Humble Souls at Altars Kneel
As we make and honor our covenants, we bind ourselves to the Savior, gaining greater access to His mercy, protection, sanctification, healing, and rest.
Thank you, choir, for your testimony through that new hymn.
The new sacrament hymn “Bread of Life, Living Water” fills my soul. One line in the hymn says, “Now I come before the altar, off’ring Him my broken heart.”
My understanding of those words deepened soon after our family departed Newbury Park, California, to serve in the Utah Ogden Mission in 2015. I received an invitation to tour Hill Air Force Base near Layton, Utah. I had never been on a military base, nor had I met a military chaplain or the men and women who work to provide safety and protection for their country.
Chaplain Harp, like thousands of other volunteer and professional chaplains who serve in our prisons, hospitals, and military installations around the world, inspired and uplifted me. Our last stop on the base was the sanctuary. I asked the chaplain if he administered services for all people who desired to ponder, pray, meditate, and worship. He went to the front wall of the chapel, and he pulled a cross from behind the curtains. He said he used the cross for Protestant and Catholic services. I asked what he used for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and he went to the other side of the front wall, and he pulled out a Star of David.
I then asked, “What do you do for Latter-day Saint services?” He pushed those symbols away and pointed to the large wooden altar in the middle of the sanctuary. He said that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prepare and bless the bread and water on the altar. I asked if the large, seemingly fixed altar was removed before the services of our Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, or Protestant brothers and sisters. He said that the altar stays in place, for several of those faiths also utilize the altar in some way.
Abraham built an altar, bound Isaac, and was ready to sacrifice his only son, but his hand was stayed, and he declared, like the Lord has declared, “Here am I”! How many times has the Great I Am or one of His prophets volunteered, “Here am I”?
During His Sermon on the Mount, the Savior invited us to reconcile with our brothers and sisters before we approach the altar. Paul taught that we are “sanctified” at the altar through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
The prophet Lehi “left his house … and his precious things. … [Then] he built an altar … and made an offering … , and gave thanks unto the Lord.”
The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach us to worship the Son of God at altars. Why?
Our first parents, Adam and Eve, built and worshipped at altars. After they were cast out of the Garden of Eden and had worshipped for “many days,” an angel visited and asked a poignant question that could be asked of each of us: “Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?”
Adam answered, “I know not.”
The angel’s response to Adam’s humble admission is stunning: “This … is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father. … Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore.”
The sacrament table and temple altars symbolize the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement.
As we make and honor our covenants, receiving the ordinances of the sacrament at church and the endowment and sealing at the temple, we bind ourselves to the Savior, gaining greater access to His mercy, protection, sanctification, healing, and rest.
Mercy and Protection Through Covenants
As a 15-year-old young man, I asked my dad if I could skip sacrament meeting—just one Sunday in January for a special American football game. He said I was old enough to make that choice for myself and asked me to consider one piece of counsel. He said, “If you choose to miss the sacrament once, it’s much easier to choose to miss it again.”
If the Savior is the great connector, then the adversary is the separator. He, Satan, tempts us to separate ourselves from our consecrated places of worship and from the protection of Jesus Christ. When we worship the Savior, we receive “power to go against the natural worldly flow.” When we spend time in communion with Him, we have a promise to be “delivered from Satan.” “Then, as we keep our covenants, He endows us with His … strengthening power.” Oh, how I cherish the experience of communing with the Savior through covenants made at holy altars.
Building an understanding of the Savior’s eternal Atonement line upon line, precept upon precept, provides a spiritual inoculation against the wiles of the adversary. Young Elder Jaggi in Mexico, Zuster Jaggi in Belgium, and other missionaries throughout the world are much more likely to see their friends claim the blessings of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost if their friends attend sacrament meeting within the first week of contact.
A young adult in Tonga or Samoa is much more likely to be sealed in the house of the Lord if they have prepared for and received their endowment soon after graduating from school. In the endowment, members are invited to live, obey, and keep five laws which imbue their lives with power and protection. As we make covenants with the Lord, a reciprocal relationship forms. We demonstrate our loyalty and love to Him. Our strength and power grow with each promise made and kept.
Reflection and Sanctification
When we humbly and symbolically kneel at the altars of the Lord, it is an opportunity for reflection, “checked as to the pride of [our] hearts, … [humbling ourselves] before God.” Before I went out with my friends as a youth, my mother would often say, “Remember who you are, and check in when you get home.” Some nights I missed my check-in because I arrived home too late. I regret missing those important visits with Mom.
Today I look forward to check-in connections with Heavenly Father. In my daily pattern of personal worship, I kneel in prayer, next to my bed or gathered with family, and I envision myself kneeling at the altars, reflecting on and examining my life. I think about the sacrament, even whole pieces of bread, broken and torn for us, each a symbol of our Savior’s broken body. I’m reminded of President Dallin H. Oaks’s teaching that “each piece of bread is unique, just as the individuals who partake of it are unique.” When I kneel in prayer, I think on how I can give God my will.
Elder David A. Bednar taught that “the ordinance of the sacrament is a holy and repeated invitation to repent sincerely and to be renewed spiritually. The act of partaking of the sacrament, in and of itself, does not remit sins. But as we prepare conscientiously and participate in this holy ordinance with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then the promise is that we may always have the Spirit of the Lord to be with us. And by the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost as our constant companion, we can always retain a remission of our sins.”
When Amy and I look closely at our life experiences, we celebrate the gift of Jesus Christ’s perfect love and sacrifice. We also see how hell’s fury has been loosed. How can we overcome stares of judgment, anxiety, depression, cancer, diabetes, online bullying, stolen identity, lost pregnancies, the loss of a child, a brother, and a father? Because Jesus took of the bitter cup of trembling, the cup of fury—for me, for my family, for all of us!
Gethsemane, by Adam Abram, courtesy of altusfineart.com © 2025
The “bitter cup” He drank in the Garden of Gethsemane and His suffering, “intensified” on the cross at Calvary, allow us to lay the hard, the insolent, the violent, the furious, and the trembling upon the altars of the Lord and be “sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost,” always.
Sister Patricia Holland said, “My deepest prayer for you and for myself today is that we will give over completely, lay ourselves at the altar of God’s promises and peace no matter where we are and no matter what we have done.”
A Place of Healing and Rest
When we come to the altar, we aren’t earning a reward; we are learning about the Gift Giver. In that learning and covenant binding comes healing. Nephi said, “He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.” And our loving Savior invited, “Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?”
When our two oldest daughters, Mackenzie and Emma, were little, one of their favorite stories was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We all fell in love with the lion, Aslan. One of our most memorable nights reading the book was when the great lion gave his life for Edmund. Memorable because parents and daughters shed tears as the lion’s life was taken on the Stone Table by the Witch. Memorable because hope persisted, despite the tragedy, until the spectacular happened. Squeals of joy resounded in that little bedroom when Aslan was resurrected and said, “If [the Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice], … she would [know] that [if] a willing victim who had committed no treachery [died] in a traitor’s stead, the [Stone] Table would crack and Death itself would [begin to unwind].”
Jesus Christ heals all wounds. Jesus Christ makes it possible to live again.
In his October 2022 general conference talk, President Russell M. Nelson described a tour group coming through a temple open house. A young boy was there. President Nelson taught:
“When the tour group entered an endowment room, the boy pointed to the altar, where people kneel to make covenants with God, and said, ‘Oh, that’s nice. Here is a place for people to rest on their temple journey.’
“… He likely had no idea about the direct connection between making a covenant with God in the temple and the Savior’s stunning promise:
“‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; … and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“‘For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ [Matthew 11:28–30; emphasis added].”
“The Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” yet He invited His disciples, you and me, to the sacrament table to rest with Him there. When “humble souls at altars kneel,” peace abounds. Our Savior’s arms are outstretched; His table is spread. Come worship the Son of God at His holy altars. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.