With love unfeigned we all echo President Oaks’s tribute to the passing of President Russell M. Nelson. And with equal love and deep mourning, we all acknowledge the tragedies in Michigan recently and almost daily around the world. We acknowledge these things with love and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The ninth chapter of John records the experience of Jesus and His disciples passing near a beggar, blind from birth. 

Sister Chieko Okazaki, in a General Conference talk in April 1992, drew some lessons about service from this story:

‘My sisters, this story has a lesson about service in it for us. First, remember that Jesus and the man didn’t have an appointment. They encountered each other almost by accident. So look for little opportunities in your daily life.

Second, Jesus saw the need of an individual. Sometimes I think we see programs instead of individuals.

Third, Jesus performed the service immediately with just the resources he had—spit and mud and a desire to help. He didn’t transport the man to an exotic medical facility, organize a cornea transplant team, or didn’t make it into a media event. Sometimes we think we can’t serve because we’re not rich enough, not educated enough, not old enough, or not young enough. Remember, if we have the desire to serve, then our bare hands, a little spit, and a little dirt are enough to make a miracle.

And fourth, Jesus didn’t just dump that service on the man and walk away. He gave that man a way to exercise faith and strengthen the faith he had by asking him to participate in his own healing. It was a simple thing—washing in the pool of Siloam. But what if the man had refused? Jesus took that risk and let the man participate in his own miracle.’

This led the disciples to ask Jesus several complex religious questions regarding the origin and transmission of this man’s limitation. The Master responded by doing something very simple and very surprising. He spit into the dirt and stirred a small mixture of clay. He then applied this to the eyes of the man, instructing him to wash in the pool of Siloam. All this the sightless man obediently did and “came [forth] seeing,” the scripture says. How important evidence is, as opposed to wishes or argument or even malice in opposition to the truth.

Well, afraid this miracle would again add to the threat Jesus already posed to their presumed authority, the enemies of the Savior confronted the newly sighted man and said in anger, “We know [Jesus] is a sinner.” The man listened for a moment, then said, “Whether he be a sinner … , I know not: [but] one thing I [do] know, … whereas I was blind, now I see.”

Elder Holland here highlights the importance of the evidence of experience. In a Sunday School class I heard a class member say ‘A person with an experience should never be hostage to a person with an opinion.’

This struck a chord with me. There are many people with widely different opinions about the Church and its doctrines but none of these opinions are as valuable as a personal experience.

Let me give you some examples.

The Book of Mormon

Faced with the fact of the Book of Mormon, there are a range of opinions about its origins:

• it was based on a manuscript by Solomon Spaulding
• it was plagiarised from Ethan Smith’s A View of the Hebrews
• Sidney Rigdon wrote it
• Joseph Smith wrote it during an epileptic fit
• Joseph Smith was some sort of ‘naive genius’ and wrote it himself

While each of these opinions has been thoroughly squashed by subsequent research, what is more valuable than any or all of them is the reader’s personal experience of the Book of Mormon.

• I have tested Moroni’s promise and received a spiritual witness that it is true
• I have felt the spirit on innumerable occasions while reading the Book of Mormon
• I have experienced the complexity of the narrative arc and the beauty of language and though
• I have been able to distinguish for myself the varied authorial voices in the book
• I have found answers to questions in the book
• I have seen my life and the lives of countless others changed and blessed by its influence

Prayer

Some will put forth the opinions that prayer:

• is a meaningless talking to oneself
• is nothing but an expression of wishes and desires
• does not work

My personal experience is that:

• prayers are answered
• I have received inspiration and answers to questions through prayer
• prayer allows me to communicate with my Heavenly Father
• prayer has blessed my life
• there is real power in prayer

There is a lot of debate and discussion about faith and doubt. Let us not allow our personal experiences to be hostage to the opinions of others. Our experience of living the gospel is more valuable than unsubstantiated theories. In Hebrew 1:1 we read  ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’. These personal experiences, like the experience of the formerly blind beggar who could now see are our real, vital and substantial evidence.

Jesus gave the first meaning to this exchange, telling His disciples that all this had happened “that the works of God should be made manifest.” Remember that twice in this narrative the Savior’s action was referred to as “anointing” the blind man’s eyes, an act to be completed by washing. This description of “the works of God [being] made manifest” could possibly suggest the unfolding of an ordinance.

This is an interesting thought isn’t it? Elder Holland seems to be referencing D&C 84:20. President Nelson taught:

‘Ordinances unlock the power of God for your life.’

How have ordinances unlocked the power of God in your life?

Another truth that is evident here are the instruments the Creator of heaven and earth and all that in them are used to provide this miracle: spit and a handful of dirt! These very unlikely ingredients declare that God can bless us by whatever method He chooses. Like Naaman resisting the River Jordan or the children of Israel refusing to look at the serpent on the staff, how easy it is for us to dismiss the source of our redemption because the ingredients and the instruments seem embarrassingly plain.

What lessons can we take from the stories of Naaman and the serpent on the staff?

Why does God often use simple and surprising means to accomplish His purposes?

But we remember from the Book of Mormon that some things are both plain and precious and that prior to Jesus’s birth, it would be prophesied that “he [would have] no form nor comeliness; and when we [should] see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” How often God has sent His majestic message through a newly called and very anxious Relief Society president or an unlearned boy on a New York farm or a brand-new missionary or a baby lying in a manger.

The Saviour did not come to the earth in the pomp and glory and majesty that the Jews expected of their Messiah. Instead he was born into humble circumstances – but with divine power and authority. Why is it that God’s concept of ‘greatness’ so often differs from man’s?

So what if the answers to our prayers come in plain or convoluted ways? Are we willing to persevere, to keep trying to live Christ’s gospel no matter how much spit and clay it takes? It may not always be clear to us what is being done or why, and from time to time, we will all feel a little like the senior sister who said, “Lord, how about a blessing that isn’t in disguise?”

Have you ever felt like that sister?

Consider the evidence of another truth, this one regarding the holy priesthood. In documenting the organization of the meridian Church, Luke’s first line reads, “Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority,” gifts not granted on the basis of impressive credentials nor determined by tradition or birthright. They are not bestowed by a divinity school or a theological seminary. They are conferred only by the laying on of hands by one who has had authorized hands laid on him in an unbroken sequence back to the source of all divine authority, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the significance of what Elder Holland is teaching here?

And in a church that understands the gift of mercy, wouldn’t it be another marvelous evidence of that church’s truthfulness to see these blessings and covenants go to our deceased kindred, those of our families who have gone before us? Should they be penalized because they did not have access to the gospel or because they were born at a time or in a place when divine ordinances and covenants were not available to them? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has sacred, dedicated houses of the Lord in which merciful, salvific work is being done vicariously every day and night for these deceased, as well as offering worship opportunities and ordinances for the living. To my knowledge, this particular evidence of God’s truth, His universal love for the living and the dead, is not seen elsewhere in the world—except in one church that demonstrates truth in this particular regard: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

‘On 15 August 1840, Joseph Smith preached the funeral sermon of Seymour Brunson, during which he declared for the first time the doctrine of baptism for the dead. It is not known precisely when the first proxy baptism or baptisms were performed; however, the first documented baptism for the dead was performed on 12 September 1840, when Jane Neyman requested that Harvey Olmstead baptize her in behalf of her deceased son Cyrus Livingston Neyman…. A short while later, upon learning the words Olmstead used in performing the baptism, Joseph Smith gave his approval of the ordinance. Later, instructions were given concerning proper procedures for performing and recording baptisms for the dead (see D&C 127-128), and it was clarified that “females should be baptised for females, and males for males” (Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, 5:85).’ (Largey, Doctrine and Covenants Reference Companion, p.838-839 (2012)

How does temple work testify of God’s love for all of His children?

My first sight-giving, life-giving encounter with real evidence of truth did not come with anointing clay or in the pool of Siloam. No, the instrument of truth that brought my healing from the Lord came as pages in a book, yes, the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ! The claims about this book have been attacked and dismissed by some unbelievers, the anger often matching the vitriol of those who told the healed man that he could not possibly have experienced what he knew he had experienced.

It has been hurled at me that the means by which this book came to be were impractical, unbelievable, embarrassing, even unholy. Now, that is harsh language from anyone who presumes to know the means by which the book came to be, inasmuch as the only description given about those means is that it was translated “by the gift and power of God.” That’s it. That’s all. In any case, the impact of the Book of Mormon in my life is no less miraculous than was the application of spit and dirt placed on the blind man’s eyes. It has been, for me, a rod of safety for my soul, a transcendent and penetrating light of revelation, an illumination of the path I must walk when mists of darkness come. And surely they have, and surely they will.

How has the Book of Mormon blessed your life?

And given the view it has granted me of my Savior’s universal love and redeeming grace, I share with you my witness, justified here as the newly blessed man’s parents said their son should be heard because he was “of age.” Well, so am I. He was old enough to be taken seriously, they implied. Well, so am I. I am two months away from my 85th birthday. I have been at the edge of death and back. I have walked with kings and prophets, with presidents and apostles. Best of all, I have at times been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit of God. I trust that my witness should be given at least some consideration here.

Is Elder Holland’s witness worthy of consideration? (Absolutely!)

Now, brothers and sisters, I came to my whole-souled conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a true restoration of the New Testament Church—and more—because I could not deny the evidence of that restoration. Since those first experiences, I suppose I have had a thousand—ten thousand?—other evidences that what I have spoken of today is true. So I am delighted now to join my friend huddled on the streets of Jerusalem, where with my diminished voice I sing:

Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

What can we do to ‘see’ more clearly?

NB: Passages in italics are direct quotes from Elder Holland’s talk.

You can watch Elder Holland’s talk here.

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