Because Christ did not have the priesthood in His day, did He? He was not born into the correct lineage of the tribe of Levi to be seen as a priest in his day. He did not serve in the temple. We see him as having a different priesthood. Paul makes that argument skillfully. But He wasn’t a priest in His day. He found other ways to do the work of these offices just like I’m trying to do.
So, we have the opportunity to receive all the blessings associated with the priesthood. The power and authority of the Aaronic Priesthood is to hold the keys of the ministering of angels. The power of the Melchizedek Priesthood is to receive the mysteries of the kingdom, to have the heavens opened to them. to commune and come into the presence of God. What are these blessings? This is it. This is from Elder Ballard again on Men and Women and Priesthood Power: “All who have made sacred covenants with the Lord and who honor those covenants, are eligible to receive…the ministering of angels and to commune with God (the specific blessings associated with the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood) and…to become heirs alongside [Jesus] Christ of all [our Father] has.”
Latter-day Saints and others often mistakenly equate priesthood with religious office and the men who hold it, which obscures the broader Latter-day Saint concept of priesthood. I hope these images also are familiar to the sisters in the room, to all of you, as you think about women in these roles.
Elder Ballard, “The endowment is literally a gift of power. All who enter the house of the Lord officiate in the ordinances of the priesthood (M. Russell Ballard, Men and women and priesthood power, Ensign, September 2014). “We go to the temple for the first time to be clothed and vested with that authority. And we go back to act in that priestly role on behalf of everyone else we are there for, vicariously or as a worker. In all of those roles we are acting with priesthood authority.”
I’ve noticed that women as well as men participate in these roles of representing angels and God. For a long time, when I went to the temple, I was looking at what Adam and Eve could teach me about what I needed to do to get priesthood power. I’ve begun, in recent years, to look at what other people in the temple drama can teach me about priesthood power, about how to empower others, not just how to bring salvation and power to myself. But what do I do then, once I have that? My job in the kingdom of God, in the power of God, is to empower others. That’s what He does. To empower the rising generation and the next, and the next, and the next.
He says we will be better off if we come here to the earth where we will be weak and vulnerable. Christ also represents these lesser gifts. He held no priesthood authority or office in his day, as it was defined. He had no position or office of religious governance of any kind. His Messianic role did not involve ousting the Romans, which is what they were expecting. In fact, the Romans killed Him. Instead He was trying to help people find inner peace that did not involve changing their circumstances. His only influence was through His own wisdom, character, and relationships. So what might be the best way for an individual today to be like Jesus? Maybe to be a woman in the Church. Now I’m not saying that men also do not gain their greatest victories through sacrifice, through suffering, through submission, and also get ample opportunities to be trained in those important character virtues. But we need not think that we are being left out as women because we learn these things differently.
“We cannot simply repent of being weak—nor does weakness itself make us unclean. We cannot grow spiritually unless we reject sin, but we also do not grow spiritually unless we accept our state of human weakness, respond to it with humility and faith, and learn through our weakness to trust in God. . . . Even when we sincerely repent of our sins, obtain forgiveness and become clean again, we remain weak. . . . But limitations and inadequacies are not sins and do not keep us from being clean and worthy of the Spirit”
The deacon’s role is first played in our lives by women. And continues to be played by women through our Church experience, with compassionate service, with ministering, with bringing the food to the ward dinner, with whatever it may be. This is a godly role and it changes how I see it when I think of the ways that God plays this role by feeding Adam and Eve, by feeding his children. In fact, in the last days, this mighty river that will flow out of the temple with priesthood power and heal the Dead Sea and heal the world, will be flanked by trees of life whose fruit will feed the world and whose leaves will heal the nations. Because I believe we are those trees that God is trying to teach us how to become, to take the seed of the gospel into our own lives, to become that tree that produces that fruit, that others will eat and plant the seed for themselves. That’s who God is. Someone who keeps giving away the seeds so that we can produce our own trees and give the seeds away to others.