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I Believe in Christ

In 1984, Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was diagnosed with liver cancer so pervasive that “the doctors sewed him up so that he could go home and die in peace.” Notwithstanding the inherent challenges, Elder McConkie continued on in his apostolic ministry, determined to teach the Gospel in purity and power.

The following event took place just before the April 1985, General Conference of the Church. This is the account as given by Elder McConkie’s wife, Amelia:

“[He] came into the kitchen and said, ‘Would you like to hear what I have prepared for General Conference?’ I was making him a pie, because his appetite had begun to go downhill, and I thought, maybe he’d like an apple pie. I had the apples all ready to put in it, and I was rolling up the dough, the oven was on, everything was ready, and he came in and sat down and started to read me his talk, and the tears streamed down his face, and he didn’t get more than a couple of sentences out and I thought to myself, ‘You don’t make apple pies when somebody is saying these things to you.’ So I sat down, dropped everything, and listened to him. I asked him, ‘How are you going to be able to get up and read this?’ Because there he was, having a hard time saying what he was saying because he was so touched. And he said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to do it.”

On Tuesday, April 2, 1985, the prognosis of his cancer was so bleak that his wife was told “to take him home and make him as comfortable as possible.”

The doctors warned Elder McConkie not to attempt to speak in General Conference, that if he did, “he would likely pass out in front of a national television audience and embarrass the whole Church.” Nevertheless, Sister McConkie said to her family, “Your father wants to give that talk. It means more to him than anything he has done in this life.” But to that point, he couldn’t even finish reading it to his wife. “Each time he attempted to do so, he broke down in tears.”

On Saturday morning, April 6, 1985, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, rose to speak, “His face was drawn and thin, his skin so yellow that many must have been tempted to adjust the color on their television sets, his steps those of a man many years his senior, nevertheless, he stood tall and spoke as he always had, with confidence and power.”

The talk was titled, The Purifying Power of Gethsemane. Near the end of the talk, he said:

“I am one of His witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in His hands and in His feet and shall wet His feet with my tears. But I shall not know any better then than I know now that He is God’s Almighty Son, that He is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through His atoning blood and in no other way.”

As he spoke, he wept and many who watched wept with him, feeling the awesome power of his testimony. It was one of the most powerful and unforgettable Conference talks ever given. Indeed, as Elder Boyd K. Packer later indicated that in that talk, Elder McConkie’s “life’s ministry was completed.”

Thirteen days later, on April 19, Elder McConkie’s family gathered about his bedside and knelt in sacred prayer. His daughter, Vivian recalls the moment. “We all knelt around the bed. Joseph prayed. He thanked the Lord for dad’s life and asked him to have regard for dad’s condition and his obedience and if it was possible to release his spirit and call him home. Immediately upon the phrase ‘call him home,’ Dad’s spirit left his body, and he was gone.”

During that prayer, Joseph had also prayed that if appropriate, would the Lord “allow Dad to be with us in Israel on the Mount of Beatitudes.”

That same spring, 1985, the family of Elder McConkie visited the Holy Land. His son, Joseph shared this account:

“At the Garden Tomb outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, we found a quiet place and sat in a circle to listen to a recording of Dad’s last talk. As we listened, a dove flew down into the center of our group, where it remained until Dad’s final amen.”

At that same April 1985 Conference session, a new hymn was movingly sung. The title: “I Believe in Christ.” The lyrics for that hymn of testimony were written by Elder Bruce R. McConkie and shared with the Church in the April 1972 Conference.

It is worthy of note that in that Conference, Elder McConkie gave a talk titled, The Testimony of Jesus. In that talk he said:

“I desire to bear testimony to myself, to you as members of the Church, and to all the world….I shall take the liberty, both by way of testimony and to set the tone for what is involved, to read these words of my own composition.”

He then read for the first time those words that would become the hymn, I Believe in Christ.

Today, in that hymn, Elder McConkie’s testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ lives on. Each time we sing “I Believe in Christ” we are not just singing, we are adding our witness and testimony to his. God grant that our addition may be powerful and grow to be just as sure as was his. “His parting words to Amelia, the love of his life, were ‘Carry on’”. Even so, Amen!

Sources:

April 1972, General Conference.

McConkie, Joseph Fielding. 2003. The Bruce R. McConkie Story: Reflections of a Son. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book p. 399-400, 410-418, 432