I’ve been assigned to speak to my relatively new ward on Easter Sunday about the crucifixion and resurrection. The Bishop thoughtfully assigned me about two months ahead of time, with the side comment “I hear you’re quite the scriptorian.” I’m not sure what he’s expecting, but more importantly, what do I deliver? Clearly, something having to do with atonement, crucifixion and resurrection, but that’s no small topic. I’ve had about 15 different ideas, and I’ve just been jotting down thoughts, notes, passages, and themes. My goal is to edify, inspire, and educate.
Posters around the ‘nacle have been known to voice criticisms of SM talks in general and “inappropriate” Easter talks in particular. Here’s your opportunity, then, to tell me what to do BEFORE instead of criticizing after. All suggestions appreciated.
Avoid a dramatized telling of Jesus’ suffering by the hands of the Romans. By comparison, he had it no worse than most, and better than many.
Try something a little different. To comply with the Bishop’s request, I would give a talk about the usual things one would expect on Easter Sunday, but I would then couch the whole thing in the sine qua non of the gospel. Grace. And I would leave out anything about 2Nephi 25:23, so as to not destroy anything good I had said about grace. That just might truly WOW the congregation. I believe they would go away talking about your talk for a long time to come. Of course you might be talking to your Bishop for a long time to come also. 🙂
If I were doing it, I would concentrate on telling the *story* of the crucifixion and resurrection, with a lot of local color and detail to make it more vivid and to come alive in your hearer’s minds.
For instance, when you tell of Jesus carrying his cross, you can explain that it probably wasn’t the whole cross, as usually portrayed in the movies, but the crossbeam, called the *patibulum*, since the upright stake was permanently anchored in the ground at the place of crucifixion. Little details like that will allow the congregation to better visualize within themselves what happened.
And there are a million such details, so the problem will not be finding them but rather winnowing them so that you simply use what will move the story along.
(Here’s another one: We often sing for our sacrament hymn “Upon the Cross at Calvary,” but how many people know that Calvary comes from the Latin word for “skull,” calvaria, and is a translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic Golgotha “Skull” (rendered in Greek with *kranion*; cf. ENG cranium)?)
Describes times, places, culture, history as you flesh the story out and make it real.
Man! Some people have all the luck! To grace, the idea of a gift, add the explicit information that it was God’s initiative and it took place while we were yet sinners. Take a look at Rom 5:6-11:
I see that Mogget has a very good understanding of grace. I believe the idea of prevenient grace is not something we hear too often in the church, but in my opinion, we should.
Where are all the opinionated Nacle-ites? I’m shocked at the paucity of comments here!
Easier to destroy than to create…