Sacred Embrace

The Book of Mormon account of the risen Lord began with an embrace (see 3 Nephi 5:6). The first wound that was felt when the people came to the Lord at Bountiful was in an embrace. It was the wound on His side. “The first place He brings you is to Himself, standing in His presence, beside Him, in an embrace, in plain humility, as if any of us were good enough to stand in His presence. That is where it begins. Then His hands, and then as it fully dawns upon you the enormity of the gulf between you and Him, where you end up is kneeling at His feet. It’s the wounds on the feet you see last.”¹ In 3 Nephi 8:6 the Lord reminded the Nephites that they should remember the body which [He had] shewn unto [them]. Partaking of the sacrament in the way that He instituted was to remind them of the sacred embrace and ceremony of recognition they had just participated in with the risen Lord. The Lord could give no greater testimony of what He had done, who He was, and how He served them than by showing to them His risen body still bearing the marks of crucifixion.²“In a ceremony of recognition and sacred embrace, you will find that the rites of the LDS temple are a wonderfully accurate preparation for the real event.”³See also CEREMONY OF RECOGNITION.