We humans like to celebrate, at least the ones I know. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, holidays. The first day of school, the last day of work. We bake cakes and light candles and make noise, clicking our glasses together, singing songs and twirling each other across dance floors.
Every time we drive down to Herriman UT, to see our grandkids in band and choir concerts, or plays, or ball games, four-year-old Gracie throws her arms around my neck and puts her lips against my ear: “Are we going to celebrate?” Which basically means, “After we are done, are we going to get some frozen yogurt, or Cold Stone ice cream, or late dinner at Olive Garden?” Traditionally the celebrations in our clan include spending extra time together around some sort of table.
Today, smack in the middle of a united world-wide crisis, I think we forgot to celebrate. At least I did. The clock has struck twelve and the date on my computer has rolled ahead, but since I am still dressed, it doesn’t count. I have to get in my PJ’s and at least lie down and attempt to sleep before it counts as a new day, regardless of what the clock, the sun, the moon or the calendar indicate.
As unexpected as the earthquake last week, or the pandemic today, 200 years ago a young American boy saw God. It’s worth noting because not a lot of people have actually seen God. It’s not a small thing. Not only did he see God, the Father, but he also saw God the Son, whom we call Jesus. Seems pretty spectacular. If I hadn’t wrestled with the thought myself, more than once in the zig-zag journey of my life, I would not think it worth noting, let alone celebrating. It’s ok with me that not everyone thinks it worth celebrating, either. That’s part of the gig, that people get to choose. That’s why we’re alive in the first place. But I remind myself, as part of my sense of placement, that this particular event is important to me.
When that boy, Joseph, wrote about his experience there in the grove of trees in upstate New York, 200 years ago today, he included these words, that always strike me:
“I had seen a vision. I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it.”
That’s a big heavy for a kid, seeing not just an angel, but God himself. In all seriousness, no one through their own logic was going to believe him. It would have been a lot easier to have seen anything or anyone else. And for sure if you’re fourteen years old, you probably would rather just do the regular teenager stuff than have to face what he faced. But if you believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God, truly believe in Him, and you get a visit from him, and he knows you’ve seen him, well you’d have a hard time running away from that. If you know he knows, then the weight of having to act upon that knowledge had to have been incredible. I mean, who can hide from God? People, all the way back to Adam, have tried, and it just plain doesn’t work.
So, here’s to Joseph Smith; surely not the first fourteen-year-old who prayed to know where he should lay his spiritual allegiance. Nonetheless, the first to have received this kind of answer. Here’s to his courage, his fortitude, his grace, his mistakes, his efforts, and his sacrifices, which included life itself. Here’s to any of us who feel to believe, as he did, that the God who visited Adam and Moses, face to face, still has an interest in this earth and the souls who inhabit it. It’s surely not an easy thing to own, in these days of rampant disbelief.
If faith is hope in things unseen, which are true, then here is where I plant my seeds of faith.
This is a pivotal day, this time in late March when the sap runs through the trees of upstate New York, and the sun begins to warm the frozen dirt in the fields. The world changed on this day, whether or not you choose to believe it. Two full centuries ago, on Palm Sunday that year, our maker showed his face, and spoke, and reclaimed us as His. In a quiet cluster of trees, with a moldable boy, the trajectory of our planet shifted just enough to aim us straight back home.
Tonight, in the comfort of my chair, in the quiet of this room, in the stillness of our peaceful town, I bow my head and close my eyes and speak His name, and in the humility and the soberness of the situation in which this earth currently finds itself, I let my heart celebrate.
Tap HERE to watch a short video about Joseph Smith's first vision.
