milk & honey mamas

Theological background by Kristen

And so we come to the end of Nephi’s writing. The last of the family to remember Jerusalem, he has been a bridge writer. Nephi has identified with the prophecies of Isaiah as symbols of his family’s covenant relationship that will bring them from exile to reunion, from estrangement to restoration. At the heart of his reading of Isaiah, the key to the healing from woundedness, is the coming of Jesus Christ. Nephi reads Isaiah as foretelling Christ’s coming, believing that the Messiah alone can heal the ruptures and gather the scattered. This is the testimony he leaves with his children, and their children, and the community his death will leave behind. 

What do his people need to do to partake of this gift, to find the healing and restoration he knows they will need? Nephi teaches the doctrine of Christ. 

It is easy to take Nephi’s teaching out of its context (or what we can guess about its context). In the doctrine of Christ he presents we find much that fits into our paradigm of Christianity handed down and adapted over centuries. But Nephi did not know Tertullian, or Origen, or Martin Luther, or even Joseph Smith. His doctrine of Christ is developed in the landscape of the promised land, from his study of the brass plates, his Jewish training, and his mystical experiences. 

He sees a vision:

Christ, going forth into the water. 

Christ, enveloped in the flow, lifted again, droplets shimmering in the sun. 

Christ inviting his followers after him. 

Christ speaking: those that follow me will be filled with the Spirit of Life. And Nephi understands: baptism is a new life, a witness, a birth. The birth happens within, expanding the parameters of the soul so that life caresses every corner and spews forth in love. And Nephi remembers the tree of life, and the path to the tree, and it all makes sense to him. The path is the way of witness, the path is the new life, the opened life. Nourish this life with the fruit of God’s word, feeding the love like roots within you until you are planted firm in the earth, at home in the garden beside the living waters, drawing strength from the Mother Tree. 

And Nephi closes his eyes, tears running down his cheeks, and he carves his words into the record. Remember, he says, as though he could press the heart of the vision into metal, you are caught up in this. The path is wide, the roots are deep, the love is real. Stay here, stay where there is safety, be true to the covenant. And maybe for the thousandth time, he thinks of his brothers, and wonders where they are and what they are doing, and replays it all again. Could it have been otherwise? 

And he leaves these words, the testimony of a mystic, with the pledge of his life blood. I carried the words of the prophets into the new land. I taught my people the covenant. I can rest, now, in peace by my father and mother, whose faith I cherished. One day, all of this will make sense again. One day, Christ will meet us here in this land and write the covenant again. One day, the love will hold us safe. 

Ideas for play:

We have avoided reducing Nephi’s “doctrine of Christ” into memorizable “steps” or dogmas. Instead, we’re inviting a spirit of curiosity and exploration depending on where you are and what you’re hoping to pull from the text 🙂

Ideas for Play

Contributed by Kristen

• Listen to or read the Book of Mormon storybook!

• Who is Jesus? Try this video 

• Talk about the doctrine of Christ. Here’s a video of Jesus’ baptism 

• What does baptism do?

• Talk about baptism as a symbol. Discuss being in a community and traveling on a path of love 

• Draw pictures of the path with the tree of life lighting the way
  • What does it mean to follow Jesus? Add pictures to your path!

• How do we strengthen the life of love we enter into? What feeds it? 

• Read Nephi’s words aloud while your kids draw pictures 

• Coloring page of Jesus’ baptism 

Art

Compiled by Caroline

Poetry

Compiled by Caroline

St. John the Baptist: 2 Baptism

by Malcolm Guite

Love’s hidden thread has drawn us to the font,

A wide womb floating on the breath of God,

Feathered with seraph wings, lit with the swift

Lightening of praise, with thunder over-spread,

And under-girded with an unheard song,

Calling through water, fire, darkness, pain,

Calling us to the life for which we long,

Yearning to bring us to our birth again.

Again the breath of God is on the waters

In whose reflecting face our candles shine,

Again he draws from death the sons and daughters

For whom he bid the elements combine.

As living stones around a font today,

Rejoice with those who roll the stone away.

Music

Compiled by Caroline

When I am Baptized, Kristen Nelson