PROVO, Utah — While visiting Jerusalem several years ago, Elder Cecil O. Samuelson and his wife, Sharon, visited the garden tomb where it is believed the Savior was placed after He died.

Photo by John L. Hart

Garden tomb, outside the walls of the Old Jerusalem, is believed to be the place where the Savior was resurrected. BYU's Easter Conference focused on "The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ."

After waiting in a lengthy line, a group of tourists in front of the Samuelsons looked inside the tomb. A woman in the group exclaimed, "There is nothing in there."

The man working at the sacred site replied, "Madam, that is precisely the point."

Offering the keynote address at BYU's Easter conference April 15, Elder Samuelson of the Seventy and BYU president recounted the experience and told hundreds gathered on campus that "it is a special blessing to know that He is the Savior and Redeemer and that He lives today."

The Easter conference, held in the BYU Joseph Smith Building and sponsored by Religious Education and the Religious Studies Center at BYU, focused on the "The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ."

Other speakers from Religious Education, the Religious Studies Center, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and BYU-Hawaii discussed such topics as the "Bread of Life" sermon, the Mount of Transfiguration, the death of John the Baptist, the Atonement and its imagery, the crucifixion and the Resurrection. A panel discussed the much publicized discovery of "the Gospel of Judas." (See article on this page.)

During his remarks, Elder Samuelson said he knows of the Savior's divinity "more clearly and more reliably than many of the things I have learned through traditional study."

Elder Samuelson then recounted meeting with a group of religious scholars while serving as president of the Church's Europe North Area. After presenting information about the Church, the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, Elder Samuel answered questions.

One scholar asked how, considering doctrinal differences with other Christian churches, that Latter-day Saints can call themselves Christians.

Elder Samuelson answered the question with three of his own questions: He asked the group if they accept the biblical version of the birth of the Savior, including that He was the literal son of God. He asked the group if they accept the Bible's accounts of the Savior's life, ministry and miracles. And finally, he asked the group if they accept the biblical accounts of Christ's death and resurrection.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe all those things, he said. He bore testimony to the group of the Savior's birth and life. He died and rose again, he told them.

God wants everyone to have a knowledge and testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ, he added.

"Each of us having a testimony of Jesus Christ has a great and heavy responsibility to live our lives to a conduct which matches our conviction," Elder Samuelson concluded.

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