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What are things you cannot wait to hear about?
-sister in the hospital giving birth
-volleyball tryouts
-election results
-mission call
-Santa Claus
How do you hear about these things?
-text
-internet/ facebook/ email
-newspaper/ snailmail
-pony express
-public proclamation/ verbal
-personal messenger, someone would run back and forth carrying messages. They’d better have good feet.
Today we read in Isaiah about beautiful feet that carry a message.
Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Now read the reaction to the message they bring.
Isaiah 52:9 “Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.”
So what is the message that bring joy so great it makes you want to burst forth in song? Using only verse 7 and 9, what is the message?
-Thy God reigneth
-God hath redeemed Israel
-peace, salvation and comfort
What does that message mean to you?
Show video (until 2:11.) Pay close attention to the words on the screen.
Isaiah talks about this message in more depth in Isaiah 53. It is the life and mission of Jesus Christ.
Abinadi, the Book of Mormon prophet, also recites Isaiah 53 in its entirety in Mosiah 14, then expounds on it in Mosiah 15. It’s a beautiful chapter.
Isaiah 53:2-4 and Alma 7:11-13
Why/How can Christ understand our sorrow and grief? Will someone explain to me exactly how that happened? Prove it.
It’s a pretty incomprehensible, unfathomable, we just can’t really understand it concept.
Elder Merrill J. Bateman touchingly describes this “carrying of sorrows”:
For many years I thought of the Savior’s experience in the garden and on the cross as places where a large mass of sin was heaped upon Him. Through the words of Alma, Abinadi, Isaiah, and other prophets, however, my view has changed. Instead of an impersonal mass of sin, there was a long line of people, as Jesus felt “our infirmities” “(bore) our griefs, … carried our sorrows … (and) was bruised for our iniquities” … He learned about your weaknesses and mine. He experienced your pains and sufferings. He experienced mine. I testify that He knows us. He understands the way in which we deal with temptations. He knows our weaknesses. But more than that, more than just knowing us, He knows how to help us if we come to Him in faith. [ “A Pattern for All,” Ensign, Nov. 2005, 74.]
Let’s change the question just a little. How have you sensed or felt that he understands your sorrow and grief?Isaiah 53:5-7 and Mosiah 15:5-7
What can we learn about the Savior through these verses?
Make a chart on chalk board:
Savior Us
Wounded (Isa) for our transgression
Bruised for our iniquity
With his stripes we are healed
Suffereth to be (Mos)
Tempted
Mocked
Scourged
Cast out
Disowned
Worked miracles
Led as a sheep before All we like sheep (Isav6)
bef shearer (Mosv6) have gone astray
Will swallowed by Father
(Mosv7)
A few questions:
How have we sometimes ‘gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way’? How can the Savior’s example help us submit to Heavenly Father’s will? We cannot expect to go through this life and not get beat up. Miracles can happen when we are submissive to our Father and allow our will to be swallowed up in His.
Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”
What does it mean that it please the Lord to bruise Christ?
Institute manual says, “Obsiously God was not pleased with the way Jesus was treated, but He was pleased with His Son’s ‘offering for sin.’ The Atonement met the strictest demands of God’s innate justice and made forgiveness and mercy possible on certain terms.
Elder Melvin J. Ballard explained why it pleased God not to interfere: “In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even he could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room, so as not to look upon the last struggles, so he bowed his head, and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that he had for his Son. Oh, in that moment when he might have saved his Son, I think him and praise him that he did not fail us, for he had not only the love of his Son I mind, but he also had love for us. I rejoice that he did not interfere, and that his love for us made it possible for him to endure to look upon the sufferings of his Son and give him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer. Without him, without his sacrifice, we would have remained, and we would never have come glorified into his presence. And so this is what it cost, in part, for our Father in Heaven to give the gift of his Son unto men.” (Bryant S. Hinckley, Sermons and Missionary Services of Melvin Joseph Ballard, pp. 154-55.)
John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Isaiah 53:10 says Christ shall see his seed. Who are his seed? Abinadi tells us in Mosiah 15:10-12
We are his seed.
In the next few verses we are back to publishing peace!
Mosiah 15:13-17
The word “publishing” is an interesting word in this day and age. We publish all kinds of things. When I finish writing a blog post, I click the “publish” button. We publish blogs, articles, comments, status update, apps and all sorts of things. What are we publishing? Are we publishing peace and bringing good tidings?
End with this testimony:
Mosiah 15:17-19
“And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who shall hereafter publish peace, yea, from this time henceforth and forever!
“And behold, I say unto you, this is not all. For O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people;
“For were it not for the redemption which he hath made for his people, which was prepared from the foundation of the world, I say unto were it not for this, all mankind must have perished.”
Home Reading: “The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope”, James E. Faust, Gen. Conf. Oct.2001
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