Temple Ceremony
Posted on May 7th, 2008 at 2:51 pmMy friend, Greg, not a Mormon himself, would often remark, “You’ve just been to the temple, haven’t you?” When I asked how he knew, he said there was always an extra light in my countenance. I found that so interesting that friends would notice an increase of divine light and power which I also felt and feel as I enter, serve, and leave a dedicated House of the Lord.
I’d like to share a series of posts about the Mormon temple, the temple ceremony, as some refer to our endowment session, which takes place there. I have a deep reverence for the Lord’s house and think that if honest seekers are wanting to know the truth about the temple, it behooves them to find out from us, and not from spooked videos misusing sacred text or mocking symbolic undergarments.
I think what encapsulates the temple experience for me are four words: “The Power of Presence.” A temple is literally a House of God. I go there and I am changed in His presence. It’s simple and beautiful. He has commanded that we build houses dedicated to Him, in which we can receive the highest gospel ordinances. They’re not anything new to the earth. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the Old and New Testaments will notice hundreds of scriptural references to the ordinances of the House of the Lord performed since the garden experience. It’s amazing how often prophets would go to the temple to inquire of the Lord, to ask for guidance, to share God’s word. Sometimes temple ordinances themselves took place on a mountain top; other times in the Tabernacle, or in a divinely erected temple, but they are certainly not new in our day, simply fully restored to the earth.
I’ve feel as if I’ve grown up in the Lord’s house spiritually. The temple is a place of peace and revelation. It’s also a place of service and instruction. In the temple ceremony, or endowment, for example, we receive knowledge about the plan of salvation and we make promises to the Lord to enable us to move forward in our eternal progression.
Nothing there is secret. It is only sacred. Just as we need to qualify for loans, receive security clearance before entering an airplane, we also need to qualify for the Lord’s highest ordinances by our striving to be obedient to his commandments. Anyone can qualify who desires to qualify. There are no disclaimers, no restrictions of race or gender. The Lord invites all to come unto Him, and to His house, who are willing to follow Him, accepting His atonement and striving to implement His teachings in their lives.
Some wonder about the symbolic nature of the temple ceremony. Those outside the Church often mystify what isn’t mysterious, and sensationalize what isn’t sensational in the wordly way. We learn symbolically. Just as baptism is symbolic of our death to our old selves and a rebirth to a new life in Christ, and as well, of Christ’s resurrection, so, too, is the endowment symbolic of our commitments and our progression as we learn how to enter the Lord’s presence in an instructional venue.
I like what Mormon educator, Truman Madsen, says about the nature of ordinances. Truman acknowledges the blend of thought and feeling that occur in the temple, and says he wishes we had a word for it, like “compre-feel.” In the ordinances, “a symphonic combination of all aspects of the self occurs” (The Highest in Us, p. 39). Ordinances trigger spiritual memories and enable us, endow us with power to carry on here tapping into a reservoir of strength and knowledge that has come with us here and which the Savior has provided through his atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is not a matter of magical mysticism but of the Master’s manner of teaching us in His house.
I love the temple. I recently found one expression of my feelings about the temple ordinances in the scriptures: “More to be desired are they than gold, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Ps. 19: 10).
This is only a glimpse into what a temple is. There is much more to come. And there is much that can only be experienced first-hand.
Feel free to ask a question, if you are an honest seeker of truth.
2 Responses to “Temple Ceremony”
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May 8th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Thank you for sharing your feelings about the temple. We need much more of this in the Church, those who will share with others what the temple means to them, how it has changed their life, and how it brings them closer to Christ. The temple is not mystical, dark, or occult. On the contrary, it is uplifting, enlightening, inspiring, full of light and truth.
I know that the temple has changed my life, and I feel so much closer to the Savior when I attend there. It is hard to put into words those things which approach the infinite and eternal. The temple is a bridge between earth and heaven, and in it we can escape this world and be nearer to God. Wherever and whenever there has been the kingdom of God on earth, there has been a temple.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Thanks, Bryce, for stopping by and for sharing your experience and insights. I agree that the experience changes us, because the atonement does, and the temple is centered in the power of the atonement and the ordinances that “enable” and actualize that power on a real-time, moment-to-moment basis. No amount of yellow-stickies with affirmations, no self-help volume, can do more for a person’s perspective and concept of self than being in a House of the Lord. Thanks again.