Line upon Line

The still relatively new Orem Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands across the I-15 freeway, a short distance to the southwest of the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU).  That campus, of course, is where Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week.  The temple is a bit of a walk from UVU, but it’s plainly visible from much of the university and there is a pedestrian walkway over the freeway that makes it reasonably accessible.

I was in Oregon at the time, but I have heard from more than one source that, in the hours immediately following the assassination, a considerable number of students (or, anyway, of those who had been in the vicinity of the Charlie Kirk event) made their way over to the temple grounds.  As one account puts it, “they arrived in shorts and t-shirts, still wearing their backpacks.”  They were, it seems, seeking safety and refuge and peace.

How understandable and perfectly appropriate that is!  I’ve been moved by these accounts, and I thought of a passage in the Book of Mormon.  It immediately follows the account of the cataclysmic destruction in the New World that accompanied the death of Jesus Christ in the Old.  Where did the survivors gather after the horror and death of that event?

And now it came to pass that there were a great multitude gathered together, of the people of Nephi, round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful; and they were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another the great and marvelous change which had taken place. (3 Nephi 11:1)

I thought, too, of these words from the Doctrine and Covenants:

And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. . . .

But my disciples shall stand in holy places, and shall not be moved; but among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die.

And there shall be earthquakes also in divers places, and many desolations; yet men will harden their hearts against me, and they will take up the sword, one against another, and they will kill one another. . . .

And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God;

And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.

And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.

And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.  (Doctrine and Covenants 45:26, 32-33, 66-69)

Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved.  (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8)

On a wintry Utah night many decades ago, President Harold B. Lee and a local church leader paused, gazing through snow and darkness toward the Manti Utah Temple, which stood high on the hill above them. “That temple,” the local man observed, “lighted as it is, is never more beautiful than in a storm or when there is a dense fog.” President Lee made the application: “Never is the gospel of Jesus Christ more important to you,” he said, “than in a storm or when you are having great difficulty” (see “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee“).