Sabbath Devotional :: So Great a Cloud of Witnesses

O vos omnes qui transitis per viam:

attendite et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus.

O all ye that pass by the way,

attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.

Every Sunday for many years, I’ve stood and said with my peers, or with girls I was teaching, “We will stand as witnesses of God . . . .” Until recently, I always interpreted that to mean that I should offer, in word or deed, some testimony about God.

There is, of course, some grammatical ambiguity about of in English. It can mean about/related to, or it can mean from, or it can mark a possessive, as in a child of God — God’s child. Lately I have started to wonder if I might read “witnesses of God” to mean something more like “God’s witnesses.” What sort of witness would that be?

One place to look for a scriptural answer could be in God’s exchange with Enoch, in Moses, Chapter 7. Enoch is a seer — a see-er, a witness. And he talks with God. Over and over again, God says to him “Look!” “Behold!” “See.” And the one thing Enoch sees and can’t makes sense of, is God weeping. He asks, “How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? . . . And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity; and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?”

God’s answer is to tell him, again, to look: “Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;

And unto thy brethren have I . . . given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood.”

Enoch obeys–he looks and sees his siblings, God’s children: “wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook.”

His heart swelled wide as eternity. . .

This might be my favorite Restoration scripture–it is certainly some of the best poetry. And I think it tells us something about what it might mean to be God’s witnesses, to really, really see our fellow beings, in all their weakness and grandeur — that is how we begin to see as God did, when our bodies and minds yearn to really know what their lives are like.

The apostle Paul hints at this, too, when he ends his famous discourse on love with the slightly cryptic passage about the refraction and distortion of our mortal seeing: “For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Mormon also makes this linkage between seeing and the knowledge and love of God: “Wherefore . . . pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the [children] of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is . . . .”

I have thought about all of these passages in the last several days, as I’ve agonized about whether to watch the tapes of Tyre Nichols’s murder, and as I have made myself watch the devastating and beautiful tributes by his family at the celebration of his life. And as I have joyfully watched clips of Tyre skateboarding, and seen his photography.

I am angry and sad and heartsick and angry some more about Tyre’s death. I feel helpless — I am helpless — in the face of the evil that took his life; I cannot undo it. But I can bear witness, and sense in the witness of all of us called to belated love and grief for our brother, an outpouring of fierce tenderness that seems a little like hope.

I think it is important that the scene God wanted Enoch to witness was not of great beauty or of humans living up to their potential, but of wickedness and hatred. God makes Enoch look and look some more until he cries out in despair. “. . . as Enoch saw this, he had bitterness of soul, and wept over his brethren, and said unto the heavens: I will refuse to be comforted; but the Lord said unto Enoch: Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look.”

Even this is not the happy ending, though — there are several more verses of Enoch watching his fellow beings and the earth herself suffering, before God finally shows him the redemption of the world through Jesus Christ, and a vision of Zion at rest in the bosom of God. Bearing witness, looking until we can hardly bear it, seems to be the paradoxical prerequisite to seeing the vision of our highest good. Witness is the ground of hope, and of love. We cannot look away, and we also must not refuse to be comforted.

“Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look.”