Yesterday I had the great joy of attending the wedding of my second son in the Washington, D.C. Temple. There is a distillation of truth and beauty that occurs within the walls of the Temple that can separate out all the confusion and bitterness of life and yield a potent hint of the majestic meaning of life and of the endless joy that the Gospel brings. The marriage ceremony itself is one of the simplest and most majestic ordinances of the Gospel. The joyous imprint of divinity can be so strong in the Temple, and the witness of the Spirit about the reality and sacred nature of eternal marriage was hard to ignore yesterday.

Whatever mistakes mortal men in the Church have made over the years, whatever human flaws have been combined with our worship and beliefs, however large the gap between human performance and the Lord's expectations, there is a divine core to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ that is especially apparent within the Temple. It is a sacred place rich with revealed wisdom and means to bless and give meaning to human lives beyond anything else this planet offers. The power of the Temple experience is difficult to explain as a purely human work. The prevasive resonance with ancient religion and covenant making cannot be explained as the work of a 19th century con-man borrowing from Masonry or any other available source. The joy and spirit that can attend Temple worship speaks of more meaningful origins. It is a sacred place, and those who spend so much effort to mock it and the ordinances there - or the clothing that is associated with it - may have deep regrets one day when they learn Whose house it was and Whose work they mocked.
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