HIS LOOKS

 

Crucifixion Wasn't Pretty by kbrake of DeviantArt

When I was posting on Facebook, I used to get quite a few of comments about the pictures of Christ I would include in my posts. It fascinated me that in each one was a painted portray of a different man yet He always looked like Jesus. I adore good art and I admire the artistic talent so I never ran out of images where Jesus looked good.  

The most common comment I used to get was that Jesus was a Hebrew man and therefore had to look Jewish and Middle Eastern and could not possibly have blue eyes. It always used to get me. I would point out that according to the scriptures, Jesus was in the express image of His Father and not His Jewish mother (John 14:7-9; Colossians 1:12-15; Hebrews 1:1-3). God the Father is not Jewish or of any nationality of this earth therefore He does not look Middle Eastern and could very well have blue eyes. Besides the fact that some Jewish people do have blue eyes, the actor Paul Newman having been one of them.

One kind reader told me that Josephus, a Jewish historian, called Jesus a fair headed Jew with a rosy complexion. I am yet to find a reference to that, however, in the Works of Josephus I own.

The push for a black Jesus floored me. I had a couple of people who tried to convince me that Jewish people used to be black and therefore Jesus was black too. I recognised this was about wokeness and political correctness of our day but I feared it had a sinister root. The danger in passing Jesus as a black man in antiquity comes with a connotation that He was a descendant of Cain, who was the servant of Satan. This gives credence to the claim by the Jewish Council, who sought to kill Him, that Jesus was the servant of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils  (John 7:19,20; Matthew 9:34; 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15)

One lady tried to convince me that the Saviour was not a good-looking man because Isaiah said he was ‘without form and comeliness’ and had ‘no beauty that people would desire him’ (Isaiah 53:1-2). Not only did this lady tell me that people didn’t want to look at him because of this but that he was most likely even disfigured because Isaiah also said he was ‘marred more than any man’ (Isaiah 52:14).

When Isaiah spoke of the Saviour as being a “tender plant without form and comeliness”, he meant that Jesus was born as a small, helpless infant just as all people are and He grew as other people do. Being  ‘without form and comeliness’ means “He was not so distinctive, so different from others that people would recognise him as the Son of God. He appeared as a mortal man” (President Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:23).

It also means that He was divested of His glory in mortality, which He had gained in pre-mortal life so that people would believe His message through the power of the spirit and not due to His obvious godhood (John 17:5). There had to be acceptance through faith (see also Philippians 2:5-10).

Lastly, the Saviour’s “visage was so marred more than any man” (Isaiah 52:14) is a reference to the suffering of the cross. Roman crucifixion was gruesome. The condemned were stripped naked and scourged. This would cause the person to lose a large amount of blood, and approach a state of shock. The convict then usually had to carry the horizontal beam to the place of execution. Crucifixions took many different forms. Some victims were crucified head down to the ground and some were impaled by their private parts. During Emperor Titus’ Siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., Roman soldiers nailed innumerable Jewish captives to crosses in various ways.

When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, metal spikes were driven into His hands and His feet and a spear pierced His side to ensure His death (see John 19:17-18, 32-34). Considering everything He went through before He was even lifted on the cross and His body ravaged, does it not make sense that Isaiah would consider Him ‘marred’?

This is the Jesus I am longing to one day meet:

“When I was doing missionary work with some of our brethren among the Indians…I found myself one evening in the dreams of the night, in that sacred building, the Temple. After a season of prayer and rejoicing, I was informed that I should have the privilege of entering into one of those rooms, to meet a glorious Personage, and as I entered the door, I saw, seated on a raised platform, the most glorious Being my eyes have ever beheld, or that I even conceived existed in all the eternal worlds. As I approached to be introduced, He arose and stepped towards me with extended arms, and He smiled as He softly spoke my name.

“If I shall live to be a million years old, I shall never forget that smile. He took me into His arms and kissed me, pressed me to His bosom, and blessed me, until the marrow of my bones seemed to melt! When He had finished, I fell at His feet, and as I bathed them with my tears and kisses, I saw the prints of the nails in the feet of the Redeemer of the world. The feeling that I had in the presence of Him who hath all things in His hands, to have His love, His affection, and His blessings was such that if I ever can receive that of which I had but a foretaste, I would give all that I am, all that I hope to be, to feel what I then felt!”   (Apostle Melvin J. Ballard, Temple Manifestations, p 153)

As Golgotha raged and tore

Your flesh without mercy,

The Garden sprang anew

As from every drop of blood You spilt

New flowers came into bloom.

How pitiful the cross that claimed You

Not knowing it sent a God to a

Darkened tomb!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

ENDURING THE ROAD

 

And Israel's Daughters Wept Around by Rose Datoc Dall

The road is so rough dear Lord

And I am here all alone.

I don’t know how I will walk

To the end with my burden

Pressing on me so.

 

Yes, I remember, said He,

I walked it myself long ago.

The cross was heavy

But I carried it

Because some burdens

Are meant to be carried alone.

-      CATHRYNE ALLEN

HIS EARTHLY SUFFERING

 

No Greater Love by Adam Abram

I heard You in my heart today

And all You tried so hard to say.

My soul split open and I could see

What You suffered in Gethsemane.

 

My tears spilled and climbed that hill

Where Your suffering increased yet still.

My sorrow spilt, I saw my guilt

As You absolved me on that cross of Calvary

 

When one day soon again we meet

I will sorrow at Your feet.

My hands raw from clutching still

That gruesome cross of Calvary.

 

You have my heart,

You have my soul,

My purchased self is Yours to own.

In my memory, Your blood runs still

On that ruthless hill of Calvary.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE VICTORY

 

The Victory by LDS Bookstore

As Golgotha raged and tore

Your flesh without mercy

The Garden sprang anew,

As from every drop You spilt

New flowers came into bloom.

How pitiful the cross that claimed You

Not knowing it sent a God to a

Darkened tomb!

-     Cathryne Allen

THE BITTER CUP

 

Hail King of the Jews by Mindi Oaten

As I prayed this morning I was reminded of all the suffering in the world and I begged God to lift up all of His children who are today in depths of despair. I know that place….a place devoid of hope and even sometimes faith. This request was only possible because hope can exist and it does so because of one man.

Songs have been written about Him, prayers uttered in His name and books written about His greatest heroic achievement in the history of mankind.  My eyes have been opened to a lot of things through my physical suffering these past two years but perhaps the greatest was my recent  minute insight into the suffering of Christ. It was not an intellectual  but an emotional connection. What it did was bring me into touch with profound sorrow that somehow broadened my already minute understanding of the Atonement…..it came through my heart because it connected my suffering to His.

Many have concluded that Jesus didn’t really know the pain He was going to go through. I on the other hand think He was given the exact knowledge of it through His godly intellect. It has to do with ‘the bitter cup’. I think it was because of His understanding that He asked if there was another way so He didn’t have to drink it (Matthew 26:39; D&C 19:18-19).

And this is where I stand amazed. Not even when He was going through it, did He resort to push the button within His reach to end the torture. The commitment had been made and the endurance to the end was all that mattered. This became obvious when in His extremity he refused to drink another bitter cup that would in actuality soften the blow.

Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful execution method. It was the custom of the compassionate local women or Jewish sympathizers to offer an anesthetic potion being a mixture of cheap wine and an aromatic tree resin called myrrh to those undergoing such an ordeal. Matthew and Mark identified it as vinegar and gall suggesting bitterness (Matthew 27:34: Mark 15:23). Jesus was offered this drink right before the crucifixion. He tasted it but ultimately refused to drink it. He was offered it again whilst on the cross (Mark 15:36; John 19:28,29).

The willingness to endure the full weight of human suffering and death with a fully conscious mind, rather than seeking to dull the pain or avoid the ultimate sacrifice He had to make is where the heroic component of His Atonement would have to be. It was the willingness to endure that brought the end when He could say: “It is finished” (John 19:30)

We can read all that has been written about the Atonement and Christ’s great suffering but nothing compares to the understanding you receive through the channels of the spirit and heart. I don’t know how He did it but I know that He did…..my heart tells me so.

I couldn’t stop the tears when they came

To show me what You knew of earthly pain.

My soul split open and I could see

What You suffered in Gethsemane.

 

My tears spilled and climbed that Hill

Where Your suffering increased yet still;

Oh how You suffered on that cross

So that none of us would be lost!

 

When one day again we meet

I will sorrow at Your feet,

My hands raw from clutching still

That gruesome cross of Calvary.

 

You have my heart

You have my soul

My purchased self is Yours to own.

In my memory Your blood runs still

On that ruthless hill of Calvary.

 

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN 

BECAUSE OF HIM

 

We are tempest tossed on this sea of humanity. Some of us are lost, scared, alienated, and most of us are suffering from some negative effect of mortal life, but there is one collective way in which we all suffer. 

I have been through trials before but have always had good health. The trial of bad health I am going through now has been incredibly hard for me because none of my trials before have tested me to this extent. It began to frighten me of late that I might be losing what I considered to be the most important part of me…..my faith. I was slipping into bad depression one day thinking if my faith in God was taken away from me, there would be nothing of me left because my faith was my make-up.

Upon further reflection I realized what I feared in reality was not losing my faith but my connection to God that I had developed in fifty years of my Church membership. I had come to the point where I was hearing the voice of God in my life in different ways and my testimony of His existence was iron clad. To lose that would be the devastation like I had never known before. I could not comprehend how lost I would feel in this vast universe. This is fear of nothingness for me.

For many years now I have tried to understand the true meaning of earthly suffering. I have been given different gospel perspectives to this question which I agree with but nothing had really stood out to me in such a personal way as what I learnt through physical suffering. If its not the explanation for all, it is for me. On many days of intense pain I have felt alienated from God, abandoned and all alone. Pain seems to do that. Physical suffering teaches us what it would feel like to be spiritually cut off from God’s presence forever. Once you understand it, it becomes a deterrent to sinning.

Just being taken out of God’s presence in which we lived for eons and placed in another sphere of existence has an effect on all of us, even if we don’t realize it. A French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said something profound once: “We are spiritual beings having a human experience and not humans having a spiritual experience”. Because of this truth, we are all hungering and seeking that spiritual connection we once had with God, even if we don’t realise it. Some of us who do not find it in the right place, seek devastating counterfeits which lead them to self-destruction. The truth remains, we are all seeking God.

The good news is that there is hope…..for all of us. There is a spiritual umbilical cord that ties us to the origin of our existence and ensures we do not have to be lost forever. I cannot think of a greater happiness and joy than being in the presence of a God of love for all eternity. This was the Saviour’s primary motivation for His eternal sacrifice…..that we be with the Father forever.

Before He went to the Garden and the cross, the Saviour was certain that the Father would be with Him during His suffering. He said as much to his disciples (John 8:29; 16:32). Imagine His surprise when the Father withdrew and He was left alone. This was needful for a couple of reasons:  1. where there is sin, which was upon the Saviour during the Atonement, God’s spirit withdraws (Mosiah 2:36);  and 2. so the glory would be exclusively His and He could say, “I have trodden the winepress alone…” (D&C 133:50).

This, however, is the primary reason why the Father withdrew. It was imperative that the Saviour understood spiritual death from first-hand experience and what it would be like for us, sinners, to be cut off from the presence of God forever. For this He endured the cross until He could say ‘it is finished’ (John 19:30). The Atonement overcame spiritual death and redeemed us from the Fall.

Considering the closeness and connection He had with His Father, I cannot imagine the devastation He felt during this ordeal of alienation but this too He was willing to suffer for our sake. This is the God we worship, this is the God we love. All honour and praise be to His name forever. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Uplift the World by Eva Koleva Timothy)

THE FOOT OF HIS THRONE

 

I carry my cross every day to the foot of Calvary

Where You carried yours so valiantly to the top;

I wait for You there to lift me

To meet You at the foot of Your gilded throne.

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Behold the Man by Simon Dewey)

TRUST

 

"There is a story told that a company of botanists seeking some special flowers up in the Canadian Rockies, came one day to a very rare flower down on the side of a cliff.  To reach it they would have to retrace their steps and go back ten miles to come up from the valley below.  Someone suggested that if they had a rope they could let a boy down to pick the specimens.  That suggestion was prompted by the fact that a little boy had been following them for about an hour, watching them silently.  They got the rope and said:

 

'Here lad, we'll give you $5 if you will put this rope around you and permit us to let you down to get those flowers'. Without saying a word the lad scampered off.  They thought they had frightened him.  He went to a house nearby and soon came back with a man by his side.  Then the little fellow answered: ‘You may put that rope around me, and I'll get the flower, if you'll let my dad hold the rope'." (President David O. McKay, CR. April 1944)

 

When you study the scriptures you can see so clearly the intimate and close connection the Saviour had with the Father whilst in mortality. He spoke of Him incessantly. Once I counted 163 references that He made to the Father during His visit to the Americas. Fifteen of those referenced His obedience to Him which included the sacrifice He was to offer and save the rest of us (John 10:17-18).

 

The closeness Jesus felt to the Father during His life was such that when He told His disciples that they will scatter and leave Him in the end, He said with assurance: “….yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” and “He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him (John 8:29; 16:32).

 

This is a clear indication that Jesus felt sure the Father would be with Him during His atoning sacrifice  and so perhaps it was not just sheer obedience but also trust that there will be a rope around Him to the very end. Perhaps this trust played a big part in enabling Him to say, “not mine, but Thy will be done” as He began to submit to His excruciating ordeal (Matthew 26:39).  

Imagine then the shock when He was descending into the bottomless pit of human suffering to discover there was no rope around Him, like in the Garden, and no Father to catch Him….when He uttered that heart breaking question asking why the Father had forsaken Him (Matthew 27:46). There are reasons why it had to be so but the startling point is, the Saviour was utterly and totally alone.

Here again there had to be trust even though the rope was not there. There had to be trust that He could finish His crucible until every soul was atoned for and until He could give His all in the voluntary surrender of His life (John 10:18). There had to be trust until He could say: “It is finished” (John 19:30)

I have been puzzled by the concept of suffering my entire life. I used to think there had to be a better way to exaltation, for the Saviour and for us. Over time I received glimpses here and there about that necessity but none of these intellectual explanations seemed to make a dent into my understanding pertaining to my life. The other day I had a revelation about it so intense and so poignant that it took the explanation of my life to another level.

Through it I learnt something extremely important: the Eternal Father knows me to the depths of my soul and the plan for my life which I agreed to before I was born was so finely crafted that it has the power to prepare me for something much greater. I came away from that experience sobbing and understanding His mercy for the life He had planned for me. All I have to do is trust that there is a rope around my waist like Christ ‘who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross’ (Hebrews 12:2).

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Thy Will Be Done by Jay Bryant Ward)

 

GODLY SUFFERING

 

In Section 19 of Doctrine and Covenants, the Saviour revealed the most personal details of His suffering during the Atonement. Here He dismissed ‘the insinuation’ that His sweat was ‘like’ drops of blood, as mentioned by Luke in his Gospel, and confirmed that indeed His agony was so great that He sweat actual blood from His pores (v 18; Luke 22:44).

I have experienced pain in my life but I cannot fathom such extreme form of it. This is how Elder James E. Talmage described it:

“Christ’s agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as to intensity and cause….He struggled and groaned under a burden such as no other who has lived on earth might even conceive as possible. It was not physical pain, nor mental anguish alone, that caused Him to suffer such torture as to produce an extrusion of blood from every pore; but a spiritual agony of soul such as only God was capable of experiencing.

“No other man, however great his powers of physical or mental endurance, could have suffered so; for his human organism would have succumbed, and syncope would have produced unconsciousness and welcome oblivion. In that hour of anguish Christ met and overcame all the horrors that Satan, ‘the prince of this world’ could inflict….. (Jesus the Christ, p 613)

And here is another horrific thing about it. This excruciating spiritual pain was added to the physical pain of the crucifixion as He hung on the cross: “Again, on Calvary, during the last three hours of his mortal passion, the sufferings of Gethsemane returned….if we interpret the holy word aright, that all of the anguish, all of the sorrow, and all of the suffering of Gethsemane recurred during the hours when darkness covered the land….could it be that this was the period of his greatest trial, or that during it the agonies of Gethsemane recurred and even intensified!” (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “Mortal Messiah” 4:232, note 22; see also Talmage, “Jesus the Christ” p 661 and Tad R. Callister, “The Infinite Atonement” p 141)

There is another scripture in Section 19 of Doctrine and Covenants which I find most alarming. In His vehement command to us to repent, the Saviour explained that if we would not repent, we must suffer even as He suffered, to pay for our own sins (v 17). This drives fear into me. I have suffered in my life and the last thing I would want is to undergo suffering at such great scale as I have never experienced before.

Herein enters Christ’s unfathomable mercy. Verses 4-12 offer great insight into God’s punishment. Here we are told that the punishment given from God’s hand is ‘eternal and endless punishment’ because Eternal and Endless are two of His names. It does not mean that a sinner is to be eternally and endlessly made to suffer.

I worshipped You in heaven

As my Saviour and my King.

I knew Your holy suffering

Would pay for everything.

 

Now I am here in my mortal frame,

I am amazed at the price You paid

For the value of my name!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Hail King of the Jews by Mindi Oaten)

AT CALVARY

 

I continue to glean lessons from the Saviour’s suffering during His Atonement, not theological but personal. I was given one such lesson this week.

As I was praying one day, I was given a picture in my mind of the Saviour on the cross. It stunned me to the point that I stopped praying and I just listened to the understanding that kept coming. I will attempt to share with you just one thing that I feel is needful for all of us in this divisive world we live in.

Sometimes we pray for Christ-like qualities we want to have and we imagine that heaven’s wand will be waved over us and we will magically have what we asked for. I happen to have a very strong sense of justice to the point that it has at times robbed me of mercy towards others. I was very aware of this and thought it most unattractive so I have prayed a long time to become merciful. I wanted that wand!

As I saw the Saviour on the cross experiencing everyone’s pain, I understood that because He experienced and knew our suffering personally that He obtained the depth of mercy He might not have had before.

Alma proves my point here: “And He will take upon him death, that He may loose the bands of death which bind His people; and He will take upon Him their infirmities, that His bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor His people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).

This deep sense of mercy the Saviour acquired through His Atonement will also be the defining attribute He will employ to make a righteous judgment and satisfy the demands of justice on judgment day. The balance between justice and mercy will be so perfect that we will not be able to question it.

How did this experience apply to me? I have been suffering physically for over a year now. Of late I have prayed that I will learn the lessons I am meant to learn from it. My above-mentioned experience helped me to understand that I need to view my fellowmen through the lense of mercy because everyone suffers in some way. We don’t know each other’s lives. We only know what we see and what we project to the world. I am hoping that as I am merciful towards others, I will be endowed with the pure love of Christ as Moroni promised (Moroni 7:48). This too is my desire.

I am amazed what we can learn from the life of Christ. His teachings and His mortal life, His example and His pure love and mercy toward us in this fallen world should provide life-long lessons for us, so that we ‘may become the sons of God; that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him….” (Moroni 7:48).

Today as I communed with Thee

You took me all the way to Calvary.

My heart stood still, the lessons came

And taught me what in words

I could not name.

I bow the knee and in thanks

Ascend to Thee

For all I learnt at Calvary.

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Redemption's Burden by Greg Collins)

BELOVED MASTER

 

The most exhilarating part of the Saviour's earthly life would have to be post resurrection.

Imagine abandoning your life’s work to be an apostle of a man who claimed to be the Son of God. Imagine all the hours you have put in being His disciple, all the hope you had in His promises and His teachings. Imagine the tutoring and the love you have experienced at His side.

Then imagine all of that coming to an end as you saw Him crucified.   Imagine having your witness of His divinity crushed as you saw Him dying on the cross because He would not fight back. All your belief in His divinity would be crushed and an enormous wave of doubt would flood your whole being. Could the Romans, who were mere men, kill Christ if He were really God?

All hope seemed to be gone. Then on the third day, the grief would not end for the Master whom His disciples loved was gone from the sepulchre where He lay. With haste Peter and John ran to the sepulchre with eagerness, no doubt with the Master’s words echoing in their ears:

“A little while and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me…..ye shall weep and lament….and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:16,20). Did they have hope in His saying that He must rise again from the dead as they ran to that tomb??? (John 20:9).

This was the moment in time when the lives of Peter and John changed forever. The Saviour’s life came to an end but theirs was just beginning. They saw their beloved Master again, in His immortal body, and were given the understanding of the scriptures which spoke of His death and rising from the dead the third day (Luke 24:45,46).

The third time Jesus showed himself to His disciples at the sea of Tiberias, He made it clear what their mission was. Lacking in direction, Peter and some the Twelve went fishing (John 21:1-3). After all, this is what they knew best but that night they caught nothing.

When in the morning they saw Jesus standing on the shore, they followed his instruction to cast the net on the right side of the ship and when they did so, the net came up full of ‘the multitude of fishes’ (John 21: 6). This was the lesson: they were to ‘feed His sheep’ and be the fishers of men (vs 15-17)

Peter and John were spiritually transformed following the ascension of Him whom they called the Beloved Master (Luke 8:24; Mark 9:5; 13:1; John 13:13). A leader in his own right, appointed by the Saviour himself to hold the keys of the Kingdom (Matthew 16:13-19), Peter became a spiritual giant whose very shadow was believed would heal the sick in the streets (Acts 5:15).  

He accepted graciously the manner of his death as foretold by Jesus (John 21:18,19; 2 Peter: 1:13, 14) and died in Rome during the reign of emperor Nero in 64 A.D. In the Roman Empire, crucifixions took many shapes which are too indelicate to mention (Seneca, Dialogue “To Marcia on Consolation”, in Moral Essays, 6.20.3).

According to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down, a death of his choice having felt unworthy to die in the same manner as his Master. Perhaps his three denials of Him echoed in his pool of memories to the very end (John 13:38; Mark 14:66-72).

And what can we say of John, the most beloved disciple (John 21:7,20) whom the Saviour named the Son of Thunder (Luke 9:52-56: Mark 3:17)?  He who lives still and sorrows for the sins of the world. Peter chose a speedy death to be reunited with the beloved Master but John chose a more noble path by remaining on earth to bring souls unto Him until the end of the world. I am in awe of John the Beloved.

I am grateful for the legacy these men left behind, a legacy of faith and works and their powerful testimonies in the words that I am privileged to read.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Hope by Liz Lemon Swindle)

THE HOUR OF DEEPEST HUMILIATION

 

I have always been amazed at the humiliation that the Saviour must have suffered at the hands of His captors prior to the crucifixion.

Mark records that after His arrest, Jesus was brought into the palace of the high priest (Mark 14:53,54) where a mockery of a trial was conducted condemning Him to death and where His accusers ‘began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him….and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands’ (v 65).

Luke records that ‘the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him, and when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him’ (Luke 22:63-65).

Imagine a God who creates worlds, controls the elements, performs miracles, and has the power to subdue all enemies under His feet, allowing and enduring such humiliation at the hands of pathetic, weak and sinful humans. That’s godly self-control and godly focus without which He could not have submitted himself to the greatest act of mercy ever.

The treatment that Christ endured at the hands of His captors was nothing compared to Gethsemane from which He had just come. The experience of the Garden was ‘the hour of His DEEPEST humiliation’ (Jesus the Christ, p 611).

In that hour of anguish Christ met and overcame all the horrors that Satan, “the prince of this world”, could inflict’ (Jesus the Christ, p 613). Imagine a man who would NEVER do anything wrong, to any degree, taking upon himself all the existent sins as if He had committed them Himself.

The spiritual anguish He suffered was no doubt due to all the corroding feelings associated with sin such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, lack of esteem, self-hatred, fear of God’s wrath….indeed, deepest humiliation for one so sinless. Following the humiliation of Gethsemane, would any other be worse???

But then there is Golgotha…..where like a criminal He was nailed to a cross on the side of the road for all to see His nakedness and His suffering. And as the Roman custom demanded, a plaque nailed to the cross outlining all his crimes, only He had committed none…..so what would have been on His plaque? My sins, your sins, our families’ sins, our nation’s sins, the world’s sins and the sins of all mankind from Adam to the end of the world.

 

Will the sinner for whom you suffered,

Who rejected and reviled Thee

Weep in the end for Thy pain and Thy sorrow?

Will his heart understand

When he kneels before Thee

The debt he owes for the existence

Of his merciful tomorrow?

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Behold the Man by Christopher Young)

TO KNOW HIM

 

I wept through the early hours of my day yesterday as I mused about my love for the Saviour and what He means to me. I was walking on air when I left the house and headed for the supermarket.

I felt like the Holy Ghost was walking with me and holding my hand…..until I laid eyes on a young man in his early 20s wearing a black T-shirt. On the back of it was written in large letters the most profane, vile and vulgar description of Christ I have ever seen or heard before. I was so shocked that I was sickened and had to avert my eyes to prevent them from burning.

The Holy Ghost was gone and I was left wondering about this experience for the rest of my day. I wondered about the young man and if he understood exactly what he was doing. What kind of a home did he come from? Did he hold a grudge against God? What would possess him to like such an abhorrent saying and want to wear it on his body? I half expected those words to burn through his back and lodge deep into his soul. One thing was obvious, this young man did not know the Saviour. He simply could not have.

As the day wore on different thoughts came into my mind. One of them was God weeping over his children during his encounter with Enoch (Moses 7:28). I half understood the pain. If I was so grieved to see such offence committed against His Son, I cannot fathom how the Father would feel.

I read recently an article about the creation of this earth with a very plausible proposition that the worst and the best of the Father’s children were chosen for this planet. That is evident when we consider that no other group of humanity would crucify their God (2 Nephi 10:3).

Every time I see someone mock, deny, and tread Christ under their feet it makes me feel like we are  crucifying Him afresh. Paul spoke of this concept in relation to those who have the truth and then deny it but I think it applies to most of our society (Hebrews 6:6; see also JST Hebrews 6).

I have always been highly impressed with Joseph’s praise of the Saviour. You cannot read it and not know that Joseph knew Him. It stands in such stark contrast to the T-shirt that I am not surprised it was recalled to me. You cannot read it and not feel it in the depths of your soul:

“Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel…..Let the mountains shout for joy and all ye valleys cry aloud, and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy!....And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever……”  (D&C 128:23)

This is what we should feel about Christ. When He comes we will want to be the ones who know Him. When He comes, we will want to kneel before Him and profess His greatness and confess that  He is the Rock of Heaven, the Lord Omnipotent, Alpha and Omega, the Son of God, Wonderful, Counselor, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace……Jesus Christ, the Son of God…..

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Jesus the Anointed by Greg Collins)

GOD OF LIGHT

 

Samuel the Lamanite could not have possibly given a more apt sign to the Nephites of the Saviour’s birth than the withholding of darkness (Helaman 14:3). His words were fulfilled 6 years later when the day before Christ’s birth ‘there was no darkness when the night came’ and instead, only light reigned (3 Nephi 1:15).

It is only fitting that this sign was given to herald the God of Light coming into the world to save mankind by proclaiming: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life…the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world….the Light that proceedeth froth from the presence of God and giveth life to all things” (John 8:12; 1:7,9; D&C 88:12-13).

Equally fitting was Samuel’s prophecy of darkness that would envelop the American continent for three days as the sign of the Saviour’s death (Helaman 14:20). Thirty-three years later the God of nature suffered and tempests, earthquakes, fires, whirlwinds, and physical upheavals attested to the crucifixion and death of the Saviour of the world and darkness reigned for three days (1 Nephi 19:12; 3 Nephi 8:5-19). The God of Light had withdrawn from the earth.

Such a poignant witness of His death reminiscent of His descent into darkness of hell to gain “the power to carry the lowest of the lowly back up into the light of salvation. Christ placed himself in darkness, not only below the most disobedient of mortals, but below the accumulated darkness of all sins committed throughout the history of time” (B. Grant Bishop, The LDS Gospel of Light, p 96).

When the Saviour comes for the second time, there will be no last-minute warnings, signs or miracles. He will come as ‘a thief in the night’ (1 Thessalonians 5:2). The world will be in commotion and destruction will come upon them but we will not be in darkness because we are ‘children of light’ (v 3-5). Instead of signs and wonders in the sky, we have been admonished to prepare thus that we might ‘be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (v 16-22) :

·        Rejoice evermore;

·        Pray without ceasing.

·        In everything give thanks;

·        Quench not the Spirit;

·        Despite not prophesyings;

·        Hold fast that which is good;

·        Abstain from all appearance of evil.

And when He comes, Zion will rise to a Millenial glory, and the ‘sun shall be no more our light by day; neither for brighteness shall the moon give light unto us, but the Lord shall be our everlasting light….(Isaiah 60:19)’, the true light which lighteth every man (John 1:9), the King of Heaven will be a light unto us forever (2 Nephi 10:13,14), the light and the Redeemer of the world (D&C 93:9).

Should the stars fall

from heaven,

And the sun refuse

to give its light;

Should the earth become

the darkest night,

You will ever be

My only guiding light.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Bridegroom by LDS ART)

BELOVED MASTER

 

The most exhilarating part of the Saviour's earthly life would have to be post resurrection. I can only imagine the hope and the speculation that would have circulated in the midst of His followers as the news spread that He lived again.

Have a good look at this painting by Eugene Burnand (1898) which was his most known work. It is a depiction of Peter and John running to the tomb of Jesus who was crucified.

Imagine abandoning your life’s work to be an apostle of a man who claimed to be the Son of God. Imagine all the hours you have put in being His disciple, all the hope you had in His promises and His teachings. Imagine the tutoring and the love you have experienced at His side. And imagine receiving a witness that He truly was the Son of God. Then imagine all of that coming to an end as you saw Him crucified for the greatest injustice you have witnessed. All hope seemed gone. Then on the third day, the grief would not end for the Master whom they loved was gone from the sepulchre where He lay. With haste Peter and John ran with eagerness, no doubt with the Master’s words echoing in their ears: “A little while and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me…..ye shall weep and lament….and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:16,20). Did they have hope in His saying that he must rise again from the dead as they ran to that tomb??? (John 20:9).

This was the moment in time when the lives of Peter and John changed forever. The Saviour’s life came to an end but theirs was just beginning. They saw their beloved Master again, in His immortal body, and were given the understanding of the scriptures which spoke of His death and rising from the dead the third day (Luke 24:45,46). And what blessed moment it was to see Him ascend into heaven and which led them into Jerusalem ‘with great joy’ where they ‘were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God’ (John 24:50-53).

Peter and John were spiritually transformed following the ascension of Him whom they called the Beloved Master (Luke 8:24; Mark 9:5; 13:1; John 13:13). A leader in his own right, appointed by the Saviour himself to hold the keys of the Kingdom (Matthew 16:13-19), Peter became a spiritual giant whose very shadow was believed would heal the sick in the streets (Acts 5:15).  He accepted graciously the manner of his death as foretold by Jesus (John 21:18,19; 2 Peter: 1:13, 14) and died in Rome during the reign of emperor Nero in 64 A.D. In the Roman Empire, crucifixions took many shapes which are too indelicate to mention (Seneca, Dialogue “To Marcia on Consolation”, in Moral Essays, 6.20.3). According to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down, which was one of the methods, and which he chose having felt unworthy to die in the same manner as his Master.

And what can we say of John, the most beloved disciple (John 21:7,20)? A man of zeal, who wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy the Samaritan villagers who refused hospitality to his beloved Master and whom the Saviour named the Son of Thunder  (Luke 9:52-56: Mark 3:17).  He who lives still and sorrows for the sins of the world…..he who could not refrain from following Peter and the Saviour prior to His ascension (John 21:19-21). Peter chose a speedy death to be reunited with the beloved Master but John chose a more noble path by bringing souls unto Him until the end of the world. Such nobility is rarely seen but it is seen in John the Beloved.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Peter and John at the Tomb by Eugene Burnand (1898)