Fellow Servants

In his recent talk in general conference, President Steven J. Lund spoke about the large number of Aaronic priesthood ordinations that take place at the beginning of every year. He said, “Each January, hands are laid on the heads of about 100,000 young men, connecting them through ordinance to a bright line of authority stretching back through the Restoration epoch to Joseph and Oliver, to John the Baptist, and to Jesus Christ.” Previously young men were ordained when they reached their 12th, 14th, and 16th birthdays, but now instead it occurs in January of those years in mass numbers. President Lund continued, “These ordinations launch these young men into lifetimes of service as they will find themselves in consequential times and places where their presence and prayers and the powers of the priesthood of God they hold will profoundly matter.” He quoted these well-known words of John the Baptist when he conferred the Aaronic Priesthood on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery: “Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 13:1). I love the use of the term “fellow servants” by John—service is the essence of the priesthood and these young men, like Joseph and Oliver, indeed embark into “lifetimes of service” when they receive the priesthood.

Abraham learned this from the Lord about the priesthood in our day: “In thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal” (Abraham 2:11). Through the priesthood all of the families of the earth are to be blessed, and surely part of the fulfillment of that promise is seen through the dedicated service of hundreds of thousands of young Aaronic priesthood holders who administer the sacrament, baptize, and “warn, expound, exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:59). President Lund told of one such instance when a deacons quorum chose to serve an elderly sister in their ward and her husband. He was a “somewhat hostile neighbor” but “the deacons went to work, comically ignoring his insults, while they shoveled snow and took out trash. Deacons can be hard to hate, and Alan eventually began to love them.” They invited him to church to their quorum meeting, and he came. President Lund continued, “The deacons became teachers, and as they continued to serve him, he taught them to work on cars and to build things. By the time these deacons-turned-teachers became priests, Alan was calling them ‘my boys.’” They began preparing for missions and practiced the missionary lessons on him. Alan then became sick and softened his heart, requesting their prayers to quit smoking during quorum meeting. “They followed him home and confiscated all of his tobacco stash. As his failing health put Alan into hospitals and rehab centers, ‘his boys’ served him, quietly exuding powers of priesthood and of love unfeigned.” He ultimately requested to be baptized but passed away before he could be. And so his boys went to the temple and were baptized for him by proxy. President Lund summarized, “Everything John the Baptist said to do, they did. They did what deacons, teachers, and priests do all over this Church and all over this world.” They were true “fellow servants” whose service had a profound impact on this man.

I love these words of Isaiah: “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land⁠: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them⁠, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids” (Isaiah 14:2). The Lord’s kingdom is for those who will be servants and handmaids; it is for those willing to serve and bless others, for as the Savior said, “Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister⁠; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant⁠: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28). The young men of the Aaronic Priesthood and the Savior Himself remind us that our greatest role is to be a servant to others, seeking to minister and bless however we can.