PROVO, Utah — Holy Week and finals week coincide at BYU this week, and Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles made it clear which is most important and gave students several invitations.
“It’s arguably the most sacred week in the Christian calendar,” he said Tuesday, the day before the last day of Winter Semester classes. “We commemorate our Savior’s final days in mortality, culminating with his glorious Resurrection and triumph over death on that beautiful Easter Sunday.”
“Easter,” he added, “is a symbol of coming home, our coming home.”
A large audience — 13,815 — gathered at the Marriott Center for the campus devotional. Elder Uchtdorf said finals, which begin on Friday, “are important, too.”
“You should all study very hard for your exams,” he said, wishing the students both good luck and fair professors.
He asked the students to joyfully accept Jesus Christ in their lives, especially when “the beautiful, universal, eternal ideals of the gospel clash with the painful, individual, mortal realities of life.”
“There are at least two things you should remember,” he counseled. “Never give up on the ideal, and don’t disregard the real. Accept both.”
It can be difficult for mortal minds and hearts to hold two seemingly contradictory concepts at one time, he said, but not if they try to see the way God sees, which is a more complete perspective.
“We tend to think of joy as the absence of sorrow,” Elder Uchtdorf said. “But what if joy is not the absence of sorrow? What if joy and sorrow can coexist? What if they have to coexist?”
For example, in the Book of Mormon, the prophet Lehi taught that the Fall of Adam and Eve, which brought pain, sorrow, sickness and death into the world, also brought what Elder Uchtdorf called “deep joy.”
“In other words, if you wait for sorrow to end before you experience joy, you might miss joy completely,” Elder Uchtdorf said. “To experience a measure of sorrow may enable your heart and mind to receive pure heavenly joy!”
The people of Jerusalem rejoiced when Christ entered the city on Palm Sunday, believing he was the Messiah who would deliver them from Roman bondage, but what he did instead was done quietly, privately and was the atoning sacrifice all of God’s children needed, Elder Uchtdorf said.
“Just as He entered triumphantly into Jerusalem, the gentle Christ enters your lives, individually, if you will receive him,” he said, calling Christ the strength, salvation and joy of the students, staff and faculty.
He invited them to ask:
- Will I show Jesus Christ that I want Him to be my King?
- Will I invite Jesus Christ to have His Triumphal Entry into my life?
- Will I allow Jesus Christ to change my heart, to lift my vision, and to teach me his higher and holier ways?
“I bless you with hearts that are open as wide as the gates of Jerusalem to joyfully receive the Messiah, the Savior, the King of kings,” Elder Uchtdorf said. “I bless you with eyes to see his miraculous power working in your life, wherever you are. And as one of his apostles I testify of his power, his love, and his tender care for each and every one of you.”
He invited BYU students to use scripture study and daily prayer to “connect with Heavenly Father daily, elevate your view and raise your perspective on life and your personal situation ... Ask him to open your eyes to see things his way.”
Making time for quiet, deeply spiritual moments will allow students to discover that God knows them, their hearts and their names.
“These moments can be to you like that holy, peaceful moment on a beautiful spring morning outside an empty tomb,” Elder Uchtdorf said, “when a young woman was weeping and Jesus called her by name, ‘Mary.’ Can you feel Jesus calling you by name? Remember, the Savior knows your name.”
