Alma's People Bearing One Another's Burdens

When Alma gathered together the people who believed his words at the waters of Mormon, he questioned them on their willingness to serve one another. In well-known words he suggested a willingness to serve each other as a prerequisite to baptism: “As ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:8-9). I believe for us that this requirement of serving one another is implicit in our covenant today to take upon us the name of Christ as mentioned in the Sacrament prayers, but I wonder why Alma thought it so important for his people to focus on serving one another and bearing one another’s burdens. Surely as a people they had challenges at that time that they needed help with. They had all taken the risk of being at odds with the king and so certainly one of their burdens was to stay safe from Noah as they started following the teachings of Abinadi. Alma knew that they needed one another to keep each other protected, and this may have been part of why he focused on bearing one another’s burdens. Mormon also explained about the people, “And thus they should impart of their substance of their own free will and good desires towards God, and to those priests that stood in need, yea, and to every needy, naked soul” (Mosiah 18:28). It may be that their affiliation with Alma resulted in less economic opportunity as they tried to secretly follow the teachings of God, and so there may be been many who were in particular need of help to meet their basic needs. Alma may have focused on bearing one another’s burdens to make sure the people would indeed help these who needed food and clothing.  

               It seems that another reason Alma focused on bearing one another’s burdens to this people was because he was inspired to prepare them for what was coming. Soon they found themselves abandoning their homes and escaping into the wilderness, each of them with very little. How they must have needed one another at that point to collectively bear one another’s burdens and mourn with those who mourned. Undoubtedly some left family members back among the people of King Noah and all of them were stripped of most their possessions, giving them much cause to mourn. They had to figure out how to start over from nothing, building a city from the ground up and keeping everyone alive in the process while they had so little. In particular those who were young or old or of frail health must have certainly needed extra help at this time, and the only way for them to survive was to band together and to lift each other up. Later the need for their mutual support for each other was even clearer when, perhaps many years later, they were brought under bondage by Amulon and the Lamanites. Amulon “exercised authority over them, and put tasks on them, and put task-masters over them.” They had “burdens” which were “put upon [their] shoulders” and it was a very challenging time for this people (Mosiah 23:9,14). Surely the fact that they were all committed to bearing one another’s burdens was key to their survival at this time as they helped each other through the ordeal. In hindsight we can see that Alma’s focus on supporting one another was inspired to help them make it through this challenging time. Their example is certainly one to follow for us as wards and stakes in the church of God. We don’t know what problems lie ahead for us, but surely we will depend on each other and will need to help bear one another’s burdens to make it through the difficult times to come.