THE SACRED CENTER

 

 I woke up in the middle of the night last night and I had this symbol in my mind with some of its meanings. I don’t know if it's an inspired interpretation, but it is really beautiful. Everything I was understanding is that the many symbolic parts are all pointing to one thing–the Sacred Center. 

The sacred center is an ancient symbol that ultimately points to the throne of God. It is the place where God dwells, the Holy of Holies. The room known as the Holy of Holies was the innermost and most sacred area of the ancient tabernacle of Moses and temple of Jerusalem. The Holy of Holies was constructed as a perfect cube. The Tree of Life was planted in the midst of the garden–in the very center and four rivers flowed out from it marking the four corners or quarters of the earth and identifying Him who sits in the center as the King of it all. 

This idea of the center point within a circle has been conveyed in many ancient cultures. The Native American medicine wheel is communicating this idea of the sacred center from which all flows. The circle with a dot in the center is pointing us to that sacred center. Even the swastika was used to express this idea long before it was hijacked in the 20th century. With its four bent arms indicating motion, as it spins it creates a circle with a center point in the middle–everything in creation circumambulating around God in worship and reverence. 

The seal of Melkezidek, the eight pointed star, also indicates the throne of God. We are told there are 7 heavens and the ancients believed that the throne of God hovers above them all. 

The phases of the moon being placed in this symbol are interesting and beautiful to me. We know that God is both male and female together as one, thus they both occupy the throne together. Yet if we consider a more esoteric approach of the male and female, the masculine and feminine, we see that their roles and function are somewhat different. Traditionally the masculine is the unseen energy or presence that sits at the center holding everything together, while the feminine is all that is manifest, all that can be seen and “she” moves around Him in a circle of worship and reverence.

There is an account of this that I especially like in the Hindu tradition. The god with four faces is the creator deity who sits atop a lotus flower and his consort is Saraswati. According to mythology, Saraswati began to move or dance around Brahma in devotion and he was so captivated by her that he could not look away, so he grew four heads in four directions to continue looking at her always. 

This one account conveys many of the same things that our Covenant Christian symbol is conveying. A sacred center in which God dwells, sitting above all of creation, indicated by the four cardinal directions, as it(She) rotates around Him in reverence.

We know that traditionally the sun is symbolic of the Father and the moon of the Mother. The sun is steady and the same, day after day, never changing. The moon changes almost daily as she dances around the sun in her many moods, sometimes in the fullness of her splendor and sometimes hidden and retreating within herself.  This is beautifully displayed in this symbol with the moon moving around the center point in all of her phases. 

The Mother always points us towards the Father as the object of worship and salvation. And even She worships Him in devotion. 

We are told that God sitting on His throne is surrounded by concourses of angels praising and worshiping him always.  There is a lovely piece of art by Gustave Dore’ that expresses this idea. It is an illustration for Dante’s Divine Comedy when he is shown the dwelling place of God in the highest heaven.

So while all of this symbology is beautiful and meaningful, there is a point to it. Symbols are meant to communicate something to us. We are told in the preface of the Covenant of Christ that it has a different purpose than the Book of Mormon did with its mimicking of King James language. The Covenant of Christ, with its modern English, is to help a new generation understand the content (of the Book of Mormon) to help with the Lord’s return. The Lord gave it the title Covenant of Christ as a direct result of the covenant offered in 2017.

That is not insignificant! We are meant to use the Covenant of Christ to understand how to help with the Lord’s return. What exactly is found in the Book of Mormon, as a covenant no less, and clarified in the Covenant of Christ that will enable you, me, us to help with the return of Christ?

There is a singular theme that is found on almost every page of the Covenant of Christ and carried through the entire book. It is the idea that each individual can, and must, approach God in humility and repentance, with a broken heart and contrite spirit and be baptized by fire and the Holy Ghost, thus becoming a new creature in Christ. It is that we each must understand that our natural man is out of harmony with God and will be forever and ever until and unless we are willing to yield to the Spirit of God in all things. With real intent, acting no hypocrisy before God. 

Denver Snuffer stated this is 2020:
“The tendency to seek our own will is evil. It is also evil to feign we cooperate with heaven, when our real desire is to get something from heaven. “Real intent” involves the authentic, complete submission to the will of Heaven because that has become your sole objective. Not to get a great reward. Not to negotiate some blessing here and now. Not to become great in the eyes of Heaven. Just to have no other object in mind than to glorify God. It is the intent to not be influenced by any other motive but building His kingdom.

Service to God mustn’t be done for another desire or motive, or it is not “real intent” and is accounted as evil.

…And, to obtain the gift of the holy ghost, real intent is mandatory: “I know that if ye shall follow the Son with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ by baptism — yea, by following your Lord and Savior down into the water according to his word — behold, then shall ye receive the holy ghost.”

This is what God requires from us. It is a high bar. 

The Covenant of Christ states it this way:
“So, my dear people, I know if you follow the Son with all your heart — without being hypocritical or deceptive before God but acting with pure intent, repenting of your sins, showing to the Father you are willing to take upon yourselves the name of Christ by baptism, by following your Lord and Savior down into the water according to His word — then you will receive the Holy Ghost. Then the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost comes, and then you can speak the words of angels and shout praises to the Holy One of Israel.”

If we want to help with the return of Christ, the Covenant of Christ is our instruction manual. If there is one message that is central to that book, it is that we must put off our natural man and seek to do the will of God in all things with real intent and no pretense. 

The use of ancient symbols to create a symbol for the Covenant of Christ ultimately points us to the Religion of the Fathers. That original religion given to Adam was centered on showing him how to escape this fallen, cut-off world and return to God. The Covenant of Christ shows us how to do that. 

This symbol can point our heart and mind to the sacred center where God dwells. It can create within us a desire to return to that place above all other things. It is a beautiful idea that was conveyed to me in the night.