New Insight

Yesterday in Sacrament Meeting, one of the speakers asked us to look at the sacrament table and think about what it looks like.  Obliging, I looked over and immediately thought that it looked like an operating table that we see in movies or on TV, where the patient has died and their dead body is covered by a white sheet.  I thought it was strange that I would have such a dark thought, so I dismissed it and listened to see where the speaker was going with this thought exercise.

While he didn't answer the question he raised until the he was about to close, I was surprised to hear him describe the very thing that I had imagined: a dead body draped with a white sheet.  He pointed out that this is a visual for Christ in the tomb after his crucifixion.  And with the sacrament being an ordinance where we renew the covenants we've previously made that include personally accepting the atonement, the symbolism is perfect.

While I learn new things about the gospel all the time, I usually make connections on my own during my own study and it's been a while since I learned something from someone making a direct point in church.  I'm not saying that I can't learn from others, it's just that when we're in a group setting, we're often forced to keep the really significant insights to ourselves because not everyone is at the same point with their knowledge of the gospel and we don't want what we say to go over somebody's head.  So not only did I learn something new, I learned it in the most general of meetings.

I can't remember the brother's name that spoke, but I'm glad that he delved a little deeper than is normally the case and that I was able to learn from him.