The Greatest Love Story of All

Taken from a Relief Society lesson I delievered on Easter morning (3.31.13)

The Atonement

I wanted to make it clear how personal the Atonement is, how uniquely suited to individual needs, inadequacies, and struggles. I could talk forever about how Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of the whole human family, but until I understand that Jesus Christ atoned for ME, I don’t begin to understand the Atonement. I want each of you sisters to know that He loves each one of you every bit as much as He loved the children, women and men of his time and place, and that just as He ministered to them one by one, so He does to us. MY name is graven on His hands. And yours is, too.

We access the Atonement through repentance. When we repent, the Lord allows us to put the mistakes of the past behind us.

“Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.

“By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins―behold, he will confess them and forsake them.”

Each of us knows a person who has had serious challenges in his or her life―someone who has wandered or wavered. That person could be a friend or relative, a parent or child, a husband or wife. That person may even be you.

The miracle of the Atonement is for all – every person – even every child of God.

The plan of salvation could not be brought about without an atonement. “Therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.”

The atoning sacrifice had to be carried out by the sinless Son of God, for fallen man could not atone for his own sins. The Atonement had to be infinite and eternal―to cover all men throughout all eternity.

Among all the facts of mortality, none is so certain as its end. Death comes to all.  It is our “universal heritage”  It may come in infancy or youth or in the prime of one’s life or even as the effects of age have come to rest upon one’s head.  No matter the cause of death, it inevitably represents a painful loss of association and, particularly in the young, a crushing blow to dreams unrealized, ambitions unfulfilled, and hopes vanquished.

What mortal being, faced with the loss of a loved one or, indeed, standing himself or herself on the threshold of infinity, has not pondered what lies beyond the veil?

Centuries ago, Job who had been blessed with every material gift, only to find himself sorely afflicted by all that can befall a human being, sat with his companions and asked the timeless question, “If a man die, shall he live again?”  Job spoke what every other living man or woman has pondered.

This glorious Easter morning I’d like to consider Job’s question—“If a man die, shall he live again?”

To understand the meaning of death, we must appreciate the purpose of life. We know that we lived before our birth into mortality. In our premortal state, we were doubtless among the sons and daughters of God who shouted for joy because of the opportunity to come to this challenging yet necessary mortal existence.  We knew that our purpose was to gain a physical body, to overcome trials, and to prove that we would keep the commandments of God. Our Father knew that because of the nature of mortality, we would be tempted, would sin, and we would fall short. So that we might have every chance of success, He provided a Savior, who would suffer and die for us. Not only would He atone for our sins, but as a part of that Atonement, He would also overcome the physical death to which we would be subject because of the Fall of Adam.

Thus, more than 2,000 years ago, Christ, our Savior, was born to mortal life in a stable in Bethlehem. The long-foretold Messiah had come.

No mere mortal can conceive the full import of what Christ did for us in Gethsemane. He Himself later described the experience: “[The] suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit.”

CHRIST’S JOURNEY TO HIS DEATH

Let us now learn of the loneliest journey ever made and the unending blessings it brought to all in the human family. I speak of the Savior’s solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of our salvation.

We know from scripture that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem on the Sunday preceding Passover was a great public moment. But eagerness to continue walking with Him would quickly begin to wane.

This was a telling time among those who knew Jesus more personally. The most difficult to understand in this group is Judas Iscariot. We know the divine plan required Jesus to be crucified, but it is wrenching to think that one of His special witnesses who sat at His feet, heard Him pray, watched Him heal, and felt His touch could betray Him and all that He was for 30 pieces of silver. We are not the ones to judge Judas’s fate, but Jesus said of His betrayer, “Good [were it] for that man if he had not been born.”

Of course others among the believers had their difficult moments as well. Following the Last Supper, Jesus left Peter, James, and John to wait while He ventured into the Garden of Gethsemane alone. Falling on His face in prayer, “sorrowful … unto death,” the record says, His sweat came as great drops of blood as He pled with the Father to let this crushing, brutal cup pass from Him. But, of course, it could not pass. Returning from such anguished prayer, He found His three chief disciples asleep, prompting Him to ask, “Could ye not watch with me one hour?”  So it happens two more times until on His third return He says compassionately, “Sleep on now, and take your rest,” though there would be no rest for Him.

Later, after Jesus’s arrest and appearance at trial, Peter, accused of knowing Jesus and being one of His confidants, denies that accusation not once but three times. We don’t know all that was going on here, nor do we know of protective counsel which the Savior may have given to His Apostles privately, but we do know Jesus was aware that even these precious ones would not stand with Him in the end, and He had warned Peter accordingly. Then, with the crowing of the cock, “the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord. … And [he] went out, and wept bitterly.”

Thus, of divine necessity, the supporting circle around Jesus gets smaller and smaller and smaller, giving significance to Matthew’s words: “All the disciples [left] him, and fled.”  Peter stayed near enough to be recognized and confronted. John stood at the foot of the cross with Jesus’s mother. Especially and always the blessed women in the Savior’s life stayed as close to Him as they could. But essentially His lonely journey back to His Father continued without comfort or companionship.

Following the agony of Gethsemane, now drained of strength, He was seized by rough, crude hands and taken before Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod. He was accused and cursed. Vicious blows further weakened His pain-racked body. Blood ran down His face as a cruel crown fashioned of sharp thorns was forced onto His head, piercing His brow. And then once again He was taken to Pilate, who gave in to the cries of the angry mob: “Crucify him, crucify him.”

He was scourged with a whip into whose multiple leather strands sharp metals and bones were woven. Rising from the cruelty of the scourge, with stumbling steps He carried His own cross until He could go no farther and another shouldered the burden for Him.

Finally, on a hill called Calvary, while helpless followers looked on, His wounded body was nailed to a cross. Mercilessly He was mocked and cursed and derided. And yet He cried out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

It is important to understand that the majority of the Atonement occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane, however it was sealed on the cross at Calvary.

Now I speak very carefully, even reverently, of what may have been the most difficult moment in all of this solitary journey to Atonement. I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically but which He may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually—that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when He cries in ultimate loneliness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

With all the conviction of my soul I add my testimony to the apostles that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, so that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required.  It was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

But Jesus held on. He pressed on. The goodness in Him allowed faith to triumph even in a state of complete anguish. The trust He lived by told Him in spite of His feelings that divine compassion is never absent, that God is always faithful, that He never flees nor fails us. When the utmost price had then been paid, when Christ’s determination to be faithful was obvious and invincible, finally and mercifully, it was “finished.”  Against all odds and with none to help or uphold Him, Jesus of Nazareth, the living Son of the living God, restored physical life over death.   With faith in the God He knew was there, He could say in triumph, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

This song has always helped me to comprehend better the depth of Christ's sacrifice and I feel the Spirit each time I listen to it.  

His Hands - by Kenneth Cope

DEPTH OF THE ATONEMENT

Not only did He pay the price for the sins of all men, but He also took “upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.” And He took “upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, … that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”

The Savior felt the weight of the anguish of all mankind―the anguish of sin and of sorrow. “Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”

Through His Atonement, He heals not only the transgressor, but He also heals the innocent who suffer because of those transgressions. As the innocent exercise faith in the Savior and in His Atonement and forgive the transgressor, they too can be healed.

There are times when each of us needs “relief from feelings of guilt that come from mistakes and sins.” As we repent, the Savior removes the guilt from our souls.

Through His atoning sacrifice, our sins are remitted. With the exception of sons of perdition, the Atonement is available to everyone all the time, no matter how large or small the sin, “on conditions of repentance.”

Because of His infinite love, Jesus Christ invites us to repent so that we will not have to suffer the full weight of our own sins:

“Repent—repent, lest … your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.

“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

“But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

“Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit.”

When we sin, Satan tells us we are lost. In contrast, our Redeemer offers redemption to all—no matter what we have done wrong—even to you and to me.

As you consider your own life, are there things that you need to change? Have you made mistakes that still need to be corrected?

If you are suffering from feelings of guilt or remorse, bitterness or anger, or loss of faith, I invite you to seek relief. Repent and forsake your sins. Then, in prayer, ask God for forgiveness. Seek forgiveness from those you have wronged. Forgive those who have wronged you. Forgive yourself.

HIS RESURRECTION

At the last moment, the Master could have turned back. But He did not. He passed beneath all things that He might save all things. His lifeless body was hurriedly but gently placed in a borrowed tomb.

Now some of the greatest words ever uttered in all of our mortal humanity are those spoken by the angel to the weeping Mary Magdalene and the other Mary when, on the first day of the week, they approached the tomb to care for the body of their Lord.  Spoke the angel:

“Why seek ye the living among the dead?   
“He is not here, but is risen.”

Our Savior lived again. The most glorious, comforting, and reassuring of all events of human history had taken place—the victory over death. The pain and agony of Gethsemane and Calvary had been wiped away. The salvation of mankind had been secured.  His atonement in Gethsemane, his death upon the cross AND his resurrection after death now make eternal life possible for all of us. 

The empty tomb that first Easter morning was the answer to Job’s question, “If a man die, shall he live again?” The answer is “Yes!  He shall live again!” “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

MEANING OF IT ALL

Sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our pathways in life—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: “I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].”

As we are made clean through the power of His Atonement, the Savior becomes our advocate with the Father.  And this is where it made sense to me, as I pictured the Savior standing at the throne of our Father in Heaven, referring to me, pleading:

“Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified;

“Wherefore, Father, spare [Shayla] that believe[s] on my name, that [she] may come unto me and have everlasting life.”

When I add in my own name here, then I become aware of the power of the Atonement for ME!

Each of us has been given the gift of moral agency. “Men are free … to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the … power of the devil.”

Choose liberty.  Choose eternal life.  Choose to repent and give meaning to our Savior’s sacrifice.  We are not alone.

This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.