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| From ChurchofJesusChrist.org The linked video speaks of a coming day. I think that coming day can be any day we turn to Christ. |
Easter Monday is not widely celebrated in the United States, or even in all of Christianity. Yet I feel today to share some of the things I’ve been learning over the past week about our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His original Holy Week.
Two great commandments
At his last meal, as Jesus began to feel the heaviness of the atonement that would commence that night, he washed his apostles’ feet and taught them, as a new commandment, to love one another. (John 13:4-5 & 34) This was a message he had been preaching as the second of the two great commandments, to love God completely, and to love each other. (Mark 12:28-34 illustrates nicely how the commandment to love supersedes the law of Moses.) This year I’m seeing how Christ felt about his Father. He loves our Heavenly Father completely and he knows Him perfectly. That Jesus was willing to suffer at the hands of the Jews and the Romans, and at the hands of all the rest of us who will enter into an atonement relationship with him where his perfect empathy lets him experience all our suffering with us—that he is willing to do that so he can take us back to Father says a lot about how much he loves our Father in Heaven. Jesus looks forward to the reunion he prepares for each of us who will come. (See also 3 Nephi 17:15-20 in which the multitude hears and sees Jesus pray to the Father for them, and he and they are filled with joy.)
Jesus forsaken
In John 16:32, at the last supper, Jesus prophesied that his disciples would scatter in his hour of need, “every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” In light of how much Jesus trusts and loves the Father, I think his most difficult moment in that holy week must have been on the cross. As prophesied, his disciples had scattered, betrayed or denied him, leaving him in a very lonely place to experience his greatest agony. He had always communed with his Father, but then, in what must have been an unforeseen and shocking moment, the Father also withdraws. Matthew and Mark recorded Christ’s lament: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34) He had willed his body to live through the soul-wrenching pains of Gethsemne all the way to the cross until the ninth hour. But when the Father withdrew, abandoning Jesus in that misery, it was more than Christ could bear. He cried in anguish and released his body unto death.
Jesus had never sinned, and so he had never been spiritually separated from the Father. He knows that the Father is always present for His children. Like the prodigal son, we too often shut the Father out as we turn away to pursue our own lusts. But Jesus never turned away, so the Father was always there. And yet, I think he knew in that moment of loneliness that it was also necessary. When we turn away from God, we often misunderstand the situation completely and wonder why God has forsaken us. To be in atonement with us, to have perfect compassion and empathy, Christ needed to know how it felt to be separated from the Father.
Original grace
The more I study Jesus’ condescension and sacrifice, which enable the everlasting atonement, the more I believe that my former understanding is incorrect. There is a prominent theory of atonement known as penal substitution. I won’t go more into it than to quickly summarize that this theory says Christ reconciles us to the Father by substituting himself in the place of the sinner and taking our punishment upon himself. The more I study scripture the less that explanation resonates with me. Last year I twice read a book by Adam Miller titled Original Grace, which posits that punishment is not necessary to appease the demands of justice or the enactment of mercy. (I highly recommend that book if you want to consider other ways that Christ’s atonement works.) Regardless of feeling good about original grace, there is an oft-quoted scripture passage that didn’t make sense to me…until yesterday’s Easter Sunday.
It’s in Doctrine and Covenants 19:10-20; here are five verses at the crux of how I think the atonement is misinterpreted:
15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;18 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—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
That passage lines up nicely with the penal substitution theory of atonement, at least from one perspective. But what if suffering isn’t required by justice? And what if Jesus’ work for us is based in his love for the Father and his desire to take us back to our Heavenly Parents?
Yesterday, my celebrations of Easter Sunday gave me new eyes for this scripture. I write the following with no intent to blaspheme, and I hope you won’t consider it heresy. This post is not an invitation to debate. I welcome other ideas, if you want to kindly share those, but I’m only in a place of discovery right now and am not interested in arguing any point.
Here’s how I might rewrite the passage to explain my increasing understanding:
15 Therefore, I ask you as powerfully as I can to please repent—repent, lest the words of my mouth, and my process of bringing about justice for your victims fall on you like smiting, condemning blows, and when you realize and internalize all the pain you’ve created for yourself and others, your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they and you might not suffer if they and you would repent by turning to me and accepting my grace and healing at my hand;17 But anyone who will not repent and come into relationship with me, anyone who decides to shoulder the consequences of their actions on their own, will suffer even as I;18 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—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—that’s how impossibly difficult to bear is the hurt that you’ve created willfully or ignorantly.19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men--unto you, if only you will turn to me and let me empathize and love you and teach you how to love one another, and thus relieve your suffering.
I don’t claim my understanding to be whole yet, but I do think the connotation I’ve typed in agrees with the Lord’s original wording in the scripture passage.
This shift in my understanding came as I thought about how I’ve experienced relief in suffering. In almost every instance when I’m feeling despondent, it is alleviated when someone I love meets me in that place, demonstrates that they understand my pain or at least why I’m in pain, and then stays with me through it. Having experienced all of it, Jesus Christ knows how to offer that relief from my suffering. The circumstances may not change, but He bears it with me, and it is no longer painful to me.
To me, that is a great message of hope! Christ experienced all types of sorrow that mankind could ever experience. I believe that His atonement enables Him to continue to experience our lives with us. He knows our sorrows, and he knows how to perfectly succor us in our sorrows, hurts, guilt, and pain. (Alma 7:11-13) His pleading with us is that we turn to him in repentance, accept his guidance through the Holy Ghost, and let Him heal us and all those we’ve hurt, let Him unify us in love, and let Him take us back to our Heavenly Home.
Happy Easter indeed.
