the scarlet robe!

Then, the crown of thorns. How painful and excruciating! And yet, such equanimity! Such strength! Such control! It is beyond imagination.[7]

Soldiers forced Jesus in His drained and weakened condition to carry the cross, the instrument of His death. On the hill of Golgotha, they pounded nails into His hands and feet, and then, fearing the weight of His body would tear the flesh, they pounded nails into His wrists as well.

To imagine our Savior hanging on the cross is almost too painful to visualize, but this is one of the most important things we can do as we partake of the sacrament. Each week when we partake of the Bread of Life, we remember His body, which was broken for us. Each week when we partake of the Living Water, we remember His blood, which was shed for us.

The eternal message of the Atonement is that He cared for us enough to die for us:

I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,

Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.

I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,

That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died. . . .

I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!

Such mercy, such love, and devotion can I forget?

No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,

Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me

Enough to die for me!

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me![8]

Even as Christ hung on the cross, He showed compassion to all around Him. Regarding His oppressors, He cried, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Later, in what is one of the most magnificent displays of love in all recorded scripture, the dying Christ invited John to care for Mary as his own mother (see John 19:26). There is perhaps no more moving testimony of His love and compassion as He looked to help others in the midst of the violence being done to Him.

While Jesus hung on the cross, He felt the agony of Gethsemane return. In Gethsemane, Christ drank from the bitter cup so that we might not have to, but Gethsemane “was not the end of the bitter cup. At Golgotha the bitter cup was refilled and drunk again.”[9] Overcome by grief, Jesus felt that the end was near. At this hour, He felt a final agony—the loss of His Father’s companionship. We picture the Father in His courts on high, grieving at the death of His dearly beloved Son and finally turning away in anguish. Unlike Abraham and Isaac, this time there was no ram in the thicket. This time the sacrifice must go on.

Feeling the loss of His Father’s companionship, Jesus cried aloud, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). At last, He prayed submissively, “Father, it is finished; thy will is done!” (Joseph Smith Translation, Matthew 27:50, footnote a).

These words place finality on His earlier prayer in Gethsemane. Now the Father’s will had been done.

Having completed all He was sent on earth to do, Jesus then cried with a loud voice, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Yielding up His life, our great high priest then parted the veil of eternity. There he entered the world of spirits and preached to the assembled multitude the joyous message of “the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance” (D&C 138:19). While His body was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, His spirit continued to be about His Father’s business. In the spirit world, Christ organized His great missionary force to preach the good news of the gospel to the wicked and disobedient, fulfilling the prophecy that Messiah would “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1; see D&C 138:18).

Garden Tomb

Jesus rose from the tomb on the third day, unlocking the gates of death and making resurrection possible for all mankind. This was the crowning moment of the Atonement. Jesus had opened for all of us the gateway to immortality and eternal life. No wonder all Christendom joins in singing the Easter hymn,

He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days' prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered, man is free.

Christ has won the victory.[10]

Just as death entered the world in the Garden of Eden, the Atonement was wrought in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the firstfruits of the Resurrection rose from the Garden Tomb. How appropriate it was that Mary Magdalene supposed that Jesus was a gardener, for these transcendent events had all been accomplished in gardens!

Trees are recurring themes in these locations: the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden, the olive trees in Gethsemane, the dead tree of the cross of Calvary, and ultimately the tree of life. These events are linked together in Christ.

Long ago, within a garden,

Mother Eve ate of a tree.

Death would be our awful burden;

Only one could set us free.

Humbly suff’ring in a garden,

Kneeling near an olive tree,

Pressed beneath sin’s awful burden,

Jesus prayed to set us free.

In a tomb within a garden,

People went to where He lay,

Angels told them, “He is risen,”

On that glorious Easter day.

Come to Christ and be forgiven,

Taste the fruit of Father’s tree,

Sweetest fruit of all His garden,

Come to him and be set free.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Jesus came to set us free.

Son of God and true Messiah,

Songs of joy we raise to thee.[11]

Accepting the Gift

At Easter, we celebrate the Atonement of Jesus Christ as “the greatest of all gifts.”[12] Through the Atonement, Jesus made salvation free to all those who come unto Him and forsake their sins (a conditional gift). Through His death and Resurrection, Jesus freed all of us from the bonds of death (an unconditional gift). As Latter-day Saints, we rejoice in the Atonement as “the central fact, the crucial foundation, the chief doctrine, and the greatest expression of divine love in the plan of salvation.”[13]

R. Devan Jensen is the author of God’s Greatest Gifts: 10 Reasons to Rejoice.

---

[1] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:129–30; quoted in Andrew C. Skinner, Golgotha (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), 8.

[2] Andrew C. Skinner, Gethsemane (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 57.

[3] Stephen E. Robinson, Religious Education prayer meeting, February 12, 1992.

[4] Russell M. Nelson, “Why This Holy Land?” Ensign, December 1989, 17–18.

[5] Orson F. Whitney, Through Memory’s Halls: The Life Story of Orson F. Whitney (Independence, MO: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1930), 82–83.

[6] Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Ministry of Angels,” Ensign, November 2008, 31.

[7] Spencer W. Kimball, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Ensign, December 1980, 6–7.

[8] Charles H. Gabriel, “I Stand All Amazed,” Hymns, no. 193.

[9] Skinner, Golgotha, 1.

[10] Cecil Frances Alexander, “He Is Risen,” Hymns, no. 199.

[11] Poem by author, “Long Ago within a Garden.”

[12] Packer, Mine Errand from the Lord, 46.

[13] Jeffrey R. Holland, in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 23–24.

Long Ago, Within a Garden (A Hymn of Hope in Christ)

Just two weeks before Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles died, he gave a classic talk on three gardens of God, which inspired me to write the lyrics to "Long Ago, Within a Garden," gorgeously set to music by fellow Caldwell, Idaho, composer Daniel Carter. 
The first three verses discuss the three gardens of God, moving from the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane to the Garden of the Empty Tomb. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve became subject to death after they partook of the forbidden fruit.
1. Long ago, within a garden, Adam tasted fruit with Eve,

Death would be our awful burden—Only One could set us free.

Adam and Eve Leaving the Garden of Eden, by Joseph Brickey.

In Gethsemane and Calvary our Savior paid the penalty for their transgression (and ours).

2. Jesus came to win a pardon, praying in Gethsemane,

Humbly suff'ring in a garden, crucified on Calvary.

On the third day, Christ rose from the tomb in another garden, freeing us from physical death.

3. In a tomb within a garden, women went where Jesus lay;

Angels told them, "He is risen" on that glorious Easter day.

Because He rose from the tomb, so shall we! The Apostle Paul very succinctly summarized this doctrine: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22). 

Verse 4 invites listeners to come to Christ and be forgiven, partaking of the sweet fruit of the tree of life.

4. Come to Christ and be forgiven. Taste the fruit of Father’s tree,
Sweetest fruit of all His garden. Dwell with Him eternally.

Over the years, more than a hundred thousand members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have performed and enjoyed this Christ-centered song. Now I'm glad to see that Christians of other denominations are performing it. It was performed at Easter Mass on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016, at the Cathedral Chapel of St. Mark (Episcopal). Update: In 2026 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added this hymn to its planned Hymns—For Home and Church. May we join as fellow Christians in raising this song of joy to the Lamb of God!

Chorus: Alleluia, alleluia! Jesus came to set us free!

Lamb of God and true Messiah, songs of joy we raise to Thee!