Cover image via Gospel Media Library. 

In a span of four weeks, my wife and I attended three funerals. One was for the 43-year old daughter of good friends. She had been in the hospital since December. Another was the 41-year-old son-in-law of my wife’s cousin. His death was sudden and unexpected. The other was the former husband of a sister we had home taught for several years. There was sadness for the death of each one. We mourn for our family and friends who have passed away. We miss them and think of them often. During each funeral, each memorial service, and during each day, week, month, and year ahead of us, we can feel great comfort because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the October 2006 General Conference, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917-2008) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared the following:

“During my life I have heard many sermons on the Resurrection. Like you, I can recite the events of that first Easter Sunday. I have marked in my scriptures passages regarding the Resurrection and have close at hand many of the key statements uttered by latter-day prophets on this subject.

I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.

On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross.

On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled.

It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.”

May the Lord bless us with the calm, reassuring, peaceful feeling of knowing that Sunday will come and we will be reunited again.