Over twenty years ago one of my favorite general authorities visited our stake.  Vaughn J. Featherstone asked that someone be assigned to speak in stake conference on the Atonement.  The assignment fell to me.  I decided that the best preparation I could make would be to reread all four accounts of the Atonement in the Gospels in the New Testament.  I got my scriptures, hiked over to our North 40, sat down under the big pine tree there in the draw, and read what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each had to say about the last week of the Savior’s mortal life.  It was a very enlightening and moving experience.

Following my remarks Elder Featherstone got up, complimented me, and then said, “I’m sure that reading about the Savior’s Atonement under that pine tree has been a blessing to Brother Kerns’ life, and I’m sure that it blessed the tree, too.”

Here I am 22 years later with the assignment to again speak about the Savior, His Atonement, Easter, and the resurrection.  As I thought about what I should say, I was reminded about the pine tree.  It’s a huge tree, over 4 feet in diameter, and 13 feet around.  It has been a mature tree, with a rounded top, (as opposed to a growing pine tree with a pointy top), all of my life.  It used to have two companions just across the fence, on the neighbor’s property.  Those two trees were cut down.  I hopped the fence, counted the growth rings, and determined that they’d been born prior to 1880.  Based upon that, I think that my pine tree probably sprouted from its seed at the same time this valley was first settled.  Jacob Ensminger was the second permanent settler in this valley, and he settled his family on either my place or my brother’s place in 1863, 149 years ago.

My pine tree was witness to that.  The pine tree was witness to the settlement of this valley, and the establishment of all the farms in the area.  It was witness to the building of the town of Rock Creek, just a quarter of a mile away.  It was witness to the Killamacue Flood that washed the town away in 1917.  When the inhabitants of the town heard the flood coming, they all ran up on the hill where my pine tree stands.

Elder Featherstone’s remarks opened my eyes to the fact that my pine tree is a living thing with a spirit.  It was a beautiful, robust tree when I sat in its shade and read the four gospels.  But last fall I noticed that it’s suddenly an old tree.  It’s no longer robust.  Its color isn’t good, and it has many brown needles.  It obviously has some rot up high.  During the winter a wind blew the top 40 feet out of it.

My tree is dying.  We might harvest it before it dies; but more likely we’ll wait until it dies, and then have it milled into blue pine lumber.  When a pine tree dies, a fungus makes blue streaks throughout the wood, which can be quite beautiful.  So my pine tree will be turned into a lot of sawdust, limbs that will be put in a burn pile, and boards that will be scattered to who knows where.

Since my pine tree is a living thing, it’s subject to the resurrection.  Listen to these two verses from Section 29 of the Doctrine and Covenants:  “For all old things shall pass away, and all things shall become new, even the heaven and the earth, and all the fullness thereof, both men and beasts, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea: And not one hair, neither mote, shall be lost, for it is the workmanship of mine hand.  (D&C 29:24, 25).

Think of that.  Your favorite pet that you buried isn’t as dead as you thought.  It’s going to be resurrected, too.  So is the earth.  So are you.

“The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.”  (Alma 40:23).

It’s because of Jesus Christ.  He created the earth and everything on it.  He created all things, so He can fix them.  He created the waters, so He can calm them.  He was the Son of God, lived a sinless life, and had the power to resurrect Himself after men killed Him.  He was the first fruits of the resurrection.  He came back and took His body.  All Christendom is celebrating that fact today.  It’s one of the best documented happenings in all human history.  Following His resurrection, He first appeared to a woman, Mary Magdalene.  Then He appeared to His disciples, and later to over 500 people at once at Jerusalem.  At His first appearance to the Nephites He appeared to a gathering of 2500 people.

And yet most of Christendom, while celebrating His resurrection, is simultaneously preaching that God the Father and Jesus Christ are an incomprehensible, unembodied, essence or power that permeates the universe.  Do they think that He laid down His body again?  What was the point of the resurrection if He died again?  Gordon B. Hinckley said that “Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ.  No one claiming to be a true Christian will want to do that.”  (The Ensign, Nov. 2007, pg. 42).

As a young man and a non-member of the Church, I was confused about the nature of God.  Are God the Father and Jesus Christ one person or two?  Is God a person, or a spirit, or a power?  We all know that the Bible is a battleground on that matter.  As a young man I didn’t know enough about religion to even ask an intelligent question, but that was the one thing I wanted an answer to.  When I was given a Book of Mormon I began reading it with that question in mind.  The Book of Mormon was going to give me the answer.  I was halfway through the book, and I was as confused as ever.  I can tell you from experience that you can read the entire Book of Mormon and still not be able to answer the question of whether God the Father and Jesus Christ are one person or two.  It just isn’t there.

Halfway through my reading of the Book of Mormon I was given a pamphlet entitled “Joseph Smith’s Testimony.”  There I read that two separate Beings appeared to him.  Light flooded my soul when I read that.  The question was answered.  There was no longer any room for doubt.  I knew that Joseph’s testimony was true; and knowing that the Father and the Son are separate Beings made all other doctrines fall into proper order and perspective.  Everything suddenly made sense.  This was a great revelation to me, and was knowledge that neither the Bible nor the Book of Mormon nor both of them together could provide.

In general conference last week Elder L. Tom Perry observed that neither the Bible nor the Book of Mormon is sufficient without the other.  I wrote that statement down, and then put a note beside it so that I could think about it later.  I asked myself, “Are the Bible and the Book of Mormon together sufficient without the words of the living prophets?”  As I contemplated that later, the answer I came up with was no.  Had Joseph Smith not seen the Father and the Son and spoken with them we might still be arguing about the nature of the Godhead.  The eternity of the marriage covenant is another basic doctrine that isn’t clear in either book.  The priesthood, its offices and duties aren’t spelled out in the Bible or the Book of Mormon.  The matter of temples and their purposes aren’t there, either.  Most of what goes on in temples is in the two books, but without latter-day revelation the scattered statements are totally meaningless.

At general conference there was a protestor holding up a sign which asked, “Is the Mormon Jesus the same Jesus as the Bible Jesus?”  The answer to that question is an emphatic, yes!  If he had asked if we worship the traditional Jesus that other churches worship, we would answer that other churches worship a Jesus that is explained by creeds that were put together by men who neither knew nor understood Him.  We don’t follow those creeds.  We worship the living Christ.  This is also why we don’t use the cross as a symbol of our worship.  We don’t worship the crucified Christ, but the living Christ.  The symbol of our worship is our lives, which we hopefully conform to His teachings.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  His is the only name given under heaven whereby we can be saved.  Jesus is our only chance.  He paid a debt He didn’t owe to free us from a debt that we can’t pay.

(Part of an Easter talk given in 2012)