Always Remembering Him

When the Savior was among the Nephites, He administered the Sacrament to them.  After He broke bread and blessed it, He said to them, “And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.”  Similarly, when He blessed the wine and gave that to them He said, “Ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you, that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you” (3 Nephi 18:7, 11).  These words were then adapted to become what we now listen to every week in the blessing on the bread and water in the Sacrament, the time in which we each witness unto the Father that we “do always remember Him.”  This commitment is found in both prayers and represents the primary purpose of the Sacrament: to show that we remember the Savior and that we specifically remember His body and His blood which was shed for us.  Each week as we leave our Sacrament Meeting, this becomes our great endeavor, to remember Him and the physical sacrifice He made for us.

In this dispensation, the Savior invited Oliver Cowdery and all of us in a similar invitation to remember Him and specifically the signs of His sacrifice in His body: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.  Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36-37).  We can look unto Him and remember Him in our thoughts, and in our mind’s eye we can behold the prints of the nails in His hands.  We can remember Him by remembering how He gave up His life and let His blood be shed to save us all.  One of the very first invitations that He gave to the Nephites when He appeared from heaven among them was to indeed behold those physical wounds: “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 11:14).  His invitation to Oliver Cowdery and to us is to do the same, for though we may not for the present behold them literally, we can by looking unto Him in every thought think on those “wounds with which [He] was wounded in the house of my friends” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:52).

               One of Isaiah’s great messages about the Savior to us is that just as He invites us to always remember Him, He always remembers us.  He recorded these loving words of Jehovah: “For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel.  Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (1 Nephi 21:15-16).  Just as He asks us to see those wounds in His hands to remember Him, they are continually before Him to always remember us.  No matter what happens, He taught the Nephites that He can never forget us using these other words of Isaiah: “For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee” (3 Nephi 22:10).  He can never forget us, and we must never forget Him or the wounds in His hands that testify of His great love for each of us.  As we look at our hands we must remember His and the marks that witness His suffering, death, and resurrection to redeem us all.  It is common among Latter-day Saints to wear a CTR ring, a reminder to choose the right in all that we do with those hands.  We might also look at such a ring on our hands and see those letters to represent Christ The Redeemer, and hear these words from Him: “Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, your Lord, your God, and your Redeemer…. remembering unto the Father my body which was laid down for you, and my blood which was shed for the remission of your sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 27:1-2).