John Bytheway: 00:01 Welcome to part two with Dr. Sweat. Easter.

Hank Smith: 00:07 Where should we go next, Anthony? What do you want to do?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 00:10 Let’s just look at his arrest, back to this theme of who are you? Who is this? We can go to the Mark version. I want to try to touch on different gospels here. In Mark 14, arrest Jesus, take him to Caiaphas’ palace. They’re going to hold the trial in the night and bring in false witnesses. But I just love this in Mark 14:60, and the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus saying, “Answerest thou nothing. What is it which these witness against thee?” But he held his peace and answered nothing. Again, the high priest asked him and said to him, “Art thou the Christ, the son of the blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am. And you shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

  01:05 Can you imagine that answer in that moment, by the way? When he finally just… I don’t know how you visualize it, but looks it right in the eyes and gives that I am statement which is so loaded with meaning of being Jehovah and says, “And you’re going to see me sitting on the right hand of power.” And he finally answers them directly the question that they want to hear right from his mouth. Then the high priest rent his clothes and says, “What need we any further witness? You have heard the blasphemy. What think ye?” And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.

  01:42 Now again, right there, Jesus reveals who he is. He says it plainly, “This is who I am” and some people won’t receive it. They don’t want to receive him. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, he senses that these chief priests and leaders of the Jews have delivered him for envy. Again, they’re protecting their will. They want their will, their way and their understanding, not the divine will, the divine way according to God’s understanding.

  02:13 So even though it doesn’t seem like it, again, it’s a submission of will. My way versus thy way here, even though Jesus tells them plainly to their face who he is. And then back to knowing him, we jump to Peter when Jesus tells Peter, “Hey, be careful. Before the night is over, you’re going to deny me thrice.” We know the story where he’s outside the trial and the people say, “Hey, I recognize your speech. You talk like him. You’re a Galilean and also you’re with him.”

  02:42 I’m just going to jump on the third time in verse 71 since we’re in Mark 14, “But he began to curse and to swear saying, “I know not this man of whom you speak.” And the second time the cock crew and Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said to him before the cock crow twice, “thou shall deny me thrice.” And when he thought thereon, he wept or in another version that says he wept bitterly. And maybe again it’s Peter sitting there saying, “I don’t know him. I don’t know him.” We want to be careful here and we don’t know all the factors that are going on, but there also seems to be this, “I’m refusing to acknowledge who the Lord really is that leads to ultimately these bitter tears.”

Hank Smith: 03:25 John, did you have anything for the trial or Peter?

John Bytheway: 03:28 I just like verse 62 that you read and Jesus said, “I am.” I know that in the institute manual it says this is as plain as it ever got. In other places it was translated, “I that speak unto thee am he” or something, but just to have those two words, like you said, Anthony, with levels of power and meaning in them is very plain here and that’s why the high priest had such a reaction to it.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 03:54 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 03:54 For Jesus to say that too helps us to realize that… And should help any reader to know this is not just another great moral teacher, but right here he is saying, “No, I am and you’ll see the son of man, me sitting on the right hand of power.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 04:09 Yeah. I do think it’s important as we get to Jesus giving his life. It is important that we recognize that he gave his life. Nobody took his life from him. He voluntarily is going to give it. He’s going to let this trial and arrest happen even when Peter smites the ear off the servant of the high priest and Jesus has to remind Peter, “Don’t you know that I could have called down 12 legions of angels right now? I don’t need you busting out your sword. You need to let me submit.” And here is Caiaphas and eventually Pilate and all these others feeling like they have power over Jesus.

  04:54 Jesus is going to say when he is talking to Pontius Pilate, I’m here reading in John 19:10 to 11, then saith Pilate unto him, “Speakest thou not unto me.” Don’t you know who I am? And you can almost picture Jesus going like, “Well, don’t you know who I am?” Pilate says, “Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee. Jesus answered, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except if it were given thee from above.”

  05:29 It’s almost like he gives a reminder here of like, “Hey, let’s not forget who’s in charge here.” I just think that’s an important point to recognize that if Jesus had wanted to, he could have stopped this at any moment. He could have called down these legions of angels. He could have performed miracles. He could have walked through their midst and not let them take them like he did on the mound of precipice. But he is going to voluntarily submit and let them take his life from him for us. That’s just something we should never overlook and forget this Easter as we’re talking about the crucifixion and his death.

John Bytheway: 06:05 I’m glad you said that. I like to emphasize with my students that he said, “No man taketh my life from me.” This was a willing sacrifice. It also helps us not to try to play some sort of a who’s really at fault or a blame game or something like that because we needed him to die for us too. And in one of the gospels it says He gave up the ghost and I’ve always thought that’s significant. It’s not, they separated his spirit from his body. It’s like he even chose that time of when his spirit gave up the ghost and so this is something he offered as a willing sacrifice.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 06:42 Yes. Well said. I love that He gave up the ghost.

Hank Smith: 06:46 I can’t imagine the steps as he goes through facing his own death. I mean, we read it and it’s black and white, but I mean we have listeners who have been given a diagnosis that the end of their life is near and I think only people like that can relate to this moment of he knows what he’s stepping towards. With each step he’s getting closer and how difficult and how scary that would be.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 07:15 Unimaginable.

John Bytheway: 07:16 There’s a couple of glimpses in that new series, The Chosen where Jesus is walking and he sees a victim of crucifixion and he gives a look over there. And yet you’ll see him say, “Okay, guys, the son of man is going to be betrayed into the hand of sinners and scourged and crucified.” And he set his face towards Jerusalem, let’s go and just think, “Wow.”

Hank Smith: 07:39 Faced it, yeah.

John Bytheway: 07:40 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 07:41 Sometimes in Latter-day Saint culture, we don’t like to focus on the difficult. I think it’s good to see how difficult this was. I love the restoration with my whole soul and know the divinity of this Latter-day work, but I don’t think that means that we can’t have… As it’s been said holy envy for other faiths in some of their aspects that they have. Listeners might see this different than I do, and that’s okay. I really admire particularly the Catholic focus on the suffering Christ. Coming from the perspective of an artist, we don’t have a lot of Latter-day Saint iconography and images that we celebrate of the death of Jesus Christ, of his suffering and of his pain, of this difficulty, of these steps after Pilate condemns him to death. The scourging alone, it can kill people. This being whipped and with pieces of bone and tearing the flesh.

John Bytheway: 08:43 It’s horrible.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 08:44 Horrible, horrible and Jesus willingly submits to it. And then to carry his cross and have to have help carrying his cross from Simon and to go to Golgotha of the place of the skull and know what’s coming, we would do well to remember that as Isaiah prophesied, he is a man of sorrow. He knows deep, deep pain and he suffered grief and pain, and in life I even did a painting one time, a little painting and I just called it Man of Sorrows.

  09:20 Jesus has his head down and I did it a little more abstractly where the paint is peeled off and every one of us in this life are going to face deep pain and deep sorrow, and deep anguish, and fear, and dread. To know that our Savior himself faced that and felt that on levels unimaginable, I actually think makes it so that he becomes… This is part of what makes him a God, not just of sympathy but a God of empathy.

  09:48 There’s a great poem that I am trying to remember off the top of my head by Edward Sillitoe and it says, “The other gods, they were strong, but thou did stumble to a throne and no other God has scars, but thou alone. Our Savior is a God of scars.” He knows what it’s like to suffer deeply and painfully. And I think as we think on Easter again, but let’s not forget Friday and jump right to Sunday because we all go through our Fridays and Saturdays before we get to the Sundays.

John Bytheway: 10:20 One of the things that I appreciate so much about a section that you’ve already mentioned, Section 19 is King Benjamin mentions that Jesus bled from every poor in Gethsemane. Luke does, but in Section 19 we have the first person account. As I’ve pondered what you’re talking about, the scourging, just the humiliation of all of those things, I’ve thought what gets him through this? And there’s in that first person account in Section 19, he says, “For behold, I God have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer.” And I go, “Whoa, look at the motive. I love people and I would prefer suffering myself than to have them suffer.”

  11:09 I think it’s also in first Nephi, I want to say 19:9. They spit upon him and he suffereth, they scourge him and he suffereth. And then it says, because, and here’s an answer to that question, what was going through his mind because of his long suffering and his loving kindness towards the children of man, the power of his love for us, I feel like is what helped him endure that. At least that’s what I see in those verses.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 11:39 Yeah, absolutely. I love that. What is it? That’s a great question to ask us. We’re talking about difficult pain here, but what is it that carried him forward? And it was his deep love for God and his deep love for God’s children that carried him forward. We would call that charity by the way. Charity is the love of God and the love of his children. Maybe that’s why it is the greatest gift of all is because it’s the one that makes it so that we can bear all things as well and have hope despite our difficulties. Beareth all things, hopeth all things, believeth all things. Even if all things are less than hopeful and seem less than bearable.

Hank Smith: 12:23 In Mark 15:31, they’re looking at him on the cross, the chief priests and they’re mocking him. He saved others. Himself he cannot save. And if you just change that he saved others, himself he will not save or he chooses not to save. It’s a really true statement. He is saving others by not saving himself.

John Bytheway: 12:44 Wow.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 12:45 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 12:46 It reminds me of what we learned about Jonah last year. Throw me off the boat so that all of you can live.

Hank Smith: 12:53 Can be safe, yeah.

John Bytheway: 12:55 The Savior put me through this and then all of you can live and I will voluntarily do that for you.

Hank Smith: 13:02 There’s a moment on the cross that Elder Holland talks about in a talk called None Were with Him and he says, “I speak very carefully even reverently of what may have been the most difficult moment in all this solitary journey to atonement. I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically, but which he may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually that concluding dissent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when he cries in ultimate loneliness, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'”

  13:44 He says, “The loss of moral support he had anticipated, but apparently he had not comprehended this. Had he not said to his disciples, ‘Behold the hour has come that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, yet I am alone because the Father is with me. The Father has not left me alone for I do always those things which please him.'”

  14:06 Elder Holland goes on to talk about, “With all the conviction of my soul, I testify that he did please his father perfectly and that a perfect father did not forsake his son in that hour.”

John Bytheway: 14:20 But he goes on to say that he had to know what it would be like for us when we felt spiritual death. He had to know what spiritual death felt like being separated from God. And doctrinally, I think, “Oh, okay, because we will feel that and he descended below all things so that he would know everything we have felt.” I mean, that’s the Alma 7:11-12 thing too. Our pains, our affliction, our temptation.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 14:46 I’m looking right as you say that. I just pulled up Section 88 verse 6, he that ascended up on high and also he descended below all things, in that he comprehendeth all things. This is part of his divine comprehension. As you’re saying, Alma 7:11, Doctrine & Covenants 88:6, so that he knows how to succor us in all of our difficulties. He’s descended below it all that we can imagine.

John Bytheway: 15:16 I love that. The wrong way to look at it is see, don’t complain. I’ve been through it all. But another way to look at it is, “Oh my goodness, he knows. He knows everything we’ve been through,” which gives us such great hope and comfort. No, there’s nothing that I felt that he hasn’t also felt, and therefore he can succor, he can help me.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 15:38 That’s what Elder David A. Bednar said in his talk when he said, “Sometimes we might be tempted…” I’m paraphrasing him here but, “We might be tempted to say nobody understands me or nobody knows what I’m going through, but there is one who knows because Jesus has suffered it all for us. And not only has he suffered it all, he overcame it all, and so he knows how to help us overcome and carry our difficulties because he’s carried them before.”

John Bytheway: 16:04 That’s the Easter thing. I mean I have overcome the world. That’s the joy and happiness of all of this.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 16:10 That is.

Hank Smith: 16:11 I like what you said, Anthony, about letting there be a Friday and a Saturday, and how devastating those days are for these people. What they thought, what they’d hoped would be their future, all comes crashing down on them. Yes, Sunday is coming. Yes, the resurrection is coming, but sit for a minute with people in their Friday, in their Saturday where the great conclusion hasn’t come yet.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 16:38 Yeah. Well, should we get to Sunday now? Have we sat on Friday and Saturday long enough?

Hank Smith: 16:43 I think so. Yeah, I hope so. Are you speaking metaphorically or are you speaking about just the… Many of our listeners will remember way back in 2006. I know we’re going way back here. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin gave a kind of a landmark talk called Sunday Will Come. He talks about the Fridays of our lives. “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 will all experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays, but I test 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 the resurrection is not a fable.” Are we ready, you guys? Let’s talk about Jesus’ resurrection. Where do you want to go?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 17:53 So Mark chapter 16, as we know, they’re waiting for the Sabbath to be over so that they can finish his hasty burial, that they have to put him in the tomb. And when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun and they said among themselves, “Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?”

  18:23 And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away for it was great. And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side clothed in a long white garment and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, “Be not affrighted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. But go your way. Tell the disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall ye see him as he said unto you.” And they went out quickly and fled from the sepulcher for they were trembled and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man for they were afraid.

  19:15 Now, I just love that moment. You’ve been to the holy land and we’ve been fortunate enough to have been there at that garden tomb. They have that sign that says, “He is not here. He has risen.” Wherever you fall on the debate of the authentic tomb, I don’t care. When you’re in that tomb that represents, and you see that sign, oh, those words are so powerful because it does testify to you that the resurrection is real. The resurrection is not a myth. It’s not a fable. We are beings bound for eternity, eternal life in bodily form with bodies of flesh and bone.

  19:57 I love when he appears to the apostles in Luke 24:36 to 39, he says, “Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me have.” We don’t believe in resurrection in the sense of your influence or your essence, or your consciousness, or any other form of eternal life in that sense. We believe in a bodily physical, tangible, glorified resurrection. And that is powerful to me. That should be powerful to us all. I love when the Apostle Paul just… And maybe we can talk about 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the great chapter on resurrection, but I just love when Paul says, “If Christ be not risen, then our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.”

  20:53 Ultimately, it’s the resurrection that is our testament, that Jesus is the son of God, that he is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Other people perform miracles. Other people walked on water. Other people healed. Other people taught marvelous truths. No one else has conquered death. No one else has risen from the grave. The resurrection is the symbol of his divine sonship. There is something in 3 Nephi that him saying again to those people when they handle his body that he says, “Feel these prints. Thrust your hands into my side that ye may know that I am the God of Israel.”

  21:40 It’s the resurrection. I’m paraphrasing Elder Bruce McConkie, but he said, “How do we know that Jesus was the son of God? It’s the resurrection. And how do we know he was resurrected? Because of witnesses? And then he went on to bear his witness.” One of the things I just love is all the witnesses of his resurrection. Here’s just some that I put together.

  22:04 Obviously, the very first will be Mary Magdalene and we can talk more about her being the very first witness if you’d like. Then Peter is going to see the Lord. Luke 24:34 says that. Then the two disciples on the road to Emmaus will see him. Then the apostles minus Thomas. Then eight days later, Thomas and the apostles and Paul will tell us in 1 Corinthians that there’s some sort of meeting where 500 people see him at once.

  22:37 Now, that’s 1 Corinthians 15:6 to 8. About 2,500 people in the Americas see him. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “I have seen him.” In the Book of Mormon 1:15, Mormon says that he was visited of the Lord and even Moroni, Ether 12:39. Moroni says that he saw Jesus. Obviously Joseph Smith in the sacred grove, but above all in Section 76 when Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in Section 76 says, “And this is the testimony last of all that we give.” Last of all means we’re adding to this list.

  23:14 It doesn’t mean it’s the last one. Most recent of all, that he lives for we saw him even on the right hand of God. And then I grabbed this from President Henry B. Eyring, one of our current special witnesses of Jesus Christ. Quote, this is May 2013, Ensign, so coming from his April talk, Come Unto Me, quote, “I am a witness of the resurrection of the Lord. As surely as if I had been there in the evening with the two disciples in the house on Emmaus road.” That’s powerful. He goes on to say, “I know that he lives as surely as did Joseph Smith when he saw the Father and the Son in the light of the brilliant morning in a grove of trees in Palmyra.

  24:06 Just one testimony of many of our current special witnesses of Jesus Christ as well. There’s special witnesses of a lot of things, but in my belief they’re special witnesses of his resurrection. In their own way, I’m not pretending to know how, but it’s the resurrection that shows us his divine sonship.

Hank Smith: 24:26 In the Bible dictionary, if you read under the heading of Miracles, there’s a statement right in the beginning, first paragraph, Christianity, the world’s largest religion is founded on the greatest of all miracles, the resurrection of our Lord. And in this statement, if that be admitted, meaning if you and I believe in the resurrection, other miracles cease to be improbable.

  24:50 If we believe in this, if he is resurrected the way we believe he is, which all three of us are both feet in on the resurrection, then what else can he do?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 25:00 I love that.

John Bytheway: 25:03 If you can’t figure out water to wine, well, what about coming back to life after?

Hank Smith: 25:09 Yeah. I’ve had people say, “Do you really believe this? The Joseph Smith story seems a little far-fetched or Jonah or the great flood, whatever. Do you really believe that?” And they’ll say, “Do you believe in the resurrection?” And they’ll say, “Well, yeah.” I’m like, “Well, then everything else is…”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 25:24 Everything else. Everything else is on the table.

Hank Smith: 25:26 Yeah. Once you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, every other miracle becomes small potatoes at that point.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 25:33 Yeah. I’m just momentarily going to jump over to 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul is preaching on this. 1 Corinthians 15:19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Paul wants us to see that we’re eternal beings and that we’re meant to rise with the Lord because of his resurrection, but now, I’m in verse 20, but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept.

  26:07 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Now, I want to pause there for a moment and I can’t help. This is the church history and doctrine teacher in me with the Doctrine and Covenants. I think sometimes as Latter-day Saints, we don’t emphasize enough the power and beauty of our doctrine that all will resurrect, all. And that all will inherit a kingdom of heavenly glory because of the grace of Jesus Christ and his conquering of sin and death, we believe that all, all mankind who have been on this earth with the small exception of the sons of perdition that I’m not even going to talk about, all your friends, all your neighbors, all your loved ones, all your children, all your parents and grandparents, everybody is going to be delivered from the grave and bodily resurrect into a kingdom of heavenly glory. They will receive an immortal body that surpasses all understanding.

  27:26 I’m not sure so much when Joseph saw the vision of the three degrees of heavenly glory. Let’s not forget that Paul says there are celestial bodies, terrestrial bodies, telestial bodies, so also is the resurrection of the dead. Whether you want to call them kingdoms, but when Joseph says it surpasses all understanding, I think it means that our bodily resurrection, even a telestial body in immortal, eternal glory is going to surpass all understanding, let alone a celestial body.

  28:00 Elder James E. Talmage said, “Mortal mind cannot comprehend the beauty, glory and majesty of a righteous woman.” He was talking in context of women, of a righteous woman made perfect in the celestial kingdom of God. I hope that applies to righteous men as well. I assume it does. I just don’t think we can celebrate that enough and praise that enough that in Section 76 of the Doctrine & Covenants, three times, it literally says, “He saves all the works of his hands.” All. That’s our doctrine. That’s what we believe. That’s what we’re celebrating in resurrection. All will rise. All will have immortal immortality. All will go to a kingdom of heavenly glory because of what Jesus did this Easter season.

Hank Smith: 28:52 Well, said, Anthony.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 28:54 I think it would be fun if we can to go to John chapter 20 because I mentioned all these witnesses of his resurrection. As we know, Thomas wasn’t there when he appeared to the apostles at first, so go to John chapter 24, but Thomas, one of the 12 called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came. By the way, talk about missing out. Could you imagine that?

Hank Smith: 29:21 Where were you?

John Bytheway: 29:22 Thomas had FOMO forevermore.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 29:26 Oh no, I had to stop at the store. What happened? Oh, man.

Hank Smith: 29:29 Oh, man.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 29:31 That should be a lesson to not miss a meeting right there.

Hank Smith: 29:34 Yeah. The Lord will probably come back at like a stake conference, Saturday, adult session.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 29:41 That’s right.

Hank Smith: 29:42 Oh, man.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 29:45 Verse 25. The other disciples therefore said unto him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side. I will not believe.” And after eight days again, his disciples were with them. So Thomas does make it to this meeting. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said, “Peace be unto you.” Then saith he to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless, but believing.”

  30:33 And Thomas answered and said unto him, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus saith unto him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” And I don’t want to go off on doubting Thomas because we know he’s believing Thomas when he is ready to go to Jerusalem and die with all the apostles. I don’t want to cast any dispersions on Thomas here, but I do love this idea that we are grateful that there are literal witnesses of his resurrection, but I love this teaching from the Lord that blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed because that’s probably the case for the vast majority of us.

  31:23 That being said though, I think as we’re celebrating Easter, keep bringing back this theme in who is this. Who is this? Who is this? That really what we’re trying to do through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is to come to know him, submit our will to him and become witnesses of him and know him. This really is the metaphor of the temple, of the holy temple that you guys know I love to talk about.

  31:53 The holy temple is inviting us in a dramatization and a sacred ordinance to come to know the Lord and to be able to have our own witnesses of him. I love that Joseph Smith taught this in 1839. Joseph said, quote, “For the day must come when no man need to say to his neighbor, know ye the Lord for all shall know him from the least to the greatest. How is this to be done is to be done by this sealing power and other comforter which will be manifest by revelation.”

  32:31 I’m not going to go into this other comforter right now, but I think the point of it is we can be our own witnesses. Section 93 verse 1 promises us that, “Every soul, every soul who forsaketh their sins, calleth on my name, obeyeth my voice and keepeth my commandments shall see my face and know that I am.” I love that promise and I want to emphasize in Section 88, the Lord tells the same things to the school of the prophets that their goal is to sanctify themselves and the day will come that he will reveal his face unto you.

  33:18 Now, here’s the key. It shall be in his own time and his own way, and according to his own will. We don’t dictate it. Back to our will and his will. We don’t control it and there is more than one way to see the face of God, but it’s my deep testimony that if we will live the gospel of Jesus Christ, if we’ll come to know him, if we’ll submit ourselves to his will, if we’ll strive to be aligned with his teachings and his commandments and to live them and implement them out of love for him, not out of trying to earn heaven, but to learn heaven as it’s been said, I really think he will reveal himself to us and in our own way this Easter season, let’s all be witnesses.

  34:02 We’ll all be able to say, “I’ve come to know the Lord.” And when somebody says, “Who is this?” We’ll be able to say, “I’ll tell you exactly who this is. This is the son of God. This is the Messiah.” And just like Peter in Matthew 16, if somebody says, “How do you know this?” And you’ll say, “Flesh and blood has not revealed it to me. I know this by revelation and by experience because the things of God are only understood by the spirit of God.” So even though we have witnesses of his bodily resurrection, we can all be witnesses of his divinity and to know him, to truly know him.

John Bytheway: 34:38 There’s a part in the manual that I just… The more I read the scriptures, the more I keep noticing and loving this word, and that’s just the word joy. The Christmas story is glad tidings, great joy. And this little section in the manual says, “Jesus Christ gives me hope and joy.” And then this statement from Elder Gerrit W. Gong, he testified that the resurrection gives hope to those who have lost limbs, those who have lost ability to see, hear, or walk, or those thought lost to relentless disease, mental illness or other diminished capacity.

  35:14 He finds us. He makes us whole also because God himself atones for the sins of the world. He can with mercy succor us according to our infirmities. We repent and do all we can. He encircles us eternally in the arms of his love. I love that he said, “He finds us. He wants us to find him, but he’ll come and find us as well.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 35:39 I love what Elder Gong is saying there, “In my own life as I’ve tried to come to know the Lord for myself, as I’ve said, who is this?” We talk a lot about how Christ can help us. Christ understands us. Christ can heal us. He cleanses us from sin. In some of my teaching and writing, I’ve put together this acrostic that’s been helpful for me of six things to remember as we celebrate his grace this Easter, his atonement, his redemption, and the acrostic is I use his title of Christ.

  36:15 As we know Christ is not a last name, Christ is a title. It means the anointed one. The anointed one to save. What’s he anointed to do? Well, he’s anointed to cleanse us, heal us, restore us, identify with us, strengthen us, and transform us. Let me say those again and you can see the word Christ in there if you take the first letter of each. Cleanse us, heal us, restore us, identify with us, strengthen us, and transform us.

  36:53 Those powers are real. We’ve experienced them. If somebody says to me, how do I know that Jesus is the Christ? I would probably take those six things and start to tell stories about how Christ has done those and maybe a brief definition of each to help. If people didn’t understand by cleanse us, it means that Jesus has the power to cleanse us spiritually and to make us pure. He can justify us and sanctify us. He can forgive all of our sins perfectly, purely.

  37:25 There is no Carfax report with an asterisk next to our name that there was an accident in 2007. He wipes our record clean. He cleanses our soul. I’m so grateful for that. He heals us and we know that Jesus has the power to heal physically, but Jesus heals our souls. He heals us mentally, spiritually, soulfully. Sometimes by the way, this is important with the healing power of Christ. I think it’s Wendy Ulrich who has written, there’s a difference between healing and cure. Cure returns us back to where we were before.

  38:03 Healing involves a reweaving of our life into a more mature and accepting position. Christ is the healer. He’s not the cure. And often when we speak of healing, I don’t diminish that he can heal limbs and legs and eyes and ears. We know that. But eventually all of us are going to debilitate and we’re all going to suffer pain. The woman with the issue of blood surely suffered other issues in her life later. Lazarus, even though he was brought back, died again.

  38:35 Mortality is going to take over all of us, but it’s my testimony that Christ can heal our soul as we’re learning to deal with the difficulties of mortality and help us learn how to handle those with grace and still have joy amidst the difficulty. The restoring power, I don’t think we emphasize this enough. The restoring power is that Jesus has the power. When I say he can restore us, he has the power to make all the wrongs of life right.

  39:10 NT Wright is a great Anglican scholar. He said that one day Jesus will enlarge Easter on a cosmic scale or that Easter is a glimpse into the grand work of what God is going to do overall. When we say that Christ is the atoning one, Christ is going to recompense us from all the effects of the fall. He is going to make all wrongs right, all injustices just. He’ll not only conquer sin and death, he’s going to conquer unfairness. He’s going to conquer sickness and pain and ignorance, and fracture, and everything that’s effect of the fall. Even the things that we didn’t choose. And he is going to do that through his great atoning work, which continues. That work continues in the spirit world with taking the gospel to all his children to give everyone the opportunity to accept him.

  40:06 It’s not going to conclude at his second coming, by the way. His second coming will be the beginning of really his triumphal, atoning work in the sense of making everything whole, everything healed. And for a millennium that long period of time, that thousand years, Christ is going to work to overcome all the effects of the fall until at the end of them he has trampled all enemies under his feet, including the enemies of injustice and unfairness and ignorance, and sin, and death, and the devil. And he’ll make this world heaven.

  40:41 Then he will present it to the Father, and really then he’ll say the work is done. That’s exciting meaning that you and I need to have faith in the power of Jesus to be the restoring one. His promise is he’ll restore us. He’ll identify with us. We’ve already talked on this and touched on this, but this means that Christ because of his divinity in his life, he has the power to understand and empathize and guide us in mortality, strengthen us.

  41:11 I testify that Christ has the power to strengthen us beyond our own natural capacities. He can give us strength to overcome sin. He can give us strength to bear our burdens, and he can give us strength to do and become greater than we could become on our own. That is just a truth. I think we’ve all tasted that. Even when I did my PhD, by the way, I remember my PhD dissertation chair said to me, “You have your five chapters of your dissertation. All of that needs to be very factual, very data and driven.” He said, “The only place where you can say whatever you want and you don’t have to justify it at all is your dedication at the very beginning.” So on my dissertation, I wrote Alma 26:12 that through his strength, I can do all things.

Hank Smith: 42:05 You can do whatever you want. Yeah, that’s great.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 42:07 Yeah, and I’m like, “I can say whatever I want. Then I’m saying this.” And then last, “The T is the transforming power. And I’m using transforming, but what that means is that Jesus has the power to change us. He can change our very natures and our very dispositions. Hank and John, you probably remember when we were growing up, I don’t know if wherever you guys grew up, but there was the trend around mine where people would say, “Don’t ever change.” I would write that in our yearbooks like, “Sweat, bro, man, don’t ever change buddy.” And that’s the worst teenage advice I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

  42:42 If anybody needs a change, it’s a teenage Anthony Sweat. That’s for sure. And I like to joke that if Jesus had written in my yearbook, he would say, “Sweat, bro, for all of our sakes, please change.”

Hank Smith: 42:55 Change, yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 42:57 And then he would write, “PS, I’ll help you.”

Hank Smith: 43:00 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 43:02 I’m grateful that Jesus has changed me and continues to change me in my very nature into be hopefully becoming a better person. He can take bad to good. He can take good to great and he can take great to making somebody like God. That’s his divinity. So as we’re celebrating the resurrection this Easter, his conquering of sin and death, I hope that we can also see how his atonement, his at-one-ment, these powers cleansing, healing, restoring, identifying, strengthening, transforming. He is the Christ in our lives. This is the Christ and I just testify that these powers are real. That’s how I personally know of his divine sonship and his divine nature is because I’ve seen these at work in my own personal life.

Hank Smith: 43:50 Beautiful. That was fun. Thanks for doing that, Tony. That was really good.

John Bytheway: 43:54 Yeah, I think if anybody wants to hear Anthony talk more about that, these are basically the chapters of his book, Christ in Every Hour. And so I love that. Particularly, if you don’t mind, just to restore us coming, because you used this word and I’m so glad you did because sometimes if we think, let’s see, God is a God of justice and also of mercy, pick one, we would say, “I think mercy.” But what you emphasize so beautifully is that things happen to all of us that are so unjust through no fault of our own.

  44:31 Things happen to children that are so unjust through no fault of their own, and a God of justice will not let that stand. That is so wonderful to know. I’ve become more of a fan of the God of justice when I think of it that way, that so many have suffered things through no fault of their own, and God of justice will reverse that and restore us. And so thank you for emphasizing that today, Anthony.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 44:58 You’re welcome.

Hank Smith: 45:00 Anthony, we have had such a great day today. Thank you for all of this. I’m sure we’ve got listeners everywhere in their cars or folding laundry, or I had one guy in my ward said I listened to the podcast when I snowboard.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 45:16 Oh, that’s awesome.

Hank Smith: 45:16 Yeah. Just a shout-out to my friend Ryan in my ward who listens to us while he snowboards. Don’t get hurt, Ryan.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 45:24 Two celestial things, snowboarding and listening to followHim.

John Bytheway: 45:26 There you go.

Hank Smith: 45:26 How crazy would that be?

John Bytheway: 45:32 How does it get better? I ran into a woman who told me, I think they’ve called them the winter wanderers that walk during the winter go out and they all listen together. And I just thought, wow, isn’t that wonderful.

Hank Smith: 45:43 We’re grateful.

John Bytheway: 45:44 So many things you could listen to, but we hope we’re giving you some hope and some faith in Christ as you walk around.

Hank Smith: 45:51 Yeah. As you walk around your neighborhood. Thank you. We have listeners out there who Easter can be tender for them. Those who have lost loved ones who just miss them so much. I know that experience. You both know that experience. What could we offer as a gift to them? What could we say that would be helpful to them from what we’ve talked about today?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 46:14 I think you set it up right there, Hank, the gift is the gift of his Son. That’s the gift. Isn’t that the gift of Easter is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoso believeth in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life. That’s the gift that we’re celebrating and it’s not diminishing the difficulties of mortality, but I think this is what the gift of hope is.

  46:41 When we read in the scriptures, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf talked about how hope is not a wish. The gift of hope in scripture is to know of Jesus’ promises and then to have a personal assurance that those promises can be ours. I love that definition of hope. It’s the difference between God answers prayers. That might be faith, but hope is God answers my prayers. The gift of faith might be God loves his children, but the gift of hope is God loves me.

  47:16 I just think this Easter, the gift has already been given through his Son. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. I just would invite us all to continue to learn of him, to get to know him, who is He. To do, to walk in the ways that he tells us to walk, because then we will have peace. That’s his promise. Then you can have peace in me. “Not as the world giveth,” as he said in the Book of John, “but I give unto you a different kind of peace.” I hope that we can get that peace, we can have that hope, that personal assurance that the resurrection will be for my loved ones.

  47:58 For me, redemption will be for me and my loved ones, that these promises can be mine regardless, black, white, bond, free, male, female, Jew, Gentile, all are alike unto God. These promises are extended to us all and I hope this Easter we can just go grab them to get that hope and that peace that can only be found in Christ.

Hank Smith: 48:22 Beautiful. I remember Joseph Smith saying… I don’t remember it. I wasn’t there, but I remember reading that Joseph Smith said, “We mourn our losses, but we do not mourn as those without hope.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 48:36 Without hope.

Hank Smith: 48:38 Yeah. We do not mourn as those without hope. And I hope everybody listening can say, “Yes, I can mourn my losses.” But we do not mourn as those without hope because all we’ve talked about today.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 48:48 Share that hope this Easter. Share it with your friends, with your family, with your loved ones because as we talk of Christ and preach of him and prophesy of him, and rejoice in him, the spirit of God will testify of him and of these promises. So I hope this Easter, I said it before, I’ll say it again, I hope we unabashedly celebrate Jesus Christ and celebrate him and these promises.

John Bytheway: 49:22 The sacrament changed for me when I started experiencing deaths in my family. When I was a little boy and I had trouble paying attention and the prayer said in remembrance of the body of thy son, “How am I supposed to remember Jesus’s body?” And when I lost my father and my mother, when my brother lost an infant baby, and I used to think, “What can I remember about Jesus’ body?” And it turned out that I just think that it was not there, that he had risen. And that means I get my mom and dad again and my brother gets his baby boy again.

  50:04 And that makes me not only willing to take upon me the name of his son, but I’m eager and anxious and honored to take upon me the name of Christ and wear that. And that’s why this is such a joyous time to remember that that tomb was empty.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 50:28 I love it. You did make me think of one more Joseph Smith quote related to that because, John, you just preached the gospel. We talk about a lot of things and there’s a lot of things connected to the church and its programs, maybe its history, doctrinal things, interesting teachings, mysteries. There’s a lot, but I love when Joseph Smith just reemphasizes, points us right back to the gospel, to Easter.

  50:55 The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ that he died was buried and rose again the third day and ascended into heaven. All other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it because what you just preach right there, that’s the gospel. That’s the good news. That’s the core. That’s the essence that we should never lose sight of and get lost. And if we are losing sight of it, let’s refocus on that central message of the gospel.

Hank Smith: 51:36 A personal story here just as we close. I was invited once to write an article for a book called His Majesty and Mission, and I decided to write on that quote of Joseph Smith, Mourning with Hope. So I wrote this article on mourning. It’s free. You can find it on rsc.byu.edu. I wrote this long article on Mourning with Hope and what the sting of death is like, and dealing with death and how other cultures deal with death.

  52:05 I wrote on the resurrection. This week as we’ve been preparing, I went back and just kind of read my own article here, not realizing that the Lord in giving me a chance to write this, prepped me for the death of my own family members because I wrote this before that happened. Here I am reading this with totally different eyes now than when I wrote it. To me, just that little personal experience of writing something and feeling that little tender mercy of, “Hey, I wrote this in preparation.”

  52:38 The Lord saw what was coming in my life, all these deaths that would be coming just I think a year or two after I wrote it is a testament to me of his individual love. What did you say, Tony? He identifies with us. And I wrote… Can I quote myself here? Is this weird?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 52:58 No. Read what you wrote. I think that’s awesome.

Hank Smith: 53:01 Yeah. So I told the story, you guys know it, of my wonderful father-in-law, Rod and losing his wife. And then I just wrote this, “Mourning with hope means celebrating the time spent in mortality with those we love. It means we’re looking forward with anticipation to joyful reunions.” I do. I look forward to the day I get to sit down with my brother or my father, my mother-in-law. Oh, just pondering those reunions brings just floods of joy.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 53:37 I had a friend of mine one time, when talking about the second coming, people were talking about what their thoughts on the second coming, and all he said was very humbly and quietly and so sincerely. He said, “I’m excited for the second coming because I’m excited to see my mother again.”

Hank Smith: 53:55 Or golf with my dad. Right? I continued, “It means we look forward to with anticipation, to joyful reunions both in the spirit world and in the resurrection. Mourning with hope means placing all your hope in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to return you and those you love to your heavenly home. It means acting in faith upon his commandments until you regain the presence and behold the face of your Heavenly Father. And I love him. When I leave this frail existence, when I lay this mortal body, father, mother, may I meet you in your royal courts on high. Then at length when I’ve completed all you sent me forth to do with your mutual approbation, let me come and dwell with you. And we might add because of the power of the Lord, because of our Savior.” Anthony, thanks for being here today.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 54:53 Thank you, brother. So good to be with you. Just again, nothing better than to sit down with dear friends that I just love and respect and to talk about the Savior. I mean, it just doesn’t get much better than this. So thanks for giving me the privilege to be with you and even though I don’t see your audience, grateful to spend a few hours with your audience as well and I hope something was beneficial and helpful for them as they worship and celebrate the Savior this Easter season.

Hank Smith: 55:21 Beautiful. Now, wherever you are, like we said in your car driving or snowboarding, just know that we’re grateful that you would spend time with us. John, what a great day.

John Bytheway: 55:33 Yeah. There is hope smiling brightly before us because of Christ.

Hank Smith: 55:38 Well said. Well said. We want to thank Dr. Anthony Sweat for being with us today, and we want to wish him and all of you a Happy Easter. We want to thank our executive producer, the wonderful, Shannon Sorensen. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. We always remember our founder, the late Steve Sorensen. We hope all of you will join us next week. We’re going to be back in the New Testament on followHim.

  56:07 Today’s transcripts, show notes, and additional references are available on our website, followhim.co, followhim.co. And you can watch the podcast on YouTube with additional videos on Facebook and Instagram. All of this is absolutely free, so be sure to share with your family and friends. To reach those who are searching for help with their Come Follow Me study, please subscribe, rate, review, or comment on the podcast, which makes the podcast easier to find. Thank you.

  56:34 We have an amazing production crew, we want you to know about, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.