[Sacrament talk, 16-Jan-2011]
Growing up in Florida, I had the advantage of being able to play any sport at almost any time of the year. In fact, right now, the little league baseball season is starting up. Spring was always reserved for baseball, fall was for soccer, and summer was for avoiding heat stroke. Winter was a mythical season where, supposedly, trees lost their leaves, snow came from the heavens, and people wore scarves. None of those things ever made sense to me.
What did make sense, was playing outside, and playing sports. Didn’t matter what the game was, I wanted in. Take the ward activity this past Thursday. If my dazzling stick handling didn’t already tell you, that was my first time ever playing broom hockey. Bruises aside, it was a blast. Every time the ball came my way I hoped for two things, first, to hit the ball, and, second, to not fall down. Some times I got both. Sometimes only one of the two, and a couple times, the ball kept rolling on by as I rolled over on the ice. In my defense, Broom Hockey is not front page news in Florida. In fact, there’s only one ice rink in my county, and I think it closed down a couple years ago. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
Thankfully, the bruises were only skin deep. I’ve been fortunate throughout my life to never have anything worse than a couple of bruises here or there, in spite of my best efforts otherwise. My brother on the hand, he’s had more than his fair share of problems.
When we were young, we lived in a house that had a big grapefruit tree in the backyard. Just past that tree was the canal that we would go fishing or boating on. It wasn’t too wide, so we often would take the grapefruit that had fallen off the tree and had begun to rot, and try to throw them onto the vacant lots across the water. We weren’t big kids, so we really had to give it our all to make the throw.
One afternoon after school, my older sister and I were in the house watching TV when my mom asked us if we had seen our little brother. We hadn’t for a little while, so we starting looking around the house for him. It didn’t take long for us to realize something was wrong. My mom kept searching around the house, knowing that she would find him. Eventually, this hope led her to think about looking in the backyard. She ran out to the water’s edge to find my brother floating on his side. Seven months pregnant, she jumped into the canal while my seven year old sister called for an ambulance. Thankfully, my brother came around with no complications, and he, my mom, and future little sister, were all fine.
Now I bring these two stories up to illustrate the difference between the hope I had during broom hockey and the hope my mother had looking for my brother. The first hope was anything but a sure thing. I practically fell down my first step on the ice, so adding a swinging motion certainly wasn’t going to help my balance. The second type of hope was rooted in something much more substantial. My mother expected to find him, and surely she did.
The difference between these two hopes is the difference between how all too often the word hope is used today, and what the scriptures imply when they use the term. For example, when Aaron taught the Lamanite King, “If thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest” (Alma 22:16), he wasn’t wishing for the King. He was telling the King that if you are repent and believe, you will get what you desire. Aaron removed all doubt from the equation. The hope in the scriptures is one devoid of doubt, and it is this way because of its foundation.
The common saying goes “hope springs eternal”. The only way for this to be true, is for hope to be based on something eternal. Brothers and sisters, this hope, true hope is always built upon the atonement of Jesus Christ. Pres Uchtdorf has said that “Hope is a gift of the Spirit. It is a hope that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection, we shall be raised unto life eternal and this because of our faith in the Savior. This kind of hope is both a principle of promise as well as a commandment, and, as with all commandments, we have the responsibility to make it an active part of our lives.”
In the same address, Pres. Uchtdorf delineates between things we hope for and things we hope in. He stated that we have hope for an eternal peace and everlasting progression in the life to come, so long as we are obedient to the commandments. He taught that we have hope in principles of the gospel that keep us pressing forward each day. Things like the goodness of our Heavenly Father, the assurance that prayers are heard and answered, and the blessings of the Holy Ghost are things that we have hope in. Despite their differences, both spring from a hope concerning the Savior.
It is His atonement that grants us the opportunity to receive the eternal peace promised to the faithful. It is through Him that we pray, and by His priesthood are our answers given. This hope, much like faith, is of things that can not be seen, but are nevertheless true. We can rely on it when times become hard, and when the road becomes dark.
“Thus,” as Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “real hope is much more than wishful musing. It stiffens, not slackens, the spiritual spine. It is composed, not giddy, eager without being naive, and pleasantly steady without being smug. Hope is realistic anticipation taking the form of determination—a determination not merely to survive but to ‘endure … well’ to the end.”
Moroni shows us how this anticipation can buoy us up even in dire circumstances. In Moroni chapter 7, he records the words of his father Mormon. Amidst a flight from the warring Lamanites, Moroni reviews his father’s teaching on hope, giving us a template on how a hope in the atonement can bless not just our lives, but the lives of those around us.
“Wherefore, I would speak unto you that are of the church, that are the peaceable followers of Christ, and that have obtained a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord, from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven.” (Moroni 7:3)
After watching his entire civilization pass away, Moroni was able to draw strength from his father’s hope and assurance in the power of the atonement. Much in the same way, we are able to look to our leader’s hope, and have our outlook brightened.
In October 2008, Pres. Uchtdorf shared a story concerning hope that teaches us that even in the dreariest situations, our hope can help us through.
“Toward the end of World War II, my father was drafted into the German army and sent to the western front, leaving my mother alone to care for our family. Though I was only three years old, I can still remember this time of fear and hunger. We lived in Czechoslovakia, and with every passing day, the war came nearer and the danger grew greater.
Finally, during the cold winter of 1944, my mother decided to flee to Germany, where her parents were living. She bundled us up and somehow managed to get us on one of the last refugee trains heading west. Traveling during that time was dangerous. Everywhere we went, the sound of explosions, the stressed faces, and ever-present hunger reminded us that we were in a war zone.
Along the way the train stopped occasionally to get supplies. One night during one of these stops, my mother hurried out of the train to search for some food for her four children. When she returned, to her great horror, the train and her children were gone!
She was weighed down with worry; desperate prayers filled her heart. She frantically searched the large and dark train station, urgently crisscrossing the numerous tracks while hoping against hope that the train had not already departed.
Perhaps I will never know all that went through my mother’s heart and mind on that black night as she searched through a grim railroad station for her lost children. That she was terrified, I have no doubt. I am certain it crossed her mind that if she did not find this train, she might never see her children again. I know with certainty: her faith overcame her fear, and her hope overcame her despair. She was not a woman who would sit and bemoan tragedy. She moved. She put her faith and hope into action.
And so she ran from track to track and from train to train until she finally found our train. It had been moved to a remote area of the station. There, at last, she found her children again.”
Brothers and sisters, by having a hope rooted in the atonement, we can have a bright hope for the future. We can with a surety hope that things will get better, in this world and the next. Hope in the gospel leads us to happiness, peace, and forgiveness. It was the prophet Moroni that taught, “Whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God” (Ether 12:4)
That we all might strengthen our hope in the gospel, and see how that hope lightens our daily burdens is my humble prayer. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
[Sit Down]
Word.
