“Elder Neal A. Maxwell suggests that the prime reason the
Savior personally acts as the gatekeeper of the celestial kingdom is not to
exclude people, but to personally welcome and embrace those who have made it
back home. It is a touching and intimate thought, expressed as follows:
‘If there is any imagery upon which
I would focus as I close, it is two scriptures from the Book of Mormon. The one
in which we are reminded that Jesus himself is the gatekeeper and that ‘he
employed no servant there.’ (2 Nephi 9:41)….I will tell you…out of the
conviction of my soul…what I think the major reason is [why he ‘employeth no
servant there’], as contained in another Book of Mormon scripture which says he
waits for you ‘with open arms.’ (Mormon 6:17)
That is why he’s there! He waits
for you ‘with open arms.’ That imagery
is too powerful to brush aside…It is imagery that should work itself into the
very center core of one’s mind—a rendezvous impending, a moment in time and
space, the likes of which there is none other. And that rendezvous is a
reality. I certify that to you. He does
wait for us with open arms, because his love of us is perfect.’”
