Anticipation

I love, love, love LDS General Conference and I especially love when it coincides with Easter so I am awaiting this weekend with much anticipation. As I was thinking about it, I realized today was the Friday before Easter, or Good Friday. It's not celebrated much in LDS culture, but it is throughout Christendom, I think especially among Roman Catholics. It commemorates the day Christ died before his resurrection on Easter Sunday. A few years ago, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin gave a talk in conference about Christ's death on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday. It is a beautiful talk, one of those on my all-time-favorite lists. A couple of years ago, my friend bore her testimony and referenced this talk (you know who you are) and it is one of the few testimonies from Fast and Testimony Meeting that I distinctly remember. It was very powerful. So, with that long prelude, I'd like to share a quote from this incredible talk and urge you to read or re-read the talk in its entirety.

"I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.

On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

Those evil men who sought His life rejoiced. Now that Jesus was no more, surely those who followed Him would disperse. On that day they stood triumphant.

On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross.

On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled.

It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.

I testify to you that the Resurrection is not a fable. We have the personal testimonies of those who saw Him. Thousands in the Old and New Worlds witnessed the risen Savior. They felt the wounds in His hands, feet, and side. They shed tears of unrestrained joy as they embraced Him."

Read the whole talk here.

It is messages like these that make me so excited for an Easter weekend filled with words from prophets, seers and revelators. I'd like to add my witness that Christ really is our Savior and Redeemer. He died for us on the darkest of all Fridays and was resurrected on the brightest of all Sundays. He lives!