While watching, I was reminded of a passage in a Jeffrey R. Holland book I recently read called "However Long and Hard the Road." It is a collection of some of Elder Holland's sermons, and I would like to straight-up quote a massive block of it for you now. It is from his talk entitled "A Robe, a Ring and a Fatted Calf." The talk was given on forgiveness and when I first read it I was moved to weep knowing that regardless of the most vile of offenses I have committed toward God, full fellowship with him is still ultimately possible.
I have Jesus Christ as a divine exemplar for forgiveness, as he is the catalyst of even the slightest bit of hope to repent and be forgiven. He is the Reason. But a very earthly example would be the most very reverend Joseph Smith. Quoting Elder Holland:
In the early years of the Church the Prophet Joseph Smith had no more faithful aide than WIlliam Wines Phelps. Brother Phelps, a former newspaper editor, had joined the Church in Kirtland and was of such assistance to those early leaders that they sent him as one of the first Latter-day Saints to the new Jerusalem--Jackson County, Missouri. There he was called by the Lord to the stake presidency of that "center stake of Zion."
But then troubles developed. First they were largely eccliastical aberrations but later there were financial imiproprieties. Things became so serious that the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that if Brother Phelps did not repent, he would be "removed out of [his] place." (HC 2:511) He did not repent, and he was excommunicated on March 10, 1838.
The Prophet Joseph Smith and others immediately tried to love W. W. Phelps back into the fold, but he would have nothing of it. Then in the fall of that violent year Brother Phelps, along with others, signed a deadly, damaging affidavit against the Prophet and other leaders of the Church. The result was quite simply that Joseph Smith was sentenced to be publicly executed on the town square in Far West, Missouri, Friday morning, November 2, 1838. Through the monumental courage of General Alexander Doniphan, the Prophet was miraculously spared the execution W. W. Phelps and others had precipitated, but he was not spared spending five months--November through April--in several Missouri prisons, the most noted of which was the pit known ironically as Liberty Jail.
I do not need to recount for you the suffering of the Saints through that period. The anguish of those not captive was in many ways more severe than those imprisoned. The persecution intensified until the Saints sought yet again to find another refuge from the storm. With Joseph in chains, praying for their safety and giving some direction by letter, they made their way toward Commerce, Illinois, a malaria swamp on the Mississippi River where they would try once more to build the City of Zion. And much of this travail, this torment and heartache, was due to men of their own brotherhood like W. W. Phelps.
But we're speaking of happy endings. Two very difficult years later, with great anguish and remorse of conscience, William Phelps wrote to Joseph Smith in Nauvoo.
"Brother Joseph: ... I am as the prodigal son ...
"I have seen the folly of my way, and I tremble at the gulf I have passed ... [I] ask my old brethren to forgive me, and though they chasten me to death, yet I will die with them, for their God is my God. The least place with them is enough for me, yea, it is bigger and better than all Babylon ...
"I know my situation, you know it, and God knows it, and I want to be saved if my friends will help me ... I have done wrong and I am sorry ... I ask forgiveness ... I want your fellowhsip; if you cannot grant that, grant me your peace and friendship, for we are brethren, and our communion used to be sweet." (HC 4:141-42)
In an instant the Prophet wrote back. I know of no private document or personal response in the life of Joseph Smith--or anybody else, for that matter--that so powerfully demonstrates the magnificence of his soul. There is a lesson here for every one of us who claims to be a disciple of Christ. He wrote:
"Dear Brother Phelps: ... You may in some measure realize what my feelings ... were, when we read your letter ... We have suffered much in consequence of your behavior--the cup of gall, already full enough for mortals to drink, was indeed filled to overflowing when you turned against us...
"However, the cup has been drunk, the will of our Father has been done, and we are yet alive, for which we thank the Lord. And having been delivered from the hands of wicked men by the mercy of our God, we say it is your privilege to be delivered from the powers of the adversary, be brought into the liberty of God's dear children, and again take your stand among the Saints of the Most High, and by diligence, humility, and love unfeigned, commend yourself to our God, and your God, and to the Church of Jesus Christ.
"Believing your confession to be real, and your repentance genuine, I shall be happy once again to give you the right hand of fellowship, and rejoice over the returning prodigal...
"'Come in, dear brother, since the war is past,
For friends at first, are friends again at Last.'
"Yours as ever, Joseph Smith, Jun." (HC 4:162-64)
It only adds to the poignance of this particular prodigal's return that exactly four years later--almost to the day--it would be W. W. Phelps selected to preach Joseph Smith's funeral sermon in that terribly tense and emotional circumstance. Furthermore it would be W. W. Phelps who would memorialize the martyred prophet with his hymn of adoration, "Praise to the Man." (Hymns, no. 147)
Having been the foolish swimmer pulled back to safety by the very man he had sought to destroy, Brother Phelps must have had unique appreciation for the stature of the Prophet when he penned:
Great is his glory and endless his priesthood.
Ever and ever the keys he will hold.
Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom,
Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old.
It was this hymn which tipped the scales while I was deciding to serve a mission.
I feel like Smith's Phelps when I think of a Christ, to whose suffering I have personally contributed, in addition to the sorrow our Father feels when I choose the wrong. But I am filled with gratitude when I know that I am loved enough to have been extended the chance of repentance, foregiveness and hope.
1 comment:
Nice old-timey look. It goes well with WW Phelps' picture!
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