For the Beauty of the Earth

This Sunday in Sacrament meeting our closing hymn was For the Beauty of the Earth.  This hymn talks all about the beauty of God's creations, and we express our thanks for them.  In Doctrine and Covenants section 59, the Lord expresses His will as to how we should treat all of these beautiful creations that He has blessed us with.
The Lord tells us in verses 16-17 that everything on the earth is for us.  The trees, the beasts, the flows, the herbs, and everything else.  In verses 18-19 the Lord tells us what we should use them for.  He says we should use them for clothing, for shelter, for food, and for our other needs.  Interestingly, He also tells us that they were created for their smells and tastes, to be pleasing to our eyes, and to enliven our bodies and souls.  So God expects us to enjoy His creation.  We should enjoy the flowers, their smells and their beauties.  We should enjoy the wonderful smells and tastes of the foods which He has blessed us with.  After all, men are that they might have joy!
In verse 20, the Lord counsels us that it pleases Him when we use these things, but that we must do so with judgement, and not by extortion.  I believe this means that we must have temperance in all things.  We know what is wasteful, and what is not.  And in verse 21 the Lord tells us: "And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments."  In the context of this section, I believe that the Lord is talking about the use of His creation.  We will not offend the Lord when we use His creation for food, clothing, shelter, beauty, etc. as long as we always express our thankfulness to Him for this wonderful world which He has so graciously blessed us with—for the beauty of the earth!

BYU Museum of Art Experience

This past week we had the opportunity to have an in-class presentation by Rita Wrights from the BYU Museum of Art, and then a guided tour by her the following class period.  One of the most interesting paintings, I thought, that we talked about both in class and at the museum is entitled Exchange No. 8.  It is a painting of two chairs, one lying in front of another that's standing upright.  The one lying on the floor is covered by a red veil, which is draped over the top of it.  The upright one is covered by a white veil.  This simple painting of chairs was one of the most symbol-rich works that we saw, in my own opinion.  It didn't have a single person in the painting, but it was clear that it was about the atonement of our Savior.

First, the chairs are both of a simple design, made of wood.  This typifies the Savior for two reasons.  First, simple wooden chairs remind us as his role as a carpenter, the occupation for which he was trained by his adopted father Joseph.  Second, the simple, inelegant design of the chairs echo Isaiah's words: "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2).

Next is the cloth.  The scarlet cloth placed over the fallen chair can represent many things.  The red can represent the mortality of the savior while on earth.  It could represent the scarlet robe placed upon his back by the mocking soldiers, or the blood which he spilt in Gethsemane.  It could represent the ultimate sacrifice of His life on the cross at Golgotha—or it could mean all of these things.  The white cloth reminds us of the linens in which Jesus' body was wrapped for His burial, and which were found neatly folded in the tomb after His resurrection.  It reminds us of purity, and of new life—even life everlasting.  It all points to the atonement.

Finally, there was a light circle around the whole painting.  This suggests that the atonement of Jesus Christ is the center of everything.  All of these symbols point to Jesus Christ—all worked into a painting which, at first glance, may not even appear religious.  This reminds me of an experience I posted about during a previous semester: Bible Culture.

Old Testament & Restoration Exodus

There are many parallels found between the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt in the Old Testament and the Exodus of the Saints to Utah in modern church history. The saints received "The Law" in Kirtland, which contained many laws similar to those found in the 10 commandments of Moses. This then suggests a very interesting parallel. The children of Israel left Egypt (the world, the land of their enemies and captivity) and were lead by Moses into the wilderness. Likewise, the Saints fled persecution in the East, especially New York, and gathered in Ohio. When Moses reached Sinai, the Lord met him on top of the mountain in a tempest of fire, and gave Moses the law. The Saints in Kirtland built a temple—a mountain of the Lord—and the Lord appeared therein, again with fire and whirlwind. The Lord then gave the law to his modern servants.
To continue further with this analogy, the Saints were able to go to Zion early on in Church history, but because of their wickedness they were driven out. Joseph Smith, their original leader, was eventually martyred, so he was no longer leading them and Brigham Young did instead. Likewise, Moses grew old and was eventually translated, so Joshua began to lead the Israelites. Brigham Young eventually lead the modern Saints through the wilderness into their promised land in the Great Basin, and likewise Joshua lead the Israelites into the promised land after their time of trial in the wilderness.
There is even a geographic corollary between these two lands. Utah and the Holy Land are the only two places on earth where there is a dead (salty) body of water which is fed by a living (fresh) body of water. The Great Salt Lake is then a parallel of the Dead Sea. The regions are even both mountainous! There are so many correlations between the Old Testament and modern church history, it's no wonder that the Saints looked upon themselves as the children of Israel!

Significance of Section 42

The study of the Doctrine and Covenants Section 42 manuscript in the Joseph Smith Papers is very significant in that it gives us many unique insights not gained from the printed text as we have it today in our Doctrine and Covenants.  First, we see that the original manuscript contained a header: The Laws of the Church of Christ.  Sometimes revelations are referred to by their titles, but since our printed version doesn’t have these titles we don’t always know how to identify them.  This gives us an understanding of the general contents of this section as well—it probably contains some of the laws of the church.

The section has a sub-header partway through that reads “The Law”, so this is where the Law actually starts.  This section contains many laws similar to those found in the 10 commandments of Moses.  This then suggests a very interesting parallel.  The children of Israel left Egypt (the world, the land of their enemies and captivity) and were lead by Moses into the wilderness.  Likewise, the Saints fled persecution in the East, especially New York, and gathered in Ohio.  When Moses reached Sinai, the Lord met him on top of the mountain in a tempest of fire, and gave Moses the law.  The Saints in Kirtland built a temple—a mountain of the Lord—and the Lord appeared therein, again with fire and whirlwind.  The Lord then gave the law to his modern servants.

We also see in this section that the revelations were actually in response to questions asked by Joseph.  This gives us insight into how Joseph tended to receive revelation.  The Prophet asked questions of the Lord, and the revelations were in response to those questions.  (Obviously it wasn’t always that way, but it probably was a great deal of the time.)  It also tells us about the revelations were recorded, and then later how they were edited and published.