An Empty Sacrament Table
One Sunday morning our teenaged son stood with two other priests to administer the sacrament, as they had done on many prior occasions. They pulled back the white cloth, but to their dismay there was no bread. One of them slipped out to the preparation room in hopes some could be found. There was none. Finally our troubled son made his way to the bishop and shared the concern with him. A wise bishop then stood, explained the situation to the congregation, and asked, “How would it be if the sacrament table were empty today because there were no Atonement?” I have thought of that often–what would it be like if there were no bread there because there had been no crucifixion, no water because there had been no shedding of blood? If there had been no Atonement, what would the consequences be to us? Of course, the question is now moot, but it does put in perspective our total dependence on the Lord. To ask and answer this question only heightens our awareness of, and appreciation for, the Savior. What might have been, even for the righteous,” if there had been no atoning sacrifice, stirs the very depths of human emotion.
First, there would be no resurrection, or as suggested in the explicit language of Jacob: “This flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more” (2 Nephi 9:7).
Second, our spirits would become subject to the devil. he would have “all power over you” and “seal you his” (Alma 34:35). In fact we would become like him, even “angels to a devil” (2 Nephi 9:9).
Third, we would be “shut out from the presence of our God” (2 Nephi 9:9), to remain forever with the father of lies.
Fourth, we would “endure a never-ending torment” (Mosiah 2:39).
Fifth, we would be without hope, for if “Christ be not risen, then is our preacing vain, and your faith is also vain. . . . If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1Corinthians 15:14, 19). . . .
Without the Atonement, Macbeth’s fatalistic outlook on life would have been tragically correct; it would be a play without a purpose:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing (William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5.24-28)
Tags: atoning sacrifice, Jesus Christ, Sacrament, without Jesus
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This was so good that I sent it to all my friends who would feel the same as I did when I read it. This is profound~!!!
Thank you for all your hard work and research.
Alana,
So glad you enjoyed this piece by Tad Calister. It reminded me of something that happened to me once as I was preparing to teach a lesson on the Lord’s plan for redeeming those who died without a knowledge of the gospel. I didn’t have my scriptures accessible for some reason, and so I went to an old copy of the Doctrine and Covenants (for those of you who are friends of other faiths, that is a book of recorded revelations to a prophet in our day). I flipped to the back and Section 138 wasn’t there. I will never forget the feeling. I felt in some small measure what it would have been like to not have known that God had a plan for those who have died without knowing the plan, to think mistakenly, that they would end up in limbo or some other lesser place than with those who love them. I felt in small measure what Joseph must have felt after his brother died, not knowing what happens to those who die before the age of accountability and those who die without having their ordinances performed on earth. What a thrill to know that there is hope for everyone who wants to accept the gospel, on both sides of mortality.