This week was the final week I had of my New Testament class. As we went through this class I don't think that my heart has every felt more hurt for the story of the crucifixion as it did in these two days. I will not go into the details that were revealed in class of the process of the crucifixion. But I will say this, I now understand, to a degree, that the Savior being crucified was more painful than any of us can ever imagine. After hours of suffering outside of Calvary the Savior was required to suffer on the cross. His body broken by the scourges and the nails in his arms and legs. His spirits extremely low as the full intensified weight of the atonement He was required to feel in Gethsemane was placed back on His shoulders for a time on the cross. With all of the pain, sorrow, and heart break the Savior must have been feeling at this time it completely blows my mind that He was still willing to go through all of this for imperfect beings like ourselves. At the heighth of the Saviors suffering He says something out loud that I have always, sadly, looked over. In Mark 15: 34 it says "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama ssabachthani? Which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In class we were brought to the realization that Christ must have felt abandoned. He had to endure all of the pains of the world and suffer death all without the comfort and presence of His Father. At this point, If I were in the Saviors shoes, I would not want to perform my duty any further. Christ had the power to say "You know what, I don't want to do this any more. I am miserable, upset, hurting and I don't want to do this anymore." However, He did not do that. And why is that? Do you think that the thing that was keeping Christ on the cross was the nails that pinned Him to it? The supreme being that created the world and the elements that made up the nails piercing His body was not held to the cross against His will. Even though He was suffering in agony spiritually, mentally, and physically He was being obedient. Even though He felt that all signs of His Father had disappeared from His life.
In class my professor brought up something that brought this experience of Christ's obedience close to home. He told us about something that CS Lewis had written called "Screwtape Letters", or, as some people know it as, "The Law of Undulation." For those of you who are not familiar with it here is an explanation passage found under an article I found (I hadn't heard of this book till class.)
"For those who don’t know, Screwtape is a demon writing to an apprentice
demon named Wormwood. Thus, all that is said is said from the
perspective of the demon. When you hear about the Enemy, it means God."
So in this book at some point Wormwood writes to Screwtape with "good news" saying that their client, the person they are trying to drag down away from the "enemy" (God) is in the deepest pit of dispair at the moment and feels that God has left him alone. Screwtape response was brought up in class and I love it. This is what Screwtape says to Wormwood:
"Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than
when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will,
looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have
vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
This passage explains exactly what was happening on the cross. Jesus Christ had felt completely forsaken and still obeyed His Fathers will. Regardless of the fact that Satan must've been releasing all of His power on Christ still obeyed and completed His mission. We will never have to endure the things the Christ did. He suffered them so that we would never have to. However, there will be times in our lives that we will feeling miserable, depressed, angry, and we may even find ourselves wondering where God is even in our lives. It is at this time that we must continue to obey regardless of our loneliness. Whether it is days, weeks, months, or even years, we must continue to obey and endure. Our loving Savior suffered everything for us so that we can have another chance every single day to become more perfect so that we can live with our Heavenly Father. And we cannot give up this just because life can get hard.
This semester I have learned so much. And I just want to bear my testimony of how important the gospel is to me. It makes my life so much happier. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know that He died for us and that He lives to this day. I cannot wait for the day that I get to see Him. My testimony has grown so much over the course of this class. I am so grateful for the atonement. I know that if we ever are suffering there is someone who loves us dearly who understands exactly what we are going through. I know that our Heavenly Father exists and loves us.And I know that we are not alone. I know that Christ lives and loves us. He is the ultimate example and I can not express how much He means to me. But i know that He does live and loves us. I can't express that enough.
I am so grateful for this semester and I wanted to add that after some thought I have decided to continue to blog with this blog. With the help of this assignment I have seen the Lords hand in my life more clearly and been able to reflect on the gospels influence in my life.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Such Sacred Suffering
How can I possibly cover everything that I learned this week in a blog? How can I explain the feelings I had in my class this week? This week I was able to tread on very sacred ground in my class. This week we dove into the process of the whole atonement and the suffering Christ went through for all man-kind so that they could live again and not suffer as He did. I was filled with heart ache and love for my Savior this week. I am extremely grateful for Him, His love, and His sacrifice.
After Christ's last supper He traveled with His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane where He would suffer for three hours the most unimaginable pains. In my class we related the atonement process in Gethsemane to an oil press. To explain in short; an oil press squashed the oil from olives by using a very huge stone circle. With this comparison in mind, my teacher drew a large circle on the board that was representing the stone press. We started to put in all the things the Savior had to suffer in this garden. Loneliness, broken hearts, doubt, guilt, fear, shame, stress, depression, regret, worthlessness.... This list of emotional sufferings was almost endless. Then we had to come up with another list of sufferings that were physical, things like sickness, disabilities.... We could've spent the whole class coming up with social, physical, mental, and spiritual sufferings and we never would have gotten them all in that circle. And the Lord had to experience it all on His shoulders. In class we also learned that the Savior may have experienced something even more painful that no one on the earth will never have to feel. My teacher sent us back to John 16:32 which says "Behold, the hour cometh, year, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." My teacher pointed out that the Savior may have thought that through His whole suffering from the Garden to the Cross the Lord would be with Him. But this was not the case. During the time Christ needed His Fathers presence the most the Father had to withdraw Himself so that Christ would know what it felt like to be out of His presence; in other words, Christ had to feel what Hell would feel like. Christ suffered all of our afflictions and even more than we would ever feel.
With this in mind, think about this: We were not on the earth at the time of Christ. We were still living in the spirit world. Is it possible that we were allowed by our Heavenly Father to watch this sacred suffering? I am not going to preach and say that this is true. However, in my heart and mind it makes me feel closer to my Savior thinking that I was allowed to watch the process of the atonement from afar. So imagine this: We are watching the Savior walk into the garden. He leaves His disciples and goes on alone. All of a sudden we can sense and see that there is a problem. In Matthew 26:39 it says "And He went a little further, and fell on his face."Pause. From wherever I was watching this I know what I would do in reaction to that. I would probably gasp and question what was going on! In the 33 years of the Saviors life on the earth did He ever show signs of physical weakness? Did He ever show any acts of clumsiness? No, He didn't. And now He has fallen to His face in agony with the burden of all our sufferings and sins on His shoulders. As the verse goes on it says " and [He] prayed saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:" Pause! We all know that in the beginning of the creation it was necessary that we had a perfect volunteer for someone to be the great sacrifice for all man kind. The Savior obeyed His Father and took that position. Now, the greatest of all was crying out in pain asking for this burden and responsibility to be taken away from Him. If I really did watch this in the spirit world I know exactly what my reaction would be. I would probably start to worry. I would probably cry out and weep. Because I know that If the Savior didn't perform this great work there would be no way for me to get back to my Heavenly Father. I could never become more perfect through His atonement if He didn't fulfill it. However, if we continue with the verse, the Savior says the sweetest and most unselfish thing humanity would ever hear- "nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."
Our Savior was perfect. And yet He had to suffer everyones sins. I am not perfect, I am not even close. And it hurts me to know that someone so perfect suffered so much for my mistakes, my sufferings, my heart aches. It also warms my heart to know that even though the Savior could've backed out, He could've walked away saying "This is too hard, make it stop, I don't want to do this anymore." He didn't. He endured all so that we could have another chance. And I will be forever grateful for this.
I know that our Savior bled, suffered, and died for us. His love is so large that He went through all things, even the feelings of Hell, for us. I know that He lives. I know that He cares about us. And I can never repay Him for this infinite and perfect love.
After Christ's last supper He traveled with His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane where He would suffer for three hours the most unimaginable pains. In my class we related the atonement process in Gethsemane to an oil press. To explain in short; an oil press squashed the oil from olives by using a very huge stone circle. With this comparison in mind, my teacher drew a large circle on the board that was representing the stone press. We started to put in all the things the Savior had to suffer in this garden. Loneliness, broken hearts, doubt, guilt, fear, shame, stress, depression, regret, worthlessness.... This list of emotional sufferings was almost endless. Then we had to come up with another list of sufferings that were physical, things like sickness, disabilities.... We could've spent the whole class coming up with social, physical, mental, and spiritual sufferings and we never would have gotten them all in that circle. And the Lord had to experience it all on His shoulders. In class we also learned that the Savior may have experienced something even more painful that no one on the earth will never have to feel. My teacher sent us back to John 16:32 which says "Behold, the hour cometh, year, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." My teacher pointed out that the Savior may have thought that through His whole suffering from the Garden to the Cross the Lord would be with Him. But this was not the case. During the time Christ needed His Fathers presence the most the Father had to withdraw Himself so that Christ would know what it felt like to be out of His presence; in other words, Christ had to feel what Hell would feel like. Christ suffered all of our afflictions and even more than we would ever feel.
With this in mind, think about this: We were not on the earth at the time of Christ. We were still living in the spirit world. Is it possible that we were allowed by our Heavenly Father to watch this sacred suffering? I am not going to preach and say that this is true. However, in my heart and mind it makes me feel closer to my Savior thinking that I was allowed to watch the process of the atonement from afar. So imagine this: We are watching the Savior walk into the garden. He leaves His disciples and goes on alone. All of a sudden we can sense and see that there is a problem. In Matthew 26:39 it says "And He went a little further, and fell on his face."Pause. From wherever I was watching this I know what I would do in reaction to that. I would probably gasp and question what was going on! In the 33 years of the Saviors life on the earth did He ever show signs of physical weakness? Did He ever show any acts of clumsiness? No, He didn't. And now He has fallen to His face in agony with the burden of all our sufferings and sins on His shoulders. As the verse goes on it says " and [He] prayed saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:" Pause! We all know that in the beginning of the creation it was necessary that we had a perfect volunteer for someone to be the great sacrifice for all man kind. The Savior obeyed His Father and took that position. Now, the greatest of all was crying out in pain asking for this burden and responsibility to be taken away from Him. If I really did watch this in the spirit world I know exactly what my reaction would be. I would probably start to worry. I would probably cry out and weep. Because I know that If the Savior didn't perform this great work there would be no way for me to get back to my Heavenly Father. I could never become more perfect through His atonement if He didn't fulfill it. However, if we continue with the verse, the Savior says the sweetest and most unselfish thing humanity would ever hear- "nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."
Our Savior was perfect. And yet He had to suffer everyones sins. I am not perfect, I am not even close. And it hurts me to know that someone so perfect suffered so much for my mistakes, my sufferings, my heart aches. It also warms my heart to know that even though the Savior could've backed out, He could've walked away saying "This is too hard, make it stop, I don't want to do this anymore." He didn't. He endured all so that we could have another chance. And I will be forever grateful for this.
I know that our Savior bled, suffered, and died for us. His love is so large that He went through all things, even the feelings of Hell, for us. I know that He lives. I know that He cares about us. And I can never repay Him for this infinite and perfect love.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)