Bearing a Child in Her Arms

During Nephi’s vision recorded in 1 Nephi 11, he at first told the angel that he did “not know the meaning of all things” and did not understand the “condescension of God.”  The angel then explained that he was beholding the mother of the Son of God, and he said, “Look!”  Nephi recorded, “And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!”  When he was then asked if he knew the meaning of the tree his father saw, Nephi responded, “Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.”  The angel commented, “Yea, and the most joyous to the soul” (1 Nephi 11:16-23).  Whereas a few moments before Nephi had not understood, seeing the Savior and this vision he grasped the meaning of the tree and did “behold the condescension of God” (v26).  He saw the Savior as a child, and then Nephi suddenly realized that the tree represented the love of God and that to have that love was more desirable than all things.  For Nephi seeing the Savior helping him come to an understanding of God’s love.  The angel, seeing the same thing and unable to refrain himself added almost impulsively that this love was the most joyous to the soul.  The Savior is Himself the personification of love. 

               I was struck to something else in this vision that perhaps contributed to this revelation that Nephi received.  In addition to seeing the Savior, I believe that Nephi came to understand the love of God because of the most common yet most powerful scene that he witnessed: a mother bearing a child in her arms.  It was precisely after that moment that Nephi came to understand the meaning of the tree, that it represented the love of God.  A few verses earlier he stated that he knew God loved His children, a statement of something he trusted and knew intellectually, but then he saw that love in action.  No action shows love like that of a mother holding a child in her arms.  Of course it was not just any mother or any child, and yet perhaps it could have been, for this scene repeated billions of times over is the best representation of God’s love that we have on earth: a mother holding a child.  When a mother holds a child, especially a newborn baby, there is no ulterior motive or hope for repayment or sense of duty—it is simply love.  It has been a powerful scene as well in my life as I’ve watched my own wife give birth to our children.  As soon as the baby is delivered, her sole desire is to hold that baby in her arms despite the fact that he or she may be rather dirty or that my wife is exhausted and famished.  Her only desire is to love and cradle and hold that child close she has been waiting for (and suffering for) for nine months.  A mother holding a child is indeed the best image possible to teach a young Nephi that the tree his father saw represented the love of God.  And nothing else says joy quite like that scene—for a mother, there is no other earthly experience so “joyous to the soul” as holding her newborn child in her arms.