As Christ prepares Himself to leave His disciples, He warns them of His impending death. He knows that they will view His crucifixion with pain and sorrow. And yet, he promises that “your sorrow shall be turned to joy” (John 16:20).
Two thousand years later, we look at the atonement of Christ almost always from a joyful standpoint. After all, it was because He took our sins upon Him that we are able to return home. Similarly, we would not be able to be resurrected had He not first suffered death and then resurrection, and so we would not be able to return to God in our bodies. The pain that Christ suffered made that possible.
Many years ago, when I was sharing the gospel with a friend of mine, the missionaries invited the two of us to watch the church movie, “The Lamb of God,” prior to Easter. If you have never seen this wonderful video, I urge you watch it. It portrays Christ’s final week, including the mocking of the Roman soldiers, the lashes He bore, and the pain of His death. As the video concluded, one of the missionaries spoke with my friend about the joy we can feel that Christ was so willing to take our sins upon Him.
“Yes,” my friend sad, “but the way He died was so horrible that it was painful to watch.”
I did not see the Mel Gibson movie on Christ, The Passion of the Christ, that came out several years ago. However, my nonmember family, all of who forgo organized religion, told me that they were greatly moved by all that Christ had suffered.
I cannot imagine being a true friend of Jesus and watching Him undergo such pain and suffering. Nor can I put myself in the place of His earthly mother, whose heart must surely have broken. Perhaps having to watch their beloved Lord die, and the grief that must of followed, is part of what impeded the disciples understanding of the events that would later unfold. I am sure that I would have been devastated and horror-struck.
Yet Christ knew what He would have to endure, and chose to do so anyway. He could have called down angels in His defense, He could have chosen to walk away, and yet He did not. Instead, He stayed, because He loved us so much. He knew that was the only way that the rest of us could return home to God’s presence.
The following verse compares the sorrow of His death with the pain of labor, and the joy of His resurrection with the birth of a new child. Throughout the ages, mothers have been willing to undergo pain and discomfort to bring their babies into the world (and it’s a good thing for all of us children, too!). I’ll confess to being an epidural supporter, so I’ve managed to skip out on the worst of the pain. But that said, having held four children in my arms, I know that if there were no pain relief, I would have still made the same choice. So, too, did Christ chose to suffer great pain so that we could be spiritually reborn.
For other blogs on this week’s Sunday School lesson, click on the Gospel Doctrine link at right.
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Gospel Doctrine: The Gift of the Sacrament
General Conference: “I Know That My Redeemer Lives!”
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