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 

A PROPHET'S BURDEN

 

God has always spoken through prophets. They have always been on the earth to cry repentance, to direct the work of God and to lead people to Christ. They have been listened to, followed, rejected, and even stoned and killed (Matthew 23:37).

Generally, when the world looks back on the prophets of old, they do not remember them as humans with flaws and imperfections. They revere them because they were rejected, reviled and killed and  because they are canonized in the scriptures……except for Joseph.

It would seem that the jaws of hell opened when Joseph was called to be the prophet of this dispensation but what a witness he became of the burden these men carry that even leads them to death!

Dispensations have come and gone and with them the prophets at their head that we now revere: Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter but this ‘dispensation of the fulness of times’ in which the Lord will ‘gather together in one all things in Christ’ (Eph 1:10) is still here with Joseph at its head, but not revered yet. Nevertheless, this the Lord proclaimed himself: “This generation shall have my word through you” (D&C 5:10).

It would seem that Joseph’s greatest fault, according to the world, was the non-disclosure of the golden plates. Even now, as in Joseph’s time, some people demand to see the plates for themselves as proof of the Book of Mormon authenticity. They ask if the Church still has the plates or if they are at some museum. When told that Moroni took them back, this automatically becomes proof for them that the Book of Mormon was made up by the pen of Joseph Smith.

“We have learned that people are not converted by miracles or by examining records. If the Lord had placed the plates where the scholars could examine them, they would have scoffed at them just as much as they do today…..

“The Jews witnessed the miracles of our Lord, but this did not prevent them from crying out against Him and having Him crucified”. (President Joseph Fielding Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, 1:39-40).

President Smith went on to say that people are only converted by their hearts ‘being penetrated by the Spirit of the Lord’. Whether it is because of disbelief or lack of motivation to seek the witness of the spirit, people prefer tangible proof of spiritual matters. However, the fact remains that seeing proof of something can be forgotten but spiritual conversion lasts forever.

I have noticed when someone criticizes what I have written, I ask them to look up the scriptures I have quoted which support my point but they never do. It just seems like too much effort.

To get the conviction of the Spirit though, effort is very much needed. Even the Holy Ghost cannot bear witness if the individual does not allow Him to penetrate his heart:

“The power of the Spirit carries the message UNTO but not necessarily INTO the heart. A teacher can explain, demonstrate, persuade, and testify, and do so with great spiritual power and effectiveness.”

“Ultimately, however, the content of a message and the witness of the Holy Ghost penetrate into the heart only if a receiver allows them to enter. Learning by faith opens the pathway into the heart.”

-        Elder David A. Bednar, “Seek Learning By Faith”, Ensign Sept 2007, 61-68)

Nephi proved this to be true when he said he wasn’t mighty in writing like he was in speaking because when he spoke, the Holy Ghost was with him but the Holy Ghost could only carry his words UNTO ‘the hearts of the children of men’ but because there are many who harden their hearts’ they never receive the witness (2 Nephi 33:1).

I look forward to the day when Joseph will be revered as much as the prophets of the earlier dispensations, when people will have a witness of his divine calling.  Sometimes I feel so sorry for him that I want to shout loud enough for him to hear in the spirit world: “I believe you!!!”

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Revelation Given to Joseph Smith at the Organisation of the Church by Judith A. Mehr)