By Seth Bryant 
Former director, Kirtland Temple Historic Site

The Saints who built the Kirtland Temple often wrote about how they were restoring or reliving the Christian experience of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2. Not as well remembered, in significant ways, they also were connecting their Temple worship to Jubilee, Passover, and the story of Holy Week culminating in Easter.

As the building was being completed, the Saints were studying Hebrew in the Temple attic under Professor Joshua Seixas. It was not lost on them that the week of Passover for their Jewish neighbors was approaching. It would coincide with Easter that year and continue into the church’s sixth anniversary, 6 April 1836. To align with these holidays, the Saints worked feverishly to have the Temple dedicated a week before Easter.

Palm Sunday Dedication

As the Saints made the final touches on the Temple during a bitter cold winter, the plaster on interior walls would not dry. Children (including two of my ancestors) were tasked with gathering firewood to heat the building, so the walls would cure and could be painted, according to Hearken O Ye People by Mark Staker.

During the dedicatory service 27 March 1836, Sidney Rigdon of the First Presidency preached from Matthew 8:20 KJV:

And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Following the same theme, President Joseph Smith Jr. said during his dedication prayer:

For thou knowest that we have done this work through great tribulation; and out of our poverty we have given of our substance to build a house to thy name, that the Son of Man might have a place to manifest himself to his people.

Like the crowds during Jesus’s triumphal entry (John 12:12–13), on that Palm Sunday, during the dedication of the Temple the Saints shouted “Hosanna!” They also sang, “Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb!” in the chorus of “The Spirit of God,” which had been written for the dedication by W.W. Phelps.

Solemn Assembly

On 29 March 1836, inside the newly dedicated Temple, church leaders recorded that they:

…proceeded to wash each others feet… After which we partook of the bread and wine. The Holy S[p]irit rested down upon us and we continued in the Lords house all night prophesying and giving glory to God.

The next day, their Holy Week celebrations included what they called a solemn assembly, drawing on the experience of the Israelites during Holy Day observances (Numbers 29). Three hundred priesthood members took part in this solemn assembly and Jubilee celebration that culminated on the church’s anniversary eight days later. W.W. Phelps wrote to his wife, Sally, who had remained in Missouri:

…their feet were washed, and they commenced prophecying [sic] and shouting Hosanna to God and the Lamb. At Evening the sacrament was administered, as the feast of the Passover.…

A combination of Hebrew and Christian experiences, their Maundy celebration drew heavily upon Jesus’s washing the disciples’ feet in the Upper Room during the Last Supper, which itself was a sort of solemn assembly before Passover (John 13:1–7).

Easter Sunday

At the dedication 27 March 1836, Joseph Smith Jr. had prayed the Temple might be a place where the Lord could be manifest. A week later, 3 April 1836, it was Easter Sunday. The Temple was filled beyond capacity. Church leaders lowered large curtains or “veils” and retired to the pulpits to pray. It was then that Joseph Smith Jr. and Oliver Cowdery reported a vision of Christ.

Responding to that dedicatory prayer a week earlier, they reported Christ as saying:

…let the hearts of all my people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to my name, for behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here, and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house.

Smith and Cowdery then reported a series of visions culminating with Elijah, the Hebrew prophet associated with Passover as a forerunner of the Messiah and redemption (Malachi 4:5).

Sixth Anniversary of the Church

A few days later, 6 April 1836, the final jubilee worship service was held in the Temple. Again from the letter of W.W. Phelps to his wife, Sally:

Wednesday was set apart as day of prayer to end [t]he feast of the passover. and in honor of the Jubilee of the church: it being Six years old this day.

Shortly thereafter, the elders were sent forth to share the gospel.

Lessons for Today

We might not read scripture as literally as our forebearers. But we need not be ashamed of wanting a space for God to be manifest to us, to shape us, and to send us forth. This is the story of Pentecost. This is the hope of Easter.

We might consider the intentionality of the 1830s Saints as they labored through a cold and difficult winter to be ready for Easter. They knew something about the importance of sacred moments, of sacred story, of sacred gathering. Do not forget.

Their Holy Week of Jubilee in 1836 lasted about ten days. Today, we have six days a year that we can spend as a people in the Kirtland Temple. I suggest we approach them with a similar intentionality as the 1830s Saints. Now is the time to coordinate youth caravans, mission center retreats, and gatherings of preparation and spiritual formation that we might have a week of Jubilee like our spiritual and sometimes-literal ancestors, who built the Kirtland Temple and gave us a legacy of faith.