A Rent Coat

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.blogspot.com

To tear apart or rent one’s clothes

Was an ancient symbol of indignation

One in which the wearer chose

To express extreme consternation

Today, we reflect on an ancient tradition – that of tearing one’s clothes or “renting” them as a physical sign of loss, grief, or indignation.  In Bible-times the list of those renting their clothes is not small, and includes Jacob, Joshua, David, Job, Elias, Mordecai, Paul and Barnabas, to name a few. 

In Book of Mormon days, the most famous incidence was the great General and Prophet, Moroni who, when a perverse and wicked Amalickiah was having success in perverting the people and taking away their liberties, tore his coat as a sign of his great displeasure and grief.  In a dramatic move, he wrote upon the remnant cloth, “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.”  Then, fastening the banner upon a pole, he called it the “Title of Liberty,” and it became the rallying point that enlisted and led the faithful in the battle against evil forces.

Today we are less demonstrative of our feelings and have other ways to express ourselves.  However, our meditation asks the question, “Do we have a ‘Title of Liberty’ written in the fabric of our hearts?”  “Are we all enlisted in the battle against evil forces?”  “Have we covenanted to be a covenant people?”

Unfortunately, we sometimes find that our desires and commitments fall short of being Godly covenants.  The history of the Bible and the Book of Mormon – story after story – book after book – is a history of God calling His people to enter into a covenant with Him.  Time and again, and usually only after some dramatic and painful experience, would the people consent and make a covenant with God.  Sometimes it would only be a few weeks or months, and sometimes a few years before the covenant came to be viewed as a temporary commitment, and then abandoned altogether.

Hopefully, in these latter-days we are more exact and faithful regarding the covenants we make. We see and feel in the rising generation youth of a noble birthright who are, indeed, carrying aloft their title of liberty.  However, the days are coming when we and they will be challenged as never before.  

Hence, we ask the question:

Is there a Title of Liberty written in our heart

Are we a covenant man or woman of the Lord

May our title of liberty yield the better part

Of God’s blessings and our eternal reward

A Rent Coat

And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole.  And he fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land— ….Behold, whosoever will maintain this title upon the land, let them come forth in the strength of the Lord, and enter into a covenant that they will maintain their rights, and their religion, that the Lord God may bless them.  And it came to pass that when Moroni had proclaimed these words, behold, the people came running together with their armor girded about their loins, rending their garments in token, or as a covenant, that they would not forsake the Lord their God; or, in other words, if they should transgress the commandments of God, or fall into transgression, and be ashamed to take upon them the name of Christ, the Lord should rend them even as they had rent their garments.

Book of Mormon   Alma 46:12-13; 20-21

To tear apart or rent one’s clothes

Was an ancient symbol of indignation

One in which the wearer chose

To express extreme consternation

Therefore, in anger, Moroni rent his coat

“In memory of our God, religion, and freedom,

And peace, our wives, and our children,” he wrote

And then prayed the blessings of liberty would come

Thus, a flag, the Title of Liberty, was born

A banner of freedom to signal and wave

Hoisted aloft, a flag battered and torn

 In memory of God who is mighty to save

The people too rent their garments in token

Of covenants to sustain their religion and rights

To be rent themselves if the covenant was broken

Or they failed to honor the Lord or His rites

Is there a Title of Liberty written in our heart

Are we a covenant man or woman of the Lord

May our title of liberty yield the better part

Of God’s blessings and our eternal reward

Larry Doyle Crenshaw