talkseastersusan ( ** )

Grateful to be here today.  I am always happy to be in the Manaia Branch.  I am especially glad to be here with you on this beautiful Easter morning. The thing I enjoy most about the Manaia branch is the love and warmth I feel here.  There is a feeling of inclusion and acceptance and Christ-like love is felt here.  Although you may be small in numbers, you are large in love.  I think that love is the thing that will keep you strong and allow you to grow.

Easter in the States is a spring holiday.  It is the time of year when the daffodils start coming up and the trees start blossoming again with leaves.  Popcorn is popping all over the apricot trees just like we sing in Primary.  It is the time of year when baby animals are born and the earth is coming to life again.  The long cold days of winter are coming to an end.  Everyone dresses in their bright colors anxious to put away their woolen clothes of wenter.  Every Easter my mom would buy my sisters and me new dresses and pastel colored shirts and ties for my brothers to be worn on Easter Day.  We looked forward to this.  However, my dad was very strict that our new clothes were not to be referred to as “Easter” clothes but as spring clothes even though they would be worn for the first time on Easter Day.  He also referred to our traditional baskets full of eggs and candy, spring baskets instead of Easter baskets.  This seemed rather odd to us children as our dad was fun loving and full of life and still is at age 96.  He loves to celebrate holidays.  We often laughed at his seemingly unusal behavior regarding our “Easter” clothes and baskets.

As we matured and grew up, we all came to realize that our dad wanted the focus of Easter to be on the spiritual side–on the Savior and His resurrection and not on the commercial side of Easter–the new clothes, candy and food.  Although these things are not bad in or themselves, the Savior and His resurrection really should be the focus of Easter.  In fact, the Savior should be the very focus of our lives.

In the document, “The Living Christ”, we learn that Jesus Christ went about doing good and was the one perfect man to walk the earth.  In His words he taught the light and truths of eternity and the purpose of our life on earth.  None other has had so profound an influence upon all who have lived an will yet live upon the earth.  His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. “

All that is good and light now and forever is founded in Jesus Christ.  Christ’s very life and messages were words of hope and victory.  By focusing our lives on the Savior, we can live happily and become victorious over all things.

There are many messages relating to Easter.  But there are two I would like to address today.  The first message is that because of the Savior of the world, we can conquer life and overcome the difficulties and trials we face as we live here on the earth.  The second message is that because of the Savior of the world, death is conquered.  The grave has no victory over life.

First, through the Savior of the world, we can conquer life.  We can become victorious over the difficulties and disappointments of life.  Jesus Christ is all powerful and glorious and yet at the same time intimately aware of each one of us and of our needs and difficulties.  He is ever ready and able to sustain and help us through the adversity we face in life.  In True to the Faith, we read that “As part of Heavenly Father’s plan of redemption, you experience adversity during mortality.  Trials, disappointments, sadness, sickness and heartache are a difficult part of life but they can lead to spiritual growth, refinement and progress as you turn to the Lord.”  As we choose to turn to Jesus Christ who is always there ready and able to support us we can feel his influence and support.  He understands every trial and possible difficulty we may ever experience.  In the Book of Mormon in Alma we read, “And he (referring to Jesus Christ) shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind: and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.  …and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy according to the flesh that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”

In some amazing way he actually felt and experienced our afflictions and trials through the atonement so that He could truly understand how we feel when we go through these things and then would know how to comfort and uplift us.  In Elder Bednar’s most recent talk he said, “Each of us carries a load.  Our individual load is comprised of demands and opportunities, obligations and privileges, afflictions and blessings and options and constraints.  …Sometimes we mistakenly may believe that happiness is the absence of a load.  But bearing a load is a necessary and essential part of the plan of happiness. …We are not and never need be alone.  We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help.  Through the Savior’s atonement we can receive capacity and strength beyond our own.”

Throughout the scriptures we can read of this support.  In the Book of Mormon we can read, “yea, The Lord gave them strength that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.”  In the New Testament, “Cast…all your care upon him: for he careth for you”   And, “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.”  “Take my yoke upon  you for my burden is easy and my yoke is light.”  In Psalms, we read, He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”

Jesus Christ is always there to help us become victorious over the challenges and difficulties of life.  He understands our afflictions and wants to help us and support us.  His desire is to bless us.  In the Doctrine & Covenants, he has promised, “All things where with you have been afflicted shall work together for your good…”

Secondly, because of the Savior of the world, death is conquered.  He brought about the Victory over the grave.  That is the very essence of Easter.  It is the true purpose of Easter.  Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley, gave a wonderful talk on the Savior and on Easter.  He said, …”Easter morning, is the Lord’s day”…It is the day “we celebrate the greatest victory of all time, the victory over death.”  As I read that I began thinking of all the Great War victories over the history of the world.  However grand and glorious those victories were, none of them compare to the greatest victory of all time, the victory over death.  Through our Savior’s atonement and resurrection death was conquered.  Pres. Hinckley went on to say, “Those who hated Jesus thought they had put an end to Him forever when the cruel spikes pieced His quivering flesh and the cross was raised on Calvary.  But this was the Son of God, with whose power they did not reckon.  Through His death came the Resurrection and the assurance of eternal life.”

“None of us can fully understand the pain He bore as He prayed in Gethsemane  and subsequently hung on the cross.  With sorrow unspeakable those who loved Him placed His wounded, lifeless body in the tomb.  Gone was hope from the lives of his apostles, whom He had loved and taught.  He had taught them of His eventual death and Resurrection, but they had not understood.  Now they were forlorn and dejected.  They must have wept and wondered as the great stone was rolled to seal the burial place.

“Then came the glorious event, as Mary Magdalene stood weeping at the tomb, the risen Savior, Jesus Christ, appeared to her and then to many others.  Can anyone doubt that this happened?  No event of history has been more certainly confirmed.”

Pres. Hinckley went on to say, “There is nothing more universal than death and nothing brighter with hope and faith than the assurance of immortality.  The abject sorrow that comes with death, the bereavement that follows the passing of loved ones are mitigated only by the certainty of the resurrection of the Son of God that first Easter morning”.

In Elder Christopherson’s recent Conference talk he related that Pres. Thomas S. Monson tells of a Robert Blatchford who, 100 years ago attacked with vigor accepted Christian beliefs, such as God, Christ, prayer and immortality.  He boldly asserted …that no Christian, however great or able he may be, can answer my arguments or shake my case.  He surrounded himself with a wall of skepticism.  Then a surprising thing happened.  His wall suddenly crumbled to dust…Slowly he began to feel his way back to the faith he had scorned and ridiculed.  What had caused this profound change in his outlook?  His wife died.  With a broken heart, he went into the room where lay all that was mortal of her.  He looked at the face he loved so well.  Coming out, he said to a friend, ‘It is she, and yet it is not she.  Everything is changed.  Something that was there before is taken away.  She is not the same.  What can be gone if it be not the soul?”

Elder Christopherson then stated, “given the reality of the resurrection of Christ, death is not our end.”

In Mosiah 16:7-9 we read, “And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection.  But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.  He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea and also a life which is endless; that there can be no more death.”

This Easter morn, the beautiful knowledge of the resurrection and knowing that the sting of “death is swallowed up in Christ”, has an added meaning to me and to all of us who have lost loved ones.  Exactly four months ago, just a week before Christmas and 12 days before we came on our mission my mother passed away.  This,  of course, is our first Easter without her.  Although my mom lived a long, full life, her passing was painful and our sorrow was deep.  However, we as a family and my dad felt comfort and peace with the assurance and knowledge that she still lives and that one day we will be reunited with her again.  Every Easter for most of their 72 years of marriage my dad would buy my mom a potted Easter Lily.  She loved the simple beauty of the Lily and of his gift.  To him, the gift was a symbol of his love for her and a symbol of the message of Easter.  This year I think he will be putting an Easter Lily on her grave as a living symbol of his bright hope of the resurrection.

I love the words of an Easter Primary song that says:
Did Jesus really live again?
Yes, when the third day came,
He wakened and he left the tomb;
He called Mary’s name.
Did Jesus come to those he loved?
Yes, people touched his feet,
And of the fish and honey comb
He did truly eat.
And there were nail prints in his hands
And a spear wound in his side.
Did Jesus really live again
After he had died?
Oh yes!  And so shall I!
And so shall we all.

I conclude with the comforting and beautiful words found in the New Testament in Matthew:  “He is not here, for He is risen.”  I express my deep gratitude for this assurance and knowledge!  I bear testimony of the reality of our Savior and the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ