One day when You return for Your glorious reign
In Millenial splendour
Your power to display;
I
will kneel and confess Your greatness;
I
will join the heavenly throng in song,
And
I will sorrow for the lost
For
whom You suffered for so long.
- Cathryne Allen
I
wondered why You were absent
When
I most needed Thee;
I
felt so alone in my suffering,
Yet
You promised You’d be with us in everything.
I
thought I was in my own Garden of Gethsemane,
Until
I saw Your footprints
And
Your drops of blood
That
eluded me.
I
looked around and I understood
You
knew every tree,
Every
shrub, even every blade
Of
grass in Your vicinity.
I
was in Your garden, not mine,
that beckoned me.
I
realised You were there still
Praying
for my weak soul to come to Thee.
I
will come, I will honour Thee;
Let
me first sit under this tree a while
To
reflect upon Your suffering.
-
Cathryne Allen
In the beginning,
When the worlds came to be
I created everything needful
For you to become like Me.
I planned, I considered,
I knew each of you separately,
And I hoped against hope
You would want to become like Me.
Now I hear each plea
And answer it carefully,
Leading you gently to
Your own Gethsemane,
To become like Me.
-
Cathryne
Allen
He Is Risen…..
The suffering endured
The power displayed
The love manifested
(Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement)
(Matthew 28:6)
The Hope of Israel
King of Nations
The Lord of Hosts
Eternal King
The Son of God
The Balm of Gilead
The Son of Man of Holiness
The King of Zion
The Rock of Heaven
The Son of Righteousness
The Great I am
The Good Shepherd
The Stone of Israel
The Son of Man
The Great Amen
The Mighty One of Jacob
The Shepherd of Israel
The Word of Life
Man of Counsel
The Bright and Morning Star
The Holy One
Endless
Eternal
Messiah
The Lamb of God
The Great Jehovah
The Rock of Our Salvation
The liberator of
the captive, the succor of the weak, the balm of the afflicted, the well of all
perfection, the fountain of all righteousness…..
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Jesus Ascends by Chris Brazelton)
With what heavy steps
You approached the garden’s gate!
You suffered, You atoned,
You hung lifeless on the cross,
As you met Your appointed fate.
I waited for my turn on earth
And watched with angels
Your rise from the darkened tomb
That could not contain
The magnitude of You.
I saw Your glory that shone so bright
Defeating death and making all anew
And I wept for the greatness of hope
That rose with You.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: On The Third Day by Greg Collins)
“I…beheld
the Lamb of God going forth among the children of men….and I beheld multitudes
of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases,
and with devils and unclean spirits; and….they were healed by the power of the
Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out.” (1 Nephi
11:31)
“Jesus was
touched with a feeling of their infirmities. Those cries pierced to His inmost
heart; the groans and sighs of all that collective misery filled His whole soul
with pity. His heart bled for them; He suffered with them; their agonies were
His; so that the Evangelist St. Matthew recalls, with a slight difference of
language, the words of Isaiah, “Surely He bore our griefs and carried our
sorrow.” (F.W. Farrar, “The Life of Christ, London: Cassell & Co., Ltd.,
1874)
“Isaiah’s
clear meaning is that the Messiah takes upon himself the sins – and hence the
griefs and sorrows, for these come because of sin – of all men on condition of
repentance…..the physical healings are a type and pattern of the spiritual
healings wrought through the infinite and eternal atonement of Him who ransoms
men both temporally and spiritually.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “The Mortal Messiah
From Bethlehem to Calvary” Book 2”, 52)
O the pain that seared Your heart
As
You encountered human misery
On
the dusty roads of Galilee!
You
embraced it all so lovingly
And
took it with You to the hill of Calvary.
You,
who ached for our misery,
Became
the beacon of hope
For
all who accept Your godly suffering.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief by Jay Bryant Ward)
I
reflected this week on the hardest commandment that Jesus gave us: “Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44). Then I was reminded that He
was the greatest example of this.
Never
has there been a man who has been persecuted and hated more and who suffered
greater pain at the hands of His enemies and who died an unjust death. And all this whilst He possessed the power to
defend himself and cause the destruction of those who He suffered for. Imagine
the God who created worlds submitting himself to being mocked, spit upon, whipped,
smitten, and adorned with a crown of thorns (Luke 22:63-65; Mark 14:65; Matthew
27:26-31)
Over
and over the Lord’s own testimony of His subjection to this treatment came into
my mind: “I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off
the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6)
Following
this testimony, the Saviour seeks our attention by saying twice: “Hearken to
me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord….the people in
whose heart is my law” (Isaiah 51:1,7). He not only wants us to take note of
the example He set but He then tells us that ‘the redeemed of the Lord shall
return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon
their heads….” (v 11).
Why
do you think the adversary is attacking America and causing so much division
there right now? Because that’s where Zion is where ‘the redeemed of the Lord
shall return’. We cannot be redeemed if we are not united, if hatred exists
amongst us. Zion The Pure In Heart, cannot be pure if we are divided in purpose,
in care of each other, in love.
The
adversary is driving division amongst us in the best ways possible. He knows if
he can divide us, he can destroy us. He doesn’t care who dies, bad or good, as
long as it makes us hate one another. If you are posting about this week’s
tragedy, even if it is something good, don’t. It just reminds others of the
injustice and makes them more angry and more prone to hate. We are emissaries
of Christ and not the enemy. Therefore, we are to spread love and not hate.
We
are not asked to follow the Prince of Peace in times of peace but in times of
turmoil. We the people in whose heart is Christ’s law of love unfeigned, unity
and hope of joy, need to stand against the forces of evil that seek to plant
hatred in us or we will never make it to Zion.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Jesus Prince of Peace by Danny Hahlbohm)
We focused a
lot on the suffering of Christ this Easter. Indeed, He suffered greatly to save
us from our sins. His multi-faceted life, however, deserves a greater attention
than we give it:
“Of the
many magnificent purposes served in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus
Christ, one great aspect of that mission often goes uncelebrated. His followers
did not understand it fully at the time, and many in modern Christianity do not
grasp it now, but the Saviour Himself spoke of it repeatedly and emphatically.
“It is the
grand truth that in all that Jesus came to say and do, including and especially
in His atoning suffering and sacrifice, He was showing us who and what God, our
Eternal Father, is like, how completely devoted He is to His children in every
age and nation. In word and in deed Jesus was trying to reveal the make
personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.” (Elder
Jeffrey R Holland, “The Grandeur of God”, CR October 2003).
The Saviour
showed us what the Father is like through His teachings, His example, and
through His very being. When Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus
answered: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8,9). Consider how
one component of His Atonement, the resurrection, applies to this:
“Any who
dismiss the concept of an embodied God, dismiss both the mortal and the
resurrected Christ. If having a body is not only not needed but not desirable
by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from
the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be
separated from His spirit in time or eternity?” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “The
Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent”, Ensign, November 2007)
This is
more important than we think. There have been so many misconceptions about the
nature of God, such as a belief that He is a spirit without ‘parts and passions’.
The resurrection of Christ disproves that.
The most
pious Orthodox Jews have never been able to ‘internalise’ God because of their
perception of Him. They could never call Him “Father” as Christians do. This is
because they have such profound reverence toward His holiness that they cannot
speak or write His name. Even the rabbis admit they do not have a clear
perception of who God really is. (Marshall D. Isaacson, “Children of the
Covenant”, p 30,123)
The Lord’s prayer
alone teaches us that God is a father, and not some mystic unfathomable spirit
floating in space. Consider the start of the prayer : ”Our Father, who art in
heaven…..(Matthew 6:9). And then the nature of that Father: “….your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him” (v 8). This is a God who
is first and foremost a Father, who cares for His children like any father
would do.
This was a
new concept to the Jewish population of Christ’s time. This was one of the
reasons why they rejected Him. The Saviour’s so called ‘blasphemous’
declaration of Himself as the Son of God was a nail in His coffin.
The Saviour
spoke of the Father incessantly throughout His ministry, among the Jews and the
Nephites. The references in the holy canon are too numerous to list.
We always
talk about the great suffering and sacrifice of Christ having been executed
because of the Saviour’s great love for us. And it is true, He certainly loved
us but the real reason He did it was to bring us to the Father. He did it for
Him, more than anybody.
Have there
ever been more loving words than these: “Here am I, send me! Father, thy will
be done, and the glory be thine forever” (Abraham 3:27; Moses 4:2). I think not.
The Church
brings us to Christ and Christ brings us to the Father. He is the final destination
in our spiritual evolvement: The Father who has created us, who has reared us,
who has loved us, who sent His Beloved Son to redeem us so He can have us in
His arms forever….
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)
I write a
lot of posts about Christ and post a lot of pictures of Him. I have noticed
more and more people reacting favourably to pictures of a happy Christ. It seems
we don’t like to see Him unhappy or somber or suffering. I guess we have had
those pictures for too long. One of my readers commented recently: “It’s good
to see Him smiling. Gives hope”. The inference is, if He could be happy after
all He endured, there is hope for us too. I loved it because It made me think
of the following scripture:
“Looking
unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).
Yes, Christ
endured unfathomable suffering focusing on the joy that would come following:
the joy of His triumph and the eternal reward that awaited Him, but not only
that….He did it for the joy that awaited all of us who believe in Him and
accept Him. He knew so well what was at stake if He failed, and He knew really
well the joy that would be ours if death was overcome, immortality granted and
eternal life made possible. This was His focus and this was His joy…..to give
us what we could not give ourselves. The love supreme, the mercy unfathomable.
Perhaps we need to remember more often where the Saviour is now that the crucible of His life is over. And this is where we will be if we carry our cross and endure in faith to the end. When you confront your own suffering, remember, the joy will come in the morning. Even if your battle spans the entirety of your life, it will not be forever…….but the joy will be. Remember the suffering Christ and have hope. He is where you can be……..and He is happy knowing the joy that awaits you.
Teach me dear God to look upward
And hope for the glories
That will one day be mine.
Help me to rise on wings of faith;
Lift me above valleys,
Mountains and seas
That I might forsake this world of suffering
And fly with haste to Thee.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Radiant Saviour by Chris Brazelton)
“Christ was perfect because he wanted to be. It
is important to remember that Jesus was capable of sinning, that he could have
succumbed, that the plan of life and salvation could have been foiled, but that
he remained true. Had there been no possibility of his yielding to the
enticement of Satan, there would have been no real test, no genuine victory in
the result. If he had been stripped of the faculty to sin, he would have been
stripped of his very agency. It was he who had come to safeguard and ensure the
agency of man [hence] He had to retain the capacity and ability to sin had he
willed so to do…..He was perfect and sinless, not because he had to be, but
rather because he clearly and determinedly wanted to be. As the Doctrine and Covenants
records, “He suffered temptations but gave no need heed unto them (D&C
20:22).” (Teachings of Howard W. Hunter,
p 4; see also Jesus the Christ, p 134)
I am constantly amazed by the difficulty of
Christ’s life long before the cross and the garden’s gate. Here is the reality
of that: “He was called upon to choose the right in the hardest and most
difficult situations ever imposed upon mortals…..That His temptations were over
and above those of any other person is shown from the Messianic prophecy: “Lo,
he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue,
even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death” (Mosiah 3:7). (Bruce R.
McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, p 418).
We might argue that because of His divine
nature it was easy for Him to resist His temptations but that is not so. Every
temptation has to equal the spiritual stature of the man, otherwise it is not a
temptation. It has no substance if it does not carry with it potential power. The
Saviour’s three greatest temptations are
proof of this.
At the onset of Christ’s ministry, during His
40 days of fasting in the wilderness, the Saviour enjoyed intense communion
with His Father which confirmed His Messianic role (JST Matthew 4:1,2; Talmage,
Jesus the Christ, p 128,9). Each of the Temptations of Christ, were tailored
as a challenge to His divinity. Satan tempted Him with each one to prove that
He really was the Son of God, and disprove the Father’s confirmation of the
same during His wilderness experience. The second temptation is the one that, in
my mind, proves this the most. When the spirit took Him to the pinnacle of the
temple (JST Matthew 4:5a), Satan tempted Him to cast himself down in the midst
of the worshippers below and fulfil the Messianic prophecy that angels would
‘bear him up’. What a beginning to His ministry that would have been! It would
have insured public recognition of Jesus being superior to mortals, “the fame
of which would have spread as fire in the dry grass; and all Jewry would have
been aflame with excitement and interest in the Christ” (Jesus the Christ, p
131). This would have been His great hour! (see Bruce R. McConkie, The
Mortal Messiah, p 414-5).
The restraint that the Saviour exercised not to
use His godly powers whilst in mortality deserves our greatest admiration. His
determination and resistance to sin of any proportion that He might fulfil His
responsibility to save us, deserves our utmost gratitude. He accepted it all
and suffered it all that He might succor us in our extremities (Hebrews
2:17,18) and pave our way to salvation and eternal life.
I gave you my all:
My heart, my body, my soul.
I paved the way
And conquered death.
I wait for you to come
Into the shadow of my wings;
I have paid the price: come unto
Me,
Your God and Your King.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Wounded for our Transgressions by Greg Collins)
I have reflected from time to time on my inability to
understand how a loving Father could send His children to a vale of suffering.
Yes, I have always understood the Gospel’s explanation of the fact that we
needed to grow and be tested but I could not really process this emotionally
and reconcile it with my heart, especially since I am a mother and a mother would
do anything to prevent suffering for her children. I also understood that God
has all past, present and future before Him constantly so He knows we will
eventually come through our sufferings. Still, my heart could not really accept
that either.
This morning as I prayed, I understood so clearly what
a sacrifice it was for the Father to send us to mortality. I remembered His
conversation with Enoch and how He wept showing him His disobedient children on
earth (Moses 7:28). There cannot possibly be pain without love. Those who hurt
you the most are the ones you love the most. I understood that the Father’s
tender feelings are ever present throughout our mortal probation. As I prayed
and understood this, I had an overwhelming desire to make up for all those who do
not want to know Him or those who are willfully disobedient. I wept knowing how
inadequate I am to bring this to fruition but I had an overwhelming desire to
be a dutiful daughter, even like His dutiful Son. I hope that my desire at
least, will be some solace to His pained heart.
If sending us to a period of suffering was hard enough
for Him, imagine how hard it was for the Father to allow His only mortal son,
His Only Begotten, to descend to the bottomless pit of human suffering. This is
the sacrifice greatest of all. Not just the sacrifice of the Son in laying down
His life, but the sacrifice of the Father in allowing Him to do it. There is
only one thing in my mind that would make this possible and that is Father’s
knowledge of the joy that awaits us because of this sacrifice. The greatest
thing He can give us is eternal joy, but even greater, His heart, which He has
sacrificed for a season so this can become a reality. This is love.
And here is serious food for thought that I have found
hard to accept: “If God suffers as mortal parents do when one of their children
suffers, then, as long as God procreates, He will suffer…..God has felt and
will yet feel our infirmities because He loves us, rejoices with us, suffers
with us, and weeps with us. His suffering is a never-ending process of which
the Atonement was an integral part. In this sense, the Saviour’s suffering
continues, worlds without end.” (Elder Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement,
p 155)
The last sentence is like a dagger to my heart…..
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Artist Unknown)
Imagine
your name with your every sin written on a placard and nailed to the cross of a
person who has done no wrong to pay the price of suffering on your behalf in
the valley of humiliation and death. This is the imagery Paul used to personalize
the Atonement to the understanding of the Colossian saints (Colossians 2:14-15).
In his day it was customary for Romans to write the crimes committed by the
condemned person on a placard and nailed to the cross at the time of his
crucifixion for all to see (John 19:19-22).
I have had
occasion to reflect on this when enduring seemed like too big a task with a
stark realization that if I didn’t ‘press toward the mark’ as Paul admonished
(Philippians 3:14), I would be paying unthinkable dishonour to the most
benevolent sacrifice for my soul. Not only this, but a gratitude for that
sacrifice which erased my every indignity by paying the demands of justice so
that I might not suffer the pains of a damned soul. Is there a greater debt
than this? Or a greater repayment we could and should ever make? All that we
are and can come to be we owe to Him who honoured that placard on His cross at
Calvary……
A life
laid bare in selfless giving
For
man’s purpose of salvation
Crimson
drops were spilt like roses
On the
hill of His creation.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: The Glory of Jesus Christ by Ralph of Gratis Graphics)
“The scriptures tell us that Christ was ‘sore amazed’
at how exquisite the pain whilst in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-34).
When we come to the moments in our lives when we ourselves are ‘sore amazed’,
we are lifted to higher ground, the ground the Saviour stood on. It is in these
moments in life that we connect to the reality of His suffering. Once we have
made that connection, we become empowered to endure sorrow and pain and triumph
over every foe of this earthly life, even as He did. The Saviour then becomes
real and the Atonement becomes active in our lives.”
The above quote is something I wrote years ago when
understanding of suffering came upon me. It is always a sobering moment when an
idealist meets a challenge to their ideals though. I am that idealist. I
believe in the ideal but living without it in this life has been a struggle for
me. I am still trying to grasp the meaning of suffering on an emotional level. Understanding
something intellectually and understanding it emotionally can be worlds apart.
Understanding emotionally involves experience and experience sometimes means
pain.
Consider Job. The most endearing thing about him was
not his persistent endurance, as admirable as that was, but that his suffering caused
him to be ‘weary of life’ and wish he had never been born (Job 3:3; 10:1). What
an exquisite blend of excellence and humanity. Maybe Job teaches us that there
is as much honour in pressing forward despite our lack of desire to do so as
there is in cheerfully bearing our misfortunes without any complaint. I applaud
those who can do the latter for in my opinion they are not many. Most of us
don’t find joy in suffering. The honour is in not giving up rather than
believing that we should be strong enough to never complain and thereby beating
ourselves up from ensuing guilt that comes from such an expectation. I have
known such guilt, I am an idealist.
The Saviour has had the hardest life of any of us. Even
He asked for ‘the cup’ to be removed from Him (Mark 14:36) but His integrity
did not fail Him and He drank the bitter dregs and thereby paved the way for us
to do the same (John 18:11; 3 Nephi 11:11; D&C 19:18). Job endured and was
rewarded with double of what he previously had (Job 42:10). The Saviour endured
and He became the God of Heaven and inherited all that the Father has. May we
be valiant in doing the same and follow the path to glory that awaits us.
Teach
me dear God to look upward
And
hope for the glories
That
will one day be mine.
Help
me to rise on wings of faith;
Lift
me above valleys,
Mountains
and seas
That
I might forsake this world of suffering
And
fly with haste to Thee.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Come and See by Tyler Anderson)
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. My dearest friend once told me that ‘meekness is strength turned tender’. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the Saviour’s sufferings during His earthly ministry were tolerated due to His meekness and His consistent focus on His mission.
That His love for the Father and for us was the primary motivation for His focus cannot be disputed. This, however, made me understand further Christ’s tolerance of the unjust treatment He received in His final hour. The humiliation in question came immediately following the Saviour’s agony in Gethsemane which James Talmage called ‘the hour of His DEEPEST humiliation’ (Jesus the Christ, p 611). But what could be deeper and more humiliating than being spit upon, smitten and stripped naked to be crucified on the side of a road? I reflected and then I understood the humiliation a God in His pure and sinless state would have suffered when He took upon Himself my sins, your sins, our families’ sins, our nation’s sins, the world’s sins and indeed the sins of all mankind from Adam to the end of the world. In fact, ‘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 corroding feelings associated with sin and evil such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, lack of esteem, self-hatred, fear of God’s wrath….and indeed, deepest humiliation. Following the humiliation of Gethsemane, would any other be worse???
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: Christ by David Beraru)
I studied the last week of the Saviour’s ministry reluctantly, not only because of His impending death but because I have savoured every morsel of fresh insight I received into Him this year. I saw the man, the Son, the God, and I did not want that to end. At times I felt that I was on the shores of Galilee in awe of the Galilean whom the people thronged for His mercy with hope to inhale His holiness into their souls. I reflected often on what it would have been like to be alive back then to see the rise of His fame and all the work He did that was given to Him of the Father (John 17:4) but I recoil at the memory of the cross. I know that I wept with the hosts of heaven when that time came.
Neal A Maxwell defined the peopling of the earth in this way: “When we say God has a plan, He truly has a plan – not simply a grand scale, but for each of us as individuals, allocating some special talent to this dispensation and some to another. I regard God as the perfect personnel manager….after all, if you’ve got only one Abraham Lincoln, you’d better put him in that part in history when he’s most needed…..” (Deposition of a Disciple, p 46). A Jewish woman in exile, known as Esther, who married a king, is well known for her uncle’s prophetic advice to her that she was born for ‘such a time as this’, a time when she could prevent annihilation of all Jews in Persian empire (Esther 4:14).
We all know why Jesus came. His time had to be 2023 years ago when the conditions of the earth were perfect for His purpose. Because the Jewish iniquities, superstitions and hardness of heart were at its peak and because of it there was no other nation on earth that would crucify their God (2 N 10:3), the Meridian of Times was Christ’s time. The crescendo of Christ’s earthly purpose was suffering hence also the necessity of Roman Empire’s cross and the crucible of Calvary.
I know I was not suited for the earthly experience in the Meridian of Times. I enjoy, with gratitude, having a voice in the world as a woman today and I draw strength from the promise the Saviour made through prophet Joel that in our day He will pour out His spirit upon all flesh and we women will prophesy and men shall dream dreams and see visions (Joel 2:28). It rends my heart with gratitude because I live for this.
I was tempted my problems
To lay to Your charge;
I considered them acutely unfair.
Then you opened my heart
And showed me Your godly task,
Beyond human capacity to bear.
Knowing where you had gone
I would never have to go,
I sorrowed and sought
My arrogance to bury;
In humility I assent,
Your mortal burden,
So valiant, so holy,
I would never in this life
Have to carry.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Radiant Saviour by Greg Collins)
I have heard it said by some that the Saviour pressed on and performed the Atonement because of His love for us. There is no denying the love but the main reason He did so was because of His submission to do the will of the Father. Consider these scriptures among many that attest to this truth: “I have suffered the will of the Father in all things….” (3 Nephi 11:11); I am Jesus Christ; I came by the will of the Father, and I do his will” (D&C 19:24).
Remember King Benjamin’s discourse on overcoming the natural man, part of which states that we need to be willing ‘to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict’ upon us (Mosiah 3:19)? “Inflict” is a hard word. The dictionary defines it as: to impose as something that must be borne or suffered; to impose anything unwelcome; to deal or deliver as a blow.
What stands out to me the most about the Atonement is the Saviour’s complete willingness to suffer ‘the blow’. Before facing the agony of Gethsemane, Jesus said to His disciples that the hour was coming when they would be scattered and go their own way leaving Him alone and then He said: “….yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). On another occasion He clarified this by saying: “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). These statements indicate that He had confidence in Father’s assistance for the duration of His upcoming crucible because He was willing to do His will. Imagine His surprise when that assistance was withdrawn; when He became ‘sore amazed’ (Mark 14:33) to the point of asking: “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Did He have the power to come down from the cross when that question crossed His lips? Yes He did. But even when He felt abandoned, He pressed on submitting to Father’s will, no matter how gruesome the inflicted ‘blow. And then He was able to say prior to His last moment: “….Father it is finished, thy will is done….” (JST Matthew 27:50a)
We might have to suffer some blows in this life. And we might have to suffer them alone. But fortunate for us Christ has suffered the greatest blow of all. By virtue of our discipleship, we have access to His reservoir of endurance, strength and power that is offered to all the faithful. May we be able to say, without trepidation and fear: “I do always those things that please Him”, following the example of Him who submitted to it all that He might overcome all and make it possible for us to bear it all.
I marvel at Thy willingness
To descend from the regions of bliss
That was Thy heavenly abode
To become a refuge from the billowing storm,
To pay the ransom for my soul.
You lift me up and carry me
Upon Thy wings of hope;
You wipe the tears from my face
And tell me I am strong enough to cope.
You are my treasure
My love and my all,
I bow in reverence
before the foot of Thy throne.
