Happy Palm Sunday yesterday! I have been watching this Easter-themed video below by Jared Halverson. It is so glorious! Referring to the “awful artihmetic of the atonement,” in a talk by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a late apostle of Jesus Christ, Brother Halverson gives deeper insights into Easter and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful and thrilled that I decided to listen to it, as Brother Halverson clears up the confusion I’ve had for decades about Mosiah 15, in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. He lucidly explains what Abinadi means when he starts sounding Trinitarian. Wow, it’s so wonderful to have all that confusion cleared up about Abinadi seeming to say that the Father and the Son being one person.

On top of that confusion being cleared up, this video also has so many other goodies in it. I love that Brother Halverson weaves together art, poetry, an apostle’s witness, and his own thinking to enlighten us. It is soooo, soooo, good!

Here’s a quote from the talk by Elder Maxwell I just referred to:

“Most of our suffering, brothers and sisters, actually comes because of our sins and not because of our nobility. Isn’t it marvelous that Jesus Christ, who did not have to endure that kind of suffering because he was sin-free, nevertheless took upon himself the sins of all of us and experienced an agony so exquisite we cannot comprehend it? I don’t know how many people have lived on the earth for sure, but demographers say between 30 and 67 billion. If you were to collect the agony for your own sins and I for mine, and multiply it by that number, we can only shudder at what the sensitive, divine soul of Jesus must have experienced in taking upon himself the awful arithmetic of the sins of all of us—an act which he did selflessly and voluntarily. If it is also true (in some way we don’t understand) that the cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy, how infinitely greater Jesus’ capacity for joy, when he said, after his resurrection, “Behold, my joy is full.” How very, very full, indeed, his joy must have been!”

I’ve included links below the video to the resources he refers to.

Please watch and enjoy and share with your families. Happy Easter!

Here is the talk by Elder Maxwell, called “But for a Small Moment.”

Here is the poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, called Gethsemane. It is so beautiful and true. I just love the last lines:

“All paths that have been, or shall be
  Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.

All those who journey soon or late,
Must pass within the garden’s gate ;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who cannot say :
“Not mine, but thine;” who only pray,
“Let this cup pass;” and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane.
    Gethsemane, Gethsemane,
    God help us through Gethsemane.”

Then Michael McLean’s The Garden is here.

For more Easter resources, go here.

If you want some Easter-themed stories to share with your family, go to the April section of my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook. You can get it here.