“Jesus Christ, the Son of God”
It is my pleasure to stand before you today as I am humbled by the opportunity I have received to address you. In preparing for this moment, I have prayed with all diligence to ensure that the words which flowed from my mouth would be the words which the Lord would have me say, and that they would be accompanied by the supernal power of the Holy Ghost. I hope now that it will assist me in bearing testimony of the greatest truth known to man, the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Of the 156 weeks of Christ’s earthly ministry, over one third of all the writings concerning his mortal sojourn focus upon his final week in mortality, especially His last 24 hours. The testimony of John the revelator devotes over half of its words to the Savior’s last days because of their overwhelming importance. This final week and the events which took place therein were the culminating epoch of the Savior’s life upon the earth, for it was during these moments when the Atoning sacrifice would be completed. Every doctrine we teach and every truth we present is drawn from the effulgent power of Christ’s Atonement, and all mankind may be saved through this eternal sacrifice. Every saving ordinance we perform is made operative by its infinite power, and all tenets of our religion are but appendages to it. For truly, “we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26). It is to these final hours and these most sacred truths that we now turn our attention.
After finishing the Passover meal, in which Christ further instructed His apostles concerning His messianic purpose, He escaped the walls of Jerusalem and found solicitude in a small garden spot on the slopes of Mount Olivet. This area, Gethsemane by name, was created for the purpose of harvesting and developing the Olive fruit. Now, on this night, the Son of man retired here to procure a fruit more sustaining than any yet cultivated. He was to begin the agony of the Atonement, which in its majesty bears eternal life to those who choose to partake of it. As He entered into this sacred space He left eight disciples at the entrance, and admonished them to “pray that [they] enter not into temptation”. He continued onward with Peter, James, and John a bit further, and then left them a way off that He could commune with His Father. He went about “a stone’s cast” away and finding himself alone, fell upon his face and began to pray. In this moment, Christ took upon Himself not only the sins of all mankind, past, present, and future, upon multiple planets, but also endured the sorrows, sufferings, tribulations, and injustices felt by His brothers and sisters. In this moment, all that the Fall had put wrong, the Savior began to put right. He was the only perfect man to ever walk the earth, and as such was worthy to inherent all the Father had. Yet in His perfect love for each of us, whose mistakes and follies render us unable to achieve salvation alone, He voluntarily suffered the wrath of God that we might be spared. Mark tells us that he was “sore amazed” and “very heavy”. Even the Only Begotten of the Father was terrified and astonished at the weight of such a burden. At this time, Satan himself came to Jerusalem, and in this moment when eternity became within reach, used every means feasible to thwart the progress of the Savior. Yet in this terrible moment of the Savior’s existence, we can be sure that the Father of this suffering Son was also likely nearby.
In the moments when the universe gazed upon Him, the Lord cried out, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt”. The Greek term Abba, could be more effectively rendered as “Daddy”. In this tender moment, when the sins of all mankind, past, present, and future, fell upon Him, He cried out in the agony of His soul, “Daddy”. Truly this man was the Son of God, and in a moment when blood fell from every pore, He yearned for the protective and sustaining love of His Father. “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 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” (James E. Talmage Jesus the Christ). His divine sire allotted Him the strength necessary to endure suffering without measure, and no other person could have endured such extreme affliction. We know that in these moments of excruciating torture, an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen him, that He could endure the perils of sin. And “in that hour of anguish Christ met and overcame all the horrors that Satan… could inflict” (Jesus the Christ pg. 613). He took upon himself the sins of mankind that He literally became the sinner, and we the sinners became Him. Our weaknesses fell upon Him and He endured the torment that eternal justice demands, that we might become perfect.
After a time Jesus returned to His disciples as a party of soldiers came into view. With them was Judas, who upon arrival kissed Jesus upon the face in a cowardly signal to the Roman guard that they might detain Him. This former apostle, under the nefarious influence of Satan, sold away the life of Jehovah for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a common slave. After His arrest Christ was arraigned before the judicial form of the Sanhedrin, and through deceitful tactics and unlawful means, He, the law giver, was sentenced to death by the adulterated cries of blasphemy, high treason against Caesar, and revolt. When Pilate was wont to release Him, declaring that he found “no fault in this man”, the voices of the supposed rulers of the land were clear in their desire: “Crucify Him…His blood be on us, and on our children”. In the awful irony of history a pagan ruler plead for the life of the Jewish Deity, but rather than release their Lord, those admixed cries called for the release of Barabbas, a criminal guilty of high treason and murder. Pontius Pilate finally gave the order for death by crucifixion, and the Creator was dragged away to be slain, “for the sins of the world”.
Likely within the walls of the Antonia Fortress, Jesus was scourged by the Roman guard with a whip made of jagged pieces of metal, bone, and stone. How many lashings He received we do not know, but in His weakened condition His skin would have been highly fragile and sensitive due to the sweating of blood He had already experienced. Yet “He was brutalized further with deep bruises and the strips of quivering and bleeding flesh that the whipping tore off His back” (The Four Gospels). The Roman soldiers during this time placed a crown of thorns upon His head, and a purple robe upon His back, that they might mock the King of all creation. He was then taken to Golgotha, which being interpreted means a skull, to be lifted up. As they went, a procession of disciples lined the streets and lamented the loss of their beloved Master, as they helplessly watched their Lord be carried away to endure immeasurable torment. As they reached Calvary, a spot likely along a busy roadway outside Jerusalem, for such public displays of violence were at the brunt of Roman intimidation, the execution began. The Roman guards drove nails through the palms of His hands, and then through His wrists for fear that the weight of His body would tear it away from the cross. His last possession, a garment which covered His feeble body, was stripped off Him, and the Roman soldiers cast lots upon His vesture. This would have left the Savior unclothed in any respect and in terrible agony. With His arms nailed tightly across the wood, He would have struggled to inhale every breath, as the slow process of crucifixion took place. The voices of disbelievers were heard to scream at Him, “If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself”. It is hard to imagine the sorrow and heartache Christ must have been enduring. Not only to feel entirely alone, rejected, hated, and condemned, but in these last moments those who declared to worship the mighty King stood at the feet of their God and laughed in derision as to His suffering. Christ could have escaped at anytime from the pains of the cross, but in the submissive obedience characteristic of His nature, He remained that God’s will could be done. Later, in an expression of love unmet by any other, He pleaded with His Father for those who condemned Him saying, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do”. As He drank the cup of bitterness He became not bitter, but was instead filled with Love for all mankind. Even those who in the foul sacrilege of their oath defiled the name of the God they claimed to worship, He pleaded for their souls because of the tender mercy which enveloped His being.
According to Bruce R. McConkie, “all of the anguish, all of the sorrow, and all of the suffering of Gethsemane recurred during the final three hours while on the cross”. It appears that in addition to the horrors of death by crucifixion, the pains of Gethsemane reoccurred upon Christ in these final hours. And then, in the last and perhaps most painful part of the Savior’s life, the Father temporarily withdrew Himself that Christ should endure all these things, even the power of the devil, entirely alone. Jesus in terrible surprise to the agony of supreme loneliness cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Elder Melvin J. Ballard records, “in that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even he could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room, so as not to look upon the last struggles, so he bowed His head and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that he had for his Son.” After a time, Jesus raised His head and in a sign of overwhelming power declared, “It is finished”, and voluntarily gave up the ghost. Such a loud proclamation was considered unfeasible when the state of His body is taken into account. Victims of the cross were deliberately stretched across the chest so that their lungs could not fully inflate, that they might slowly suffocate, making speaking a difficult task. Such a declaration right before death is a miracle in and of itself. Only a God would be capable of such an achievement, and these final words stand as a testament to His personal divinity. The Roman guard came with a spear to ensure that Christ was dead, and as they jabbed it into His side, blood and water came gushing out. As James E. Talmage notes in His acclaimed work Jesus the Christ, such a manifestation of blood and water extruding from the body could only occur by means of a ruptured heart. In short, Christ’s mortal body finally reached death because of a broken heart.
After His death He was taken and laid in the sepulcher, and the Sadducees and High priests enlisted a roman guard to watch the tomb that His body might not be stolen away. But on the third day following His crucifixion, on Sunday, the stone covering His resting place was rolled back by angelic ministers, only to reveal the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had Risen! Death could not contain the majesty of His supreme power, and He loosed its awful bands not only for himself, but for all mankind; as all will be raised in like manner in the last day because of His sacrifice. He had completed all the Father asked of Him, and had finished the Atonement. Because of this glorious sacrifice, we may be saved from our own sins; we may be succored in our afflictions, and counseled in our infirmities. We will conquer death and live eternally in a resurrected body, we will be judged according to our deeds, and we will enter into God’s kingdom should we be found worthy. Jesus Christ descended below all things, and finally transcended the ladder of mortality to the glory of eternity. As he proclaimed to Mary Magdalene, “I ascend unto my Father”. The only perfect man ever to live was the only one capable of such an achievement. Yet by His suffering He provides us all the opportunity to join Him as heirs in His divine reward. We may return to our Father in heaven, the literal parent of our spirits, because of the Love Christ felt and acted upon for all of us. I stand in awe at the tenderness of His heart that He, who deserved no punishment, would suffer beyond all comprehension for a sinner like me. He painfully underwent every injustice that could be inflicted upon the inhabitants of the earth that He could, in perfect sympathy, strengthen His people. We can never shake our fists towards the heavens in the acclamation that they do not understand our trials and pain, for Christ has experienced all things, and more.
I call all within the sound of my voice to come unto Christ, be perfected in Him, and know that this is His church, the only institution with all the keys necessary to return the children of men to their maker. The resurrected Lord, as He had done in ancient times, appeared to the boy Joseph in 1820 to answer his humble prayer, and that through this worthy servant He restored His church upon the earth, and Christ stands at the helm of it. I bear testimony that the Atonement is real, and that it has forever transformed my life, as my allegiances are now aligned with the Savior of the world. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, it testifies of Christ in a superlative power that is far beyond the biblical writ, and it restores many plain and precious truths that were lost by the decay of time. The power of God is real, and a life founded upon the teachings of Jesus Christ will bring more happiness and more success than one built upon any philosophy of man. It is this glad message, that of the restoration of God’s true church in these latter-days, and the triumphant rise of our redeemer, that we must spread to all the earth. For it will fulfill the deepest spiritual needs of any person and unite families eternally. There is no greater work, and I consecrate my life unto it. I bear solemn witness that God lives, that Jesus is His Son and that there is no other like him. "I testify that He is utterly incomparable in what He is, what He knows, what He has accomplished, and what He has experienced. Yet, movingly, He calls us His friends. (See
John 15:15.)
We can trust, worship, and even adore Him without any reservation! As the only Perfect Person to sojourn on this planet, there is none like Him! (See
Isa. 46:9.)
In intelligence and performance, He far surpasses the individual and the composite capacities and achievements of all who have lived, live now, and will yet live! (See
Abr. 3:19.)
He rejoices in our genuine goodness and achievement, but any assessment of where we stand in relation to Him tells us that we do not stand at all! We kneel!" His perfect life and infinite Atonement have opened the way for us, that our own souls may be filled with joy, and that we may live with Him forever in the eternal courts of glory above. Of these things I bear witness, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
