My Mind Caught Hold upon This Thought
Book of Mormon Notes - Monday, October 2, 2023, Alma 36
Continued from the previous post…
In any case, to return to Alma the Younger’s experience of coming to himself like the prodigal son, I am reminded of a story that Elder Christofferson recently recounted in one of his conference talks:
Not long ago, a friend recounted to me an experience he had while serving as a mission president. He had undergone a surgery that required several weeks of recuperation. During his recovery, he devoted time to searching the scriptures. One afternoon as he pondered the Savior’s words in the 27th chapter of 3 Nephi, he drifted off to sleep. He subsequently related:
“I fell into a dream in which I was given a vivid, panoramic view of my life. I was shown my sins, poor choices, the times … I had treated people with impatience, plus the omissions of good things I should have said or done. … [A] comprehensive … [review of] my life was shown to me in just a few minutes, but it seemed much longer. I awoke, startled, and … instantly dropped to my knees beside the bed and began to pray, to plead for forgiveness, pouring out the feelings of my heart like I had never done previously.
“Prior to the dream, I didn’t know that I [had] such great need to repent. My faults and weaknesses suddenly became so plainly clear to me that the gap between the person I was and the holiness and goodness of God seemed [like] millions of miles. In my prayer that late afternoon, I expressed my deepest gratitude to Heavenly Father and to the Savior with my whole heart for what They had done for me and for the relationships I treasured with my wife and children. While on my knees I also felt God’s love and mercy that was so palpable, despite my feeling so unworthy. …
“I can say I haven’t been the same since that day. … My heart changed. … What followed is that I developed more empathy toward others, with a greater capacity to love, coupled with a sense of urgency to preach the gospel. … I could relate to the messages of faith, hope, and the gift of repentance found in the Book of Mormon [as] never before.”19
It is important to recognize that this good man’s vivid revelation of his sins and shortcomings did not discourage him or lead him to despair. Yes, he felt shock and remorse. He felt keenly his need to repent. He had been humbled, yet he felt gratitude, peace, and hope—real hope—because of Jesus Christ, “the living bread which came down from heaven.”20
My friend spoke of the gap he perceived in his dream between his life and the holiness of God. Holiness is the right word. To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ means to pursue holiness. God commands, “Be ye holy; for I am holy.”21
As Alma the Younger frenzied mind and soul were startled, racked, harrowed up, and tormented, the very thought of coming into the presence of his God racked his soul with inexpressible horror. He almost desired banishment and extinction more than to face God’s judgment for his bdeeds. Alma the Younger remained in this terrible and tormented condition - somewhat like Zeezrom or like Enos, as we may recall - for three days and three nights. Alma the Younger was suffering “with the apains of a bdamned soul.”
Sometimes I have the hyperbolic thought that each one of us could benefit from a bit a coma, or at least, from some simplification of our “to do” lists and some settling on a firm foundation instead of frenzied activity. At times I think that Pascal was onto something when he considered that “all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.” Alma the Younger, and the mission president friend of Elder Christofferson, were temporarily forced to sit quietly in their own chambers, to come to themselves like the prodigal sons and daughters that we all are, and thus began for them a process of repentance and revelation that set them on a much better course for the rest of their lives.
Mormon certainly foresaw that all things would be in commotion in the last days, and that especially in the Promised Land, millions upon millions of people would constantly bustle about - like the omnipotent moral busybodies described by C.S. Lewis in his timeless essay “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” - incessantly scrambling toward pride, power, prominence, popularity, prestige, possessions, profit, and pecuniary pursuits. Mormon certainly knew that the latter-day Promised Land would teem with potential converts to Christ who, like Alma the Younger, might only be brought to their senses by the thunderous voice of an angel. If each of us could only seize upon the word of God contained in the Book of Mormon, we might, Alma-the-Younger like, pause long enough to remember something that Alma’s father, and many others before and since him have prophesied, namely, concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.
Those three days and nights of torment were very unproductive for Alma the Younger until his mind finally caught hold upon this thought of the coming of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. As Alma the Younger recounted his experience to his son Helaman, I imagine that he relived for a moment the original joy of that experience:
Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, ahave mercy on me, who am bin the cgall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting dchains of edeath.
And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my apains bno more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.
And oh, what ajoy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! (Alma 36:18-20)
Here in the very center of Alma’s chiasmus we discover that which Mormon certainly hoped that each one of his latter-day readers would find: repentance and forgiveness of sin through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement.
I think of Alma’s frenzied mind, darting to and fro among the memories of his many sins and transgressions, seeking for some kind of an anchor, some kind of a foundation, something solid to grasp. I imagine each one of us in our busy daily lives, hustling and bustling about, bombarded by information, noise, media sources, traffic, electronic signals, and even the many good things that command our attention - seeking, Alma the Younger-like for an anchor, a foundation, something solid, a place of rest and refuge. Then my mind catches hold upon the thought that Jesus Christ is coming. My heart cries out with Alma: “O Jesus, thou Son of God, ahave mercy on me.”
Then I remember that repentance is a joyful choice, and that “Repenting daily and coming unto Jesus Christ is the way to experience joy—joy beyond our imagination.” I remember why Mormon (or perhaps it was Alma) desired to be an angel. I am reminded also of Khalil Gibran’s poetic observation that must be true:
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
In fact, it seems to me that Alma the Younger’s transformation from sorrow to joy is a microcosm of what the Lord endured for each one of us, encapsulated so well in these great verses to ponderize:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the asin which doth so easily bbeset us, and let us run with cpatience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the aauthor and bfinisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him cendured the cross, despising the dshame, and is set down at the right hand of the ethrone of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)
To be continued…