Our Sunday School schedule has us studying D&C 88 this week, a week I’ve had circled on my calendar because no other revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants captures my attention, devotion, and interest so much. (I devote four weeks to this section in my BYU class and always seem to feel like we only cover the tip of the iceberg.) By several indicators, it looks to me like Joseph Smith grasped only some aspects but not the complete depth of this revelation—another moment where the voice of the Lord transcended the prophet’s limitations.

And now that the day for studying D&C 88 has arrived, my plans are scrapped, my preparations feel thin, and the circumstances of today overshadow what normally has been lofty, future anticipations for a better world. Today is strongly, powerfully, unavoidably similar to the day after December 25, 1832, when Joseph Smith gave his famous Christmas Day prophecy of wars and tribulations.1

We all saw the message from the First Presidency this week asking the members of the church to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and to wear masks indoors when social distancing is not possible. Reasonable people immediately grasp what this means: indoor gatherings (like sacrament meeting and classes) are not social-distance-possible, and so we’ll be expected to mask up at church. Responses online were intense. The antivax/antimask crowd voiced their displeasure at the message in no uncertain terms. At least one bishopric reportedly mocked and flouted the message from the pulpit. In my stake, we received no instruction whatsoever, with members today attending church as though nothing has changed and no outbreak of the Delta variant is plaguing our community and overloading our hospitals. Our children are unvaccinated by policy definition, and our largest organization within the ward—the Primary—has to carry on classes without any word of support or direction on how to protect this vulnerable class from COVID infection. I look out the window and what do I see? Smoke drifting from California’s worst recorded wildfire mingling with a new nearby fire and settling into our skies. And California’s worst isn’t even the largest wildfire burning this moment. Other catastrophes afflict the planet. The world burns, shakes, and draughts, while families and ward families split apart from the inaction, half-measures, and noisy belligerence of a few. The peaceable followers of Christ who place the wellbeing of their sisters, brothers, and friends above their own, who sacrifice again and again to keep others safe, who quietly and meekly attend to the ill health of those who refused to look upon the proverbial brazen serpent and live and who are brought to sickness from their own rejection of the truth (and now, of the prophets)—the truly faithful Saints witness their community do the least possible with urgings and mandates, and maximally capitulate to histrionic behavior. I’m a witness to nurses already exhausted from their occupation also serving in their Primary calling and being pressured not to require masks during Singing Time. Singing time! In a pandemic of a deadly airborne virus! Remote options here have been canceled because, according to a prominent local leader, “the days of lazy church are over.”2

Oh, yes, indeed, today is a day of turmoil. Today is one of wondering the very thing Joseph Smith’s associates in 1832 wondered after that foreboding prophecy—if Zion is supposed to be the refuge for the faithful, and if calamities are assured, how are the faithful supposed to escape the coming tribulation? Is there any hope for them? My stake—what is defined as that refuge from the storm—feels now nothing like a refuge; it is the most immediate source of turmoil, the present driver of contention in my world this morning. And so, like those concerned elders in Kirtland, I want to ask the Lord—what do we do? Where can we turn for peace?

Those elders did ask, and the Lord did speak. He delivered to Joseph Smith the grandest revelation of the Doctrine and Covenants, the deepest and most direct first-person response to the question of how the faithful should escape the calamities of the last days. Joseph Smith found in this revelation solace of such profundity, he gave the revelation a name: “the Olieve [Olive] leaf which we have plucked from the tree of Paradise, the Lords message of peace to us.”3

I could sure use an olive leaf plucked from the tree of paradise today. And so my prepared lesson will have to wait for another day. I’d like to read this revelation for comfort. As we can see from the context of the revelation, we can draw a line of application from the original setting to ourselves. We are in the thick of the December 25 prophecy, and as D&C 88 was a direct response to anxieties over what D&C 87 meant, it applies to any anxieties we may feel at turmoil today that was foreseen in that prophecy.

Alms of Our Prayers

The Lord begins the revelation by acknowledging those who had assembled to hear his word. Imagine the scene: Joseph Smith in a meeting with church leaders in Kirtland, joining in prayer to ask the Lord regarding the prophecy of calamities that had been given two days before; after the prayer, Joseph starts to dictate to a scribe the words of revelation and the sound begins to resemble what we’re used to hearing in priesthood blessings, a direct line of communication in the Spirit to us. And the Lord says: “this is pleasing unto your lord, and the Angels rejoice over you, the alms of your prayers have come up into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth, and are recorded in the book of the names of the sanctified, even they of the celestial world.”

As we pray for comfort through the turmoil, we can be assured our prayers are heard and received, and even more so than we might expect—received and noted. The Lord notices that the quality of this type of prayer is different. We pray for peace and comfort, and the Lord considers this an offering, “alms of our prayers.” This holds particular resonance for me today as I reflect on the concerted actions of many faithful neighbors and friends who aren’t just praying in some kind of hermetic, isolated way, but in concert with daily action and sacrifice. Everyday offerings that accumulate over two years of pandemical endurance, like missing this activity or that vacation, tending to this interruption and that family member, wearing the mask in the midst of judgmental passengers or despite physical discomfort, taking an injection of the vaccine despite anxieties for medicine, checking in with neighbors, standing up for the vulnerable for the thousandth time, taking maskline-bruises in the face to keep up the grind of ministering as a healthcare worker to the diseased and the dying. Our list could be endless. But not to the Lord: the alms of our prayers sound in his ears and are recorded in the book of the names of the sanctified. This revelation will have a lot to say about sanctification, but already the Lord assures us that such offering-prayers sanctify us.

So, we keep praying and keep sacrificing and keep bringing these two into a holy offering. The Lord hears and records this, and we are blessed by it.

Another Advocate

“Wherefore.” We have a connecting word, a rhetorical enthymeme that associates a premise with an outcome. Given the alms of our prayers having come up to the ears of the Lord, the Lord now does something in response. This is signaled by his use of “wherefore,” which bridges the opening lines with his action. “Wherefore, I now send upon you another comforter, even upon you my friends; that it may abide in your hearts, even the holy spirit of promise which other comforter, is the same, that I promised unto my deciples, as is recorded in the testamony of John.” Another comforter to abide in our hearts, even the holy spirit of promise. It would be easy to take this reference at a surface level and assume the Lord now sends the Holy Spirit to be with us and abide in our hearts. The words appear to suggest this much. But two layers of references and meanings are going on: (1) a concept of assurance that Joseph Smith and his associates were very much attuned to in their readings of the New Testament; (2) the original setting for Jesus teaching his disciples about the comforter.

Assurance of Salvation

Put simply, Joseph Smith and his associates picked up on the New Testament concept of assurance of salvation, something discussed frequently within European and American Protestant churches and Bible studies. When the Gospel of John has Jesus promising his disciples “another comforter,” Protestants going back to Martin Luther and John Calvin understood these passages to mean a faithful follower of Christ could live with an advanced Judgment Day, so to speak; a witness from the Holy Spirit that God had accepted them into eternal grace. The knowledge of assurance of salvation was supposed to be the greatest blessing in mortality and something that could sustain the disciple through any of life’s travails. The concept infuses Protestant readings of Paul who talked about hope in Christ. A fullness of hope would mean a complete assurance of salvation in Christ. In the first reading of D&C 88, Joseph Smith and his associates believed they were hearing the Lord assure them of salvation. All the signs are there: names being recorded in the book of the sanctified and celestial world, the “another comforter” reference, the “holy spirit of promise” reference, the “promise I give unto you of eternal life; even the glory of the celestial kingdom, which glory is that of the church of the first born.” It’s fair to look at the reception of D&C 88 and notice how these opening passages carried meanings of assurance of salvation in the Protestant/New Testament/biblical sense.

The Original Saying

But there is also the original setting for Jesus’s teachings about the other comforter. And because the revelation directly situates this reference to “another comforter” within “the same … as is recorded in the [testimony] of John,” the Lord is the one calling our attention to what John’s account says and what Jesus originally said of this comforter. In John 14:15, we get the following (all taken from original Greek manuscripts, with scholarly translations presented): “If you love me, you will [teresete = guard/protect/keep] my [entolas = laws/orders/commands]. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another [parakleton = advocate/helper/intercessor], [hina = that he (as in, the Father)] may be with you [eis ton ailona = for the age].” The keyword in this passage is parakleton, which enjoys very broad consensus among Greek and biblical scholars as meaning “advocate.” The use of “comforter” in the King James Version is owed to the first English translations of the Bible that the ecclesiastical committees that produced the KJV used in selecting a rendition. John Wycliffe and William Tyndale both used “comforter” despite looking at the Latin Vulgate for reference, which maintained parakletos as a legal term referring to the Roman equivalent of attorneys. They likely based their use of “comforter” on the late Roman era teachings about the Holy Spirit being a comforter and retrojected this into supposed references to the Holy Spirit. Joseph Smith had practically no knowledge of Greek by 1832 but possessed an extraordinary fluency of King James language; it makes absolute sense that when inspired by revelation with Jesus’s words in John 14 that Joseph would perpetuate “comforter” instead of “advocate”; and it makes sense that the Lord would add reference to the original promise of the parakleton, giving us a reason to consider the biblical text and its settings.

Advocacy makes sense in the context of this introduction to D&C 88: the alms of our prayers have ascended into the ears of the Lord and are recorded in the “book of the names of the sanctified,” a reference to the biblical Book of Life, the Judgment Day ledger of those embraced by God’s grace. The Holy Spirit of Promise is, according to D&C 88, “the promise which I give unto you of eternal life.” And who can offer such a promise? The Atoning One, our Advocate with the Father. Later in the revelation, the Lord will urge us to sanctify ourselves so that “I may make you clean, that I may testify unto your father, and your God, and my God, that you, are clean, from the blood of this, wicked generation, that I may fulfil this promise, this great and last promise, which I have made unto you.” The Lord as advocate who fulfills a great and last promise to pronounce us clean before our Heavenly Father—this identity of Christ is brought full circle through several long passages of the revelation and gives meaning to “Holy Spirit of Promise,” the knowledge of being sanctified and protected by Jesus’s atoning advocacy on our behalf.

The Light and Truth that Shineth

We could take what follows at this point in the revelation as a tangent on metaphysics. After all, the Lord takes the discussion into quite an esoteric theme of light and truth and the sun, moon, stars, and glories, and how our understandings are quickened, and how enlightenment comes to our eyes and minds, how life emerges, how God fills the immensity of space, how the order of the universe is governed by God, how the resurrection comes to pass, and on, and on. We get a deep exploration into the process and effects of sanctification. We learn about kingdoms and orders of being. We learn about the light of Christ and the law of Christ and how they differ and reinforce each other. We learn about the natural body, the righteous, what righteousness means, how the meek inherit the earth, how Jesus comes to us, how God can comprehend all things, how God is seen, how the Saints may bring about a solemn assembly and prepare themselves for the Lord’s coming in glory. I love digging into these themes and details. These represent no tangent, but are critical to understanding how the Lord can offer peace and divine presence despite turmoil. There is no shortcut around the metaphysical realities at play; the Lord needs us to understand that we are in fact tethered to him even though we cannot comprehend it, how we cannot even abide without this tethering, even though such reality is dark to our minds. So, I don’t wish to sidestep the gravity of these verses and the seriousness of learning these technical details.

Today, I’ll just concentrate on one takeaway from the Lord’s rich excursus into the nature of reality. All of this serves to emphasize that we do, right now, see God moving in his majesty and power. The light of his being enters our eyes. The truth of his Spirit enlightens our understanding constantly. Whatever knowledge of truth we possess, it can be traced to God’s omnipresent action. It is God who quickens—gives life—to our understandings. And so when the Lord says that he is with us, he means it with seriousness. In our thoughts, in our eyes, there is light and that light is traceable to the Lord, and we can count ourselves safe in his care. We can go to his law, what he has taught and delivered to us as the way to live, and by so doing, be sanctified in it and by it. With this sanctification, our bodies becoming ever fuller with light and truth, and if we receive this light and truth in faith as the Lord says are how they really exist, then we will take the light and truth within us as physically real presence of Christ in us, animating us, giving us life, and bringing us to safety.

So, the questions I ask myself today: Is there wisdom to be gained from the turmoil around us? Is there something I know to be true as it is manifest in light and love? Whatever wisdom, truth, light, or love that may come from asking myself these things I can, on the invitation from D&C 88, see such things as a real, comprehensible abiding in Jesus. I can receive these as evidences that the Lord is with us, in us, abiding here, today, through the turmoil, all the while advocating on our behalf that our Father in Heaven receive us into his presence.

This olive leaf, this message of peace, tells us that we can draw near unto the Lord and that he will draw near unto us. Although we cannot escape the turmoil around us, our refuge is, and always will be, in the abiding knowledge that Jesus pleads our safety and is speaking peace to our minds as we continue sending the alms of our prayers to him.

unto what shall I liken these kingdoms, that ye may understand, behold all these are kingdoms, and any man, who hath seen any, or the least of these, have seen God, moving in his magesty and power; I say unto you, he hath seen him, nevertheless, he who came unto his own, was not comprehended, the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, nevertheless, the day shall come, when you shall, comprehend even God, being quickened in him, and by him, then shall ye know, that ye have seen me, that I am, and that I am the true light, that is in you, and that you are in me, otherwise ye could not abound.

I wish to abound in these days of contention, plague, calamity, and uncertainty. It is darkness to behold these troubles and not see God with us. It will be the work of the mind to seek to comprehend the light of Christ shining in our darkness, but I’m certain if we can do this, we will see him moving in his majesty and power.