Taking Upon Us the Name of Christ

In this most recent general conference, Elder Robert Gay spoke about taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ.  He said that one way we do this is to “serve as He served” and told a powerful story about Elder Talmage who risked his life to serve a family sick with a deadly diphtheria disease.  They had four children with several dying in their destitute conditions, and no one else would help them for fear of getting the disease themselves.  But Elder Talmage went to them, buried their dead, cleaned their filthy home, and “held the five-year-old.  She coughed bloody mucus all over his face and clothes.  He wrote, ‘I could not put her from me,’ and he held her until she died in his arms.”  If there was ever an image of someone taking upon himself the name of Jesus Christ, surely that was it—out of pure love to comfort and care for a dying child, he held her close at the risk of contracting the disease himself.  That is what the Savior would do.

               We often tell people who are going to be baptized that in so doing they make a covenant to be “willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9).  We teach this because that is what Alma taught his people at the waters of Mormon when they were being baptized.  I’ve sometimes said to myself, though, if that’s really the covenant I made at baptism.  If I read the Lord’s requirement for baptism that is binding today in Doctrine and Covenants 20:37, it says nothing like that: “All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.”  If I listen to the Sacrament prayers that renew the baptismal covenant each Sunday, I see no language about mourning with those who mourn or comforting those who stand in need of comfort: those who partake “they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77).  I finally realized, though, that these two covenant scriptures really do both give in essence the same requirement as the people of Alma.  To take upon us the name of Jesus Christ is to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.  That is the essence of what it means to “put on Christ”—to serve as He would serve (Galatians 3:27).

            In the same session of conference President Eyring similarly spoke of what it means to take upon us the name of Christ, and he came to the same conclusion.  He said, “By your being willing to take His name upon you, you will lift the burdens of countless others.”  He told of his wife and how she always found those who were in need, even before the Bishop.  He said of her, “I think that she will find, when she sees Him, that our Savior has put His name into her heart and that she has become like Him.”  Through her selfless service throughout her life, she had indeed taken upon herself the name of Christ—she had become like Him.