In its sesquicentennial year BYU is helping Christ’s light shine brighter and brighter.
Brigham Young University is turning 150! And yes, we have plenty of cake, candles, and BYU Creamery ice cream ready to celebrate. But our sesquicentennial is about much more than a birthday bash. While universities sometimes view anniversary milestones as an excuse to put the “fun” back in “fundraising,” at BYU we’re hoping the celebrations will have a markedly different focus.
This year we are emphasizing the light that has guided this institution since its beginning—the light of Christ and the gifts of light God grants each of us to bless others. We’re taking for our inspiration two scriptural phrases: “that light groweth brighter and brighter” and “that all may be edified of all” (D&C 50:24, 88:122).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ tells His followers to let their light shine that others might see their good works and “glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). President Russell M. Nelson has taught that in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “we educate our minds so that one day we can render service of worth to somebody else.”¹
This is our charge at BYU.
In his “Second Century” address, a talk we’re rereading as we enter the second half of that second century, President Spencer W. Kimball foresaw BYU as a “refining host” for “many brilliant stars” who would go forth from this campus to share light with others.²
Some years ago President James E. Faust, then a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared a story about BYU’s Jerusalem Center, which facilitates student learning opportunities in the Holy Land. After the first lease on that stunning property was signed, President Faust recounted that a friend of the Church playfully remarked, “We know that you are not going to proselyte, but what are you going to do about the light that is in their eyes?”³ He could see how BYU students radiate light.
President Faust then quoted Doctrine and Covenants 88:11: “And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings.”
This is what it means at BYU to celebrate gifts of light. The brilliant gifts of light refined on this campus are not meant to be hidden under bushels but to be like a city on a hill—or, as we might add on this campus, a Y on a mountain.
For the next year, on our campus and beyond, BYU will showcase ways faculty, staff, and students nurture divine light in each other and “render service of worth to somebody else.” We will engage in educational outreach efforts along with our world-class performing arts, which reflect the light of Christ. Just as BYU students, faculty, staff, and alumni have done for a century and a half, we will share and celebrate the light of Christ so it will grow “brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (D&C 50:24) when He comes again.
C. Shane Reese is the president of Brigham Young University.
Notes
1. Russell M. Nelson, “The Message: Focus on Values,” New Era, February 2013.
2. See Spencer W. Kimball, “The Second Century of Brigham Young University,” BYU devotional address, Oct. 10, 1975.
3. James E. Faust, “The Light in Their Eyes,” Ensign, October 2005.
