“The primary purpose of the scriptures is to testify of Jesus Christ, helping us to come unto Him and partake of His Atonement. As we search the scriptures diligently, we will learn about the Savior through teachings, stories and symbols.” (From the LDS Sunday School manual for youth, italics added) This was my goal last Sunday, as I taught the youth (ages 14-18) in Sunday School: to help them learn more about the Savior through the stories and symbols in the scriptures.
To start, I asked the kids to write a list of “Attributes of Jesus Christ”. They started their lists with things like, “He is the Savior – He saves us from sin and He saves us from death”, “He is the Son of God and the Son of Man”, “He is loving”, “He heals”. These were all great answers, but after about 5 minutes of brainstorming together, their lists were still pretty short. Now, take into account that all the kids in my class that day were born and raised in gospel and Christ centered homes. They attend church every Sunday and they love it. But when asked to sit down and put together a list of attributes, it was a challenge.
We then put that list aside and began discussing stories in the scriptures, like Noah and the Ark. How can this story be symbolic of Christ? The kids came up with some great symbols, “The ark could be Jesus, how He carries us even though the tide of sin is all around; or the Atonement, how it washes sin away from us and lets us start a new life; Noah is like Christ because he invites us to come unto him and be saved”. They went on and on. It was such a blessing to see them digging a little deeper into the childhood story of Noah (one often passed over as being for little children because “it’s just about boats and animals”). The beauty of symbols (and most especially in the parables taught by the Savior himself) is that there are so many layers. They are simple enough for a child to hear and remember the stories, but then as they grow, and gain more experience, they can see that there is another layer, a deeper meaning. And it goes on and on. The older and more experienced one is and the more prayerful and eager to learn, the more God can bless us with knowledge and guidance.
In an article I read about scriptural symbolism, I found this beautiful quote, “Symbols help with spiritual communication. Through symbols, the Lord forges a link with us by using the things of this earth to represent the things of heaven.” In other words, we are mortals with a finite understanding, and God who is Immortal and Omniscient is trying to communicate with us. He wants us to hear, understand and use His knowledge. But how can we even begin to understand such an incredible Being? So He tells us stories and uses pictures, examples, and other symbols to help us draw connections.
Another beautiful benefit of symbolism is that it hides deeper meanings from those who are not ready. The Savior taught his disciples this when they asked him the meaning of a parable he had spoken. They had not understood what he had taught in symbols, so he gave them the answer and then said, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not hear.”(Luke 8:9-10) Later he added, “Him that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”(Mark 4:23, and 8 other places in the New Testament). He explained that he used parables both to clarify truth and to keep it hidden. That is, to those who really desired to know it for the right reasons, the key to the symbol was given and they understood truth more clearly; but to others, for various reasons, the meaning of the symbol escaped them and they remained in darkness. Jesus wants us to desire to understand, to study, ponder, and ask Him what the meaning is, and how it applies to us.
Yet another reason symbols are so powerful is that, “Symbols can be timeless, culture-free, and language-free. When such things as plants, animals, or manifestations in nature are used to teach principles, they can be used without reference to a particular language, time, or people and can bridge the barriers of communication that often exist between ages or cultures. The use of a wave of the sea to represent a person whose faith is not firm (see James 1:6 for example) can communicate the same message to any people at any time.
One scripture reference we used in class is where God says to Adam, “And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.” (Moses 6:63)
Wow. All things bear record of God? What about trees? Yes. I asked the kids to list ways that trees are symbols of Christ; they came up with, “They give us oxygen which we need to live; they give us wood by dying for us; the wood gives us warmth and light by fire; the wood can be used to build shelter”. All of these are things Christ is and does. One student suggested we think about water since Christ called Himself “The Living Water”. How can water “bear record” of the Savior of the world? Here are some of the class’ ideas, “We are made mostly of water; we need it every day to live; it refreshes us and everything around; it comes from heaven” and so on.
We went through more scripture stories and found so very many symbols of Christ. Once our symbol lists were nice and long, I had them pull out their first list of “Attributes of Christ” and look to see if they had learned anything new about the Savior since they had studied these scripture stories and symbols. They began to add new things to the Attribute list like, “He warms my Spirit, He is my Light and the Light of the World; He gives me shelter; He carries me over sin –He is water tight, no sin will get in; He invites me to come in unto Him; He gives me new Life”. The list had grown longer and more meaningful. We discovered together that looking for symbols and pondering their meaning teaches us much about Jesus Christ and His ways.
*If you are interested in listening to a 23 minute Question and Answer radio program entitled, "All Things Testify of Christ" the link is here.
* Also, this is a beautiful short video on making some symbolic connections in our relationship to our Heavenly Father.
*My husband took this picture on Easter and we took turns with our kids looking for symbols in it. What symbols do you see? Please comment below.
