Weapons of Rebellion

Elder Christofferson in the most recent general conference spoke about the story of the converted Lamanites who buried their weapons. He highlighted their enduring conversion—they never did fall away after they repented—and taught this: “The key to the enduring conversion of this people is stated in the next verse: ‘For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren.’ This reference to ‘weapons of rebellion’ was both literal and figurative. It meant their swords and other weapons of war but also their disobedience to God and His commandments.” I have often thought about this action of burying their weapons, and my wife and I have used it to try to motive our children to bury their own “weapons” and stop using them. That was usually done in a family night activity where we had them write on a piece of paper the behaviors they thought they should not do (e.g. spitting, hitting, yelling) and literally burying them in the backyard. What I haven’t focused on, though, is this additional description about the weapons, for the weapons themselves weren’t the problem: they were weapons “of rebellion.” In other words, what was wrong was not even wielding their weapons (that could be done in a righteous way) but in using them as part of a rebellion against God. Their story and experience invite us to consider what ways we are in rebellion against God, and what is good for one person might be the problem for another. Elder Christofferson put it this way, “There are things in our lives that may be neutral or even inherently good but that used in the wrong way become ‘weapons of rebellion.’” He used examples of our speech, our careers, and even our physical bodies. All of those can be used for good, but they can also turn into instruments of rebellion if we are not careful to always put the Savior first in our lives.

               In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, he described a religious convent that practiced something called reparation. He detailed what these sisters did: “Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the crimes committed on earth. For the space of twelve consecutive hours, from four o’clock in the afternoon till four o’clock in the morning, or from four o’clock in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon, the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees on the stone before the Holy Sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross; this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity. As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it is called without distinction, to make reparation or to be at the post. The nuns even prefer, out of humility, this last expression, which contains an idea of torture and abasement. To make reparation is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall directly behind her.” What an incredible act of self-abnegation!

Though of course this book is a fictional story, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t an accurate account of the kind of acts of submission to God that these religious communities practiced in the 1800s. While it is easy to dismiss this kind of total devotion as crazy, excessive, and counter-productive, we in the Restored Church could certainly use more of their level of commitment and submission and humility. We who believe that Enos prayed all day and all night in order to commune with the Lord and receive the remission of his sins could benefit from more whole-hearted devotion and acts of true humility before the Lord. These religious sisters laid down all their rebellion and sought to give their wills, in the best way they knew how, to the Lord. They sought to do as the converted Lamanite king prayed: “I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day” (Alma 22:18). Too often today we are pulled by the world to our own ways of passive rebellion instead of “yielding to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, putting off the natural man, and becoming ‘a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.’” Elder Christofferson left us with this powerful invitation to give up our own rebellion and submit fully to the Lord: “Burying our weapons of rebellion leads to a unique joy. With all who have ever become converted to the Lord, we are ‘brought to sing [the song of] redeeming love.’ Our Heavenly Father and His Son, our Redeemer, have confirmed Their unending commitment to our ultimate happiness through the most profound love and sacrifice. We experience Their love daily. Surely we can reciprocate with our own love and loyalty. May we bury—very, very deep—any element of rebellion against God in our lives and replace it with a willing heart and a willing mind.”