Divine Authority, Sublime Young Men
I am forever grateful that holders of the Aaronic Priesthood, with its powers, ordinances, and duties, do bless all of us.
Thank you, Elder Andersen, for that remarkable expression of priesthood power and of the power of the Savior’s Atonement.
One Sunday morning this January, as I sat in sacrament meeting, over a dozen young men were sustained to be advanced in the Aaronic Priesthood. I felt the world changing beneath our feet.
It struck me that all around the world, time zone by time zone, in sacrament meetings just like that one, tens of thousands of deacons, teachers, and priests—like President Holland’s friend this morning, Easton—were being sustained to be ordained into lifelong priesthood ministries that would span the length and breadth of the gathering of Israel.
Each January, hands are laid on the heads of about 100,000 young men, connecting them through ordinance to a bright line of authority stretching back through the Restoration epoch to Joseph and Oliver, to John the Baptist, and to Jesus Christ.
Now, ours is not always a very demonstrative church. Here, we do understatement.
But still, seeing this rolling thunder of newly ordained priesthood holders spreading across the earth, I wondered—in a “church of joy” kind of way—if it shouldn’t be shouted from the rooftops. “Today,” I thought, “there should be trumpets and crashing cymbals and blazing Roman candles. There should be parades!”
Knowing God’s power for what it truly is, we were witness to the disruption of the very patterns of this world by godly authority spreading across the earth.
These ordinations launch these young men into lifetimes of service as they will find themselves in consequential times and places where their presence and prayers and the powers of the priesthood of God they hold will profoundly matter.
This controlled chain reaction began with a ministering angel sent of God. The resurrected John the Baptist of ancient times appeared to Joseph and Oliver, placed his hands on their heads, and said, “Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 13:1).
John called this authority the “Priesthood of Aaron,” after Moses’s brother and priesthood companion. Anciently, the holders of this priesthood of Aaron were to teach and assist with ordinances—ordinances that focused discipleship on the future Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ (see Deuteronomy 33:10).
The book of Numbers explicitly assigns to holders of the priesthood of Aaron the tasks of handling the vessels of the ordinances. “And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons … and their charge shall be … the table … and the vessels of the sanctuary wherewith they minister” (Numbers 3:10, 31).
The Old Testament ordinance of animal sacrifice was fulfilled and replaced through the Savior’s life and Atonement. That ancient ordinance was replaced with the ordinance we now call the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord entrusts today’s bearers of the priesthood of Aaron to do very much the same things they did anciently: to teach and to administer ordinances—all to remind us of His Atonement.
When deacons, teachers, and priests help with the sacrament, they receive its blessings just like everyone else: by keeping the covenant they make as they individually partake of the bread and the water. But in the performance of these sacred duties, they also learn more about their priesthood roles and responsibilities.
The Aaronic Priesthood is called the preparatory priesthood partly because its ordinances allow them to experience the weight and the joy of being on the Lord’s errand, preparing them for future priesthood service, when they may be called upon to minister in unforeseeable ways—including pronouncing inspired blessings in times when hopes and dreams, and even life and death, hang in precarious balance.
Such serious expectations require serious preparation.
The Doctrine and Covenants explains that deacons and teachers are “to warn, expound, exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:59). In addition to these opportunities, priests are to “preach … and baptize” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:50).
Well, all that sounds like a lot, but in the real world, these things happen naturally and all over the world.
One bishop taught his new deacons quorum presidency these duties. So the young presidency began to talk about what that might look like in their quorum and in their ward. They decided they should start visiting elderly ward members to see what they needed and then do that.
Among those they served was Alan, a rough, often profane, and sometimes hostile neighbor. Alan’s wife, Wanda, became a member of the Church, but Alan was, as we say, something of a piece of work.
Still, the deacons went to work, comically ignoring his insults, while they shoveled snow and took out trash. Deacons can be hard to hate, and Alan eventually began to love them. At some point they invited him to church.
“I don’t like church,” he responded.
“Well, you like us,” they said. “So come with us. You can just come to our quorum meeting if you want.”
And with the bishop’s approval, he came—and he kept coming.
The deacons became teachers, and as they continued to serve him, he taught them to work on cars and to build things. By the time these deacons-turned-teachers became priests, Alan was calling them “my boys.”
They were earnestly preparing for missions and asked him if they could practice missionary lessons with him. He swore that he would never listen and never believe, but, yeah, they could practice at his house.
And then Alan got sick. And he softened.
And one day in quorum meeting, he tenderly asked them to pray for him to quit smoking, and so they did. But then they followed him home and confiscated all of his tobacco stash.
As his failing health put Alan into hospitals and rehab centers, “his boys” served him, quietly exuding powers of priesthood and of love unfeigned (see Doctrine and Covenants 121:41).
The miracle continued when Alan asked to be baptized—but then he passed away before it could happen. At his request, his deacons-turned-priests were the pallbearers and the speakers at his funeral, where they—fittingly—warned, expounded, exhorted, taught, and invited all to Christ.
And later, in the temple, it was one of “Alan’s boys” who baptized that erstwhile deacons quorum president in proxy for Alan.
Everything John the Baptist said to do, they did. They did what deacons, teachers, and priests do all over this Church and all over this world.
One of the things holders of the priesthood of Aaron are charged to do involves the ordinance of the sacrament.
Last year I met an inspired bishop and his wonderful wife. On a recent Saturday morning, they were driving to their son’s baptism and suffered the tragic and sudden loss of their darling two-year-old daughter, Tess.
The next morning their ward members gathered for sacrament meeting filled with compassion, also suffering over the loss of this perfect little girl. No one expected the bishop’s family to be at church that morning, but a couple of minutes before the meeting started, they quietly entered and took their place.
The bishop went to the stand and walked past his usual seat between his counselors and sat down instead between his priests at the sacrament table.
During that anguished and sleepless night before of searching for understanding and peace, he had received a strong impression of what his family most needed—and what his ward most needed. It was to hear the voice of their bishop, their ward Aaronic Priesthood president, their grieving father, pronounce the promises of the sacramental covenant.
So, in due course, he knelt with those priests and spoke to His Father. With the pathos of that occasion, he pronounced some of the most powerful words that anyone is ever allowed to say out loud in this lifetime.
Words of eternal consequence.
Words of ordinance.
Words of covenant.
Instruction that connects us to the very purposes of this life—and to the most magnificent outcomes of Heavenly Father’s plan for us.
Can you imagine what the congregation heard in that chapel that day—what they felt in the words that we hear every Sunday in our chapels?
“O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77).
And then: “O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this [water] to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, which was shed for them; that they may witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them. Amen” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:79).
This good father and mother testify that that promise has been fulfilled. They do, in fact, to their everlasting comfort, “have his Spirit to be with them.”
I am forever grateful that holders of the Aaronic Priesthood, with its powers, ordinances, and duties, do bless all of us through the keys of the very “ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 13:1). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.