After the Ascension

After recounting the great destruction among the Nephites at the time of the Savior’s death, Mormon recorded how the people heard the voice of Christ during those three days of darkness in 3 Nephi 9-10.  This was before His visit in person, and one question we might naturally ask is this: how long passed from the time they heard the voice to the time He came among them?  Mormon gave us this somewhat ambiguous description: “And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold, I will show unto you that the people of Nephi who were spared, and also those who had been called Lamanites, who had been spared, did have great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them” (3 Nephi 10:18).  We know that the three days of darkness happened in the beginning of that thirty and fourth year (from 3 Nephi 8:5 which tells us the great storm started on the fourth day of the first month), and so we know that Christ came sometime within a year of that event.  On the one hand Mormon’s phrase “in the ending of the thirty and fourth year” seems to suggest that there was some significant time between the destruction and His visit (i.e. perhaps not until the end of that year), but on the other hand he said “soon after the ascension of Christ,” perhaps implying something significantly less than a nearly twelve-month period.

               The reference to the ascension, though, does give us a clue.  Mormon referenced this again when the people first saw the Savior descending, saying that “they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into heaven” (3 Nephi 11:12).  If we take this to mean the same ascension spoken of in the Gospels and the book of Acts, then this was “the formal departure of the Risen Savior from the earth” that took place “40 days after His Resurrection.”  So that would put the Nephite visit at least forty days after the time of the destruction (since that was right before the resurrection).  We know from Luke’s account about the disciples in the Old World that the Savior was “seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God,” and so it makes sense that the Savior wouldn’t be able to go to visit the Nephites until after that time (Acts 1:3).  We know that He came and went several time among the Nephites—also visiting other “lost tribes of Israel” in between, but we don’t know exactly how many times He came to them or how many days He was among them (3 Nephi 17:4).  It wouldn’t surprise me if it was also forty days that He ministered to them as He taught and prepared the disciples to lead the people into an incredible period of peace.

             Of course, exactly when He came among them isn’t that crucial to understand, but there is one thing about the fact that He did not come until after the ascension to the Nephites that sticks out to me.  Though He had ascended to the right hand of His Father, He was not at all done ministering to the people!  Though He had exclaimed on the cross, “It is finished,” His work of ministering to the children of men was clearly not complete (John 19:30).  He continued to minister and perform exactly the labor that His Father had for Him.  We know as well that after His death and before His resurrection He was busy in the Spirit World preparing the missionary forces, and surely He has been continuing the work of His Father in perfect obedience since that day.  As He declared through Nephi, “My work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever” (2 Nephi 29:9).  He never rests from His work of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.