I am grateful to be with you at the beginning of a new semester on another great day at BYU–Idaho. I welcome you to our first full summer semester and pray that the Holy Ghost will be with us today.
I want to talk with you about the power of the justice, mercy, and grace that is in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Let me begin with a story about a young man we will call Michael.
One day not long ago, Michael said good-bye to his family and friends and entered the MTC. He was on his mission! This was something he had hoped for, and planned on, since he was a little boy. On his first day in the MTC, he met many other missionaries and felt a wonderful spirit. That spirit touched his heart and his soul in a very deep way. So deep, in fact, that some things that had been buried within him began to surface.
Beginning on that first day and continuing into the second, the Spirit worked on Michael. He realized those things that had been buried should have been confessed and repented of long before the MTC. As he walked the halls of the MTC, the burden of guilt began to weigh on him. He felt out of place. Finally, Michael decided he had to talk to his priesthood leader, and so he went to see the president of the MTC.
In the moment Michael took those steps toward the president’s office, he began a journey of repentance and humility and hope. He took those steps because the words of Alma in Alma 42:30 had become a reality in his life:
O my son … let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility.[1]
Look carefully at the phrase “full sway in your heart.” If the Atonement of Christ has “full sway in your heart,” it means that faith in Christ and in the eternal doctrines of justice, mercy, and grace rule your heart and govern your deepest desires and commitments fully, completely. If the Atonement of Christ has “full sway in your heart,” then you may truly “follow the Son, with full purpose of heart.”[2] That is exactly what that young missionary chose to do when he made the decision to go see the MTC president.
Brothers and sisters, think for a moment about your own life. Think about the paths you have walked. Have you felt the power of the Atonement in your life? Do the doctrines of justice, mercy, and grace rule your heart? Do you follow the Savior with full purpose of heart?
I want to talk today about what it means for the Atonement of Jesus Christ to have “full sway in your heart.”[3] As I speak, let your life, your hopes, your desires, and your challenges be in your mind. I hope you will be actively engaged, responding to the questions I will pose and reflecting on the doctrines and principles we will discuss. I pray the Holy Ghost will teach you what you need to do now to follow the Lord Jesus Christ with full purpose of heart.
The Atonement
I want to begin with the Atonement itself. Please turn to Matthew 26:36 and come with me as we literally “follow Him” in those fateful hours when He suffered and died for us and rose again. Through the eyes of the prophets, with the eyes of the Spirit, we shall go and see for ourselves what Jesus did.
We go first to the garden, then to the cross, and finally to the tomb. These three places are a holy ensemble of place, experience, truth, and glory. Connected, they define a path each of us must walk if we would follow Him. Let’s begin.
The Garden
Following the Last Supper, Jesus went with the eleven apostles to a garden on the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane. Leaving the other eight at the entrance, He took Peter, James, and John a little further and then left them as well. In those first moments in the garden, He began to feel the great weight of the burden He was called to bear. He “began to be sorrowful and very heavy”[4] as the sins of His people and their pains, sicknesses, and infirmities pressed on Him.[5]
As the sorrow and suffering, the grief and affliction of all human experience, and the terrible punishment for our sins bore down upon Him, He fell on His face and prayed:
Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.[6]
The pain and agony was so intense it caused the Son of God, “the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink.”[7] But He did not shrink. Three times He prayed the same prayer, and three times He took the same action—He submitted His will to the will of the Father; He suffered and endured.
As the agony grew even more intense, an angel of the Lord appeared to comfort Him; but the incredible pain of “body and spirit” did not diminish. “His anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of His people”[8] pressed down on Him so powerfully that He bled at every pore.[9] The precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ spilled out in great drops like the oil of olives crushed in an olive press.[10]
The Cross
The drama in the garden culminated with the betrayal by Judas Iscariot and the arrest of Jesus by the rulers of the Sanhedrin. As we follow Jesus out of the garden, our focus shifts to His illegal trial, His arraignment before Pilate, and the terrible events leading to the cross and to His death.
In the house of the high priest and in the palace of Pilate, the Roman governor, Jesus was tried on false charges and condemned to death as the only perfectly innocent man. The people who attended these judgments scorned Him, mocked Him, spit upon Him, struck Him, and scourged Him with cruel lashes.[11] In the words of Isaiah, “He is despised and rejected of men…. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.”[12]
Condemned to die by crucifixion, Jesus was rejected by His own, cast out, and led by Roman soldiers to Calvary “as a lamb to the slaughter.”[13] There they drove nails through His hands and feet and lifted Him up on the cross.
All morning long Jesus endured the pain of the cross, but the end was not yet. About noon, the sky became very dark. In those moments the agony and torment of the garden returned in full force. This time the Father withdrew His Spirit. In utter anguish of soul, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”[14] But He did not shrink. He held on, until, at last, the suffering was complete.
Again He cried with a loud voice, “Father, it is finished, thy will is done.”[15] “Into thy hands I commend my spirit.”[16] And then He died.
The Tomb
The terrible hours on Calvary came to an end, but the work of the Atonement continued. As we follow the Savior’s journey, our focus shifts to the tomb where His body lay and to the spirit prison where He went to minister.
With permission from Pilate, Joseph of Arimathaea, a disciple of Jesus, took His body from the cross, “wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb.”[17] Christ’s body lay in a tomb “hewn out [of] rock”[18] protected by a large, sealed stone and guarded by Roman soldiers.[19]
In His spirit body, however, He continued His ministry. He appeared in the Spirit World in power and glory[20] to “an innumerable company of the spirits of the just”[21] where He “[declared] liberty to the captives who had been faithful.”[22] He organized and sent “his forces”[23] to the unrighteous and then returned to the tomb to complete His redemptive work.
Having died a physical death and having suffered and conquered everything else mortal life contains, Jesus “received all power, both in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him.”[24] With that power, the Lord Jesus Christ returned to the tomb and broke the bands of death. Jesus took up again His physical body, quickened by celestial glory. He became “the firstfruits of them that slept,”[25] full of glory and power to redeem, to save, to justify, and to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
Over the next 40 days the resurrected Lord met with His disciples and taught them “things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”[26] And then He ascended into Heaven, there to take His rightful place on the right hand of God the Father. The infinite, perfect Atonement was complete.
Following The Savior
The Garden of Gethsemane, the cross on Calvary, and the tomb of Arimathaea—three places and experiences that define the most important thing that has ever happened or will ever happen—the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The atoning sacrifice and the glorious resurrection took place over the course of several hours in the meridian of time. If we could gain the perspective of the eternities, we would see in those hours a great light bursting into the darkness of evil, sin, suffering, chaos, and death—a great light spreading backward and forward across all time and space, filling the universe, carrying all that is good, penetrating every soul—the light of Christ!
That glorious light and the blessing of immortality come as free gifts of the Atonement of Christ. He “descended below all things … that he might be in all and through all things”[27] “the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.”[28]
But there is so much more! Christ suffered the punishment of eternal justice for our sins and brought to pass the great plan of mercy for all who repent. In the words of Alma:
… mercy claimeth the penitent, and mercy cometh because of the atonement…
For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved.[29]
My brothers and sisters, the penitent are saved. What a marvelous blessing! All who repent and come unto Christ have access to His saving mercy. Jesus is the Savior, the Redeemer. As often as we repent, He forgives us.[30] His blood “cleanseth us from all sin.”[31]
Moreover, through His grace and His power we may be “in Christ … a new creature.”[32] As Alma taught the people of Nephi:
Marvel not that all mankind … must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;
And thus they become new creatures …. [33, 34]
This is the power and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. In every way, now and forever, Jesus has all power to heal, to save, to cleanse, to lift up, to transform. He is, in very fact, “the way, the truth, and the life.”[35]
For just a moment I would like you to hold in your mind that thought of Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. Let’s go back and look at the Atonement of Jesus Christ as a set of patterns for our lives. These patterns are guides or standards that will help us follow the Savior with full purpose of heart.
I want to focus today on three patterns: the covenant Christ made with His Father, the power of Christ’s pure love, and the creation of new life in Christ.
The First Pattern: Christ’s Covenant with His Father
Deep within the drama of the Garden of Gethsemane and the agony of Calvary lies a covenant, a promise that Jesus made to his Father. In the great Council in Heaven, God the Father asked, “Whom shall I send?” Whom shall I send to be the Savior, to atone for the sins of the world, to overcome all things, and to bring to pass the great plan of happiness? Jesus answered, “Here am, I send me.”[36] “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.”[37]
Throughout the Savior’s life this promise guided Him, inspired Him, informed everything He did. He taught His disciples, and any who would listen, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father,”38 and He did exactly that to the very end of His life.
He was tempted and tried like no other could be. Despite untold sacrifice and suffering, Jesus kept His promise and did the will of His Father. Because of that supernal act of submission and obedience, all of God’s promises in the plan of salvation will come to pass. This is why Jacob could exclaim:
O the greatness and the justice of our God! For he executeth all his words, and they have gone forth out of his mouth, and his law must be fulfilled.[39]
Because of the Atonement, justice will prevail: sin will be punished, but true repentance will be effective, righteousness will be blessed, and salvation in Christ will be secure. Elder Richard G. Scott taught this principle in these words:
Justice is that part of Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness that maintains order. It is like gravity to a rock climber, ever present. It is a friend if eternal laws are observed. It responds to your detriment if they are ignored. Justice guarantees that you will receive the blessings you earn for obeying the laws of God.[40]
Because Jesus was true and faithful to His covenant with the Father, there is order, truth, and justice in God’s universe. No unhallowed hand can stop the work of salvation, and no force or power can take away what God has guaranteed. The promises are true. Though Satan may promote disorder and chaos and try to wreak destruction, justice and truth will prevail.
This is why Jacob taught that Christ is the “rock of your salvation,”[41] and why he admonished the Nephites to: “Prepare your souls for that glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous, even the day of judgment.”[42] For the righteous, the administration of justice will be glorious.
The covenant Jesus made with His Father is a pattern for us if we would follow Him. Think for a moment about the covenants you have made at baptism and, for some of you, in the temple. Think about the commitment you have made to live the Code of Honor at BYU–Idaho. Do you keep your covenants and your promises and thus bring about righteousness, justice, and order in your personal world as Christ did in His? Have you given your heart to Christ as He gave His heart to His Father? When you face your own Gethsemane, will you shrink; or will you, like Christ, submit your will to the will of the Father?
Brothers and sisters, I pray each of you will be true and faithful to your covenants and your promises and thus “deal justly” with one another, with your Father in Heaven, and with the Savior.
The Second Pattern: Christ’s Pure Love
The Savior endured the agony of the garden and the cross because of the promise He made to His Father and because of His pure and perfect love for us. The depth of that love is awesome to behold. The Savior endured unfathomable pain, suffering, and agony. Here was all the awful punishment that justice required for the sins of each and every one of His people. Here was the blade of justice fully unsheathed—bare, sharp, terrible. Here was the sum total of all human experience. Remember, He descended below all things.
But here, too, was mercy in all its compassion and the power of the Holy One in all His strength. Indeed, through the depths of His suffering, Jesus became mighty in mercy—mighty to forgive, to heal, to redeem, and to justify. If we turn to Him and repent and call on Him for help, we have access to His mercy, His grace, and His power.
This was the great, selfless act of sacrifice—a gift of love and service unto salvation for each of us. What Jesus did for us, we could not do for ourselves. Without Him, we would be lost; but with Him, we have the promise of life eternal, of joy forever with those we love, of eternal progression in the kingdom of our Father.
There is a pattern here for each of us if we would follow Him. The Savior calls us to come unto Him, take His yoke upon us, and learn of Him.[43] When we take upon ourselves the Savior’s yoke, we join with Him and learn to do His work the way He would do it. We literally follow Him in His work of love and service.
Moreover when we serve with Him and learn of Him, we develop the capacity to “[be] merciful … deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually.”[44] We become instruments in His hands, instruments of mercy and kindness, service and love.
Think for a moment about your service in your ward, among your roommates and friends, in your family, in the temple, in preaching the gospel, in your peaceable walk[45] in the light of truth.[46] Have you taken upon you the yoke of Christ? Are you prepared to sacrifice and serve with love, wherever and whenever He sends you on His errand? Do the people around you feel His kindness, His helping hand, His never-failing love through you?
It is my prayer that His love and His mercy will have “full sway” in your heart so you might love one another and serve one another all the days of your lives.
The Third Pattern: Walking in the Newness of Life
When Jesus took up His body and left the tomb, He was transformed in power and glory. He was the Resurrected Lord, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. He had been subject to the conditions of mortality, had endured all that mortal life entails, had suffered, and prevailed. He had burst the bands of spiritual and physical death and rose triumphant.
There is in this a pattern for us if we would follow Him. As He came forth from the tomb, so He calls us to break out of our spiritual tombs. He calls us to be born of Him and walk in the newness of life,[47] new creatures in Christ both now and in the eternities.
This mighty “change of heart”[48] is not easy. We live in a fallen, corrupt world where evil is rampant. It is a world of mistakes and accidents, illness and natural disasters. It is a world of war and terror, of hunger and death. There is much temptation, pain, and suffering in our world; and no one who comes into this life is spared.
But this is also a world of love and kindness, a world of beauty and wonder. It is a world of hope and joy, of forgiveness and mercy, of miracles and salvation. It is all these things because “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”[49] Jesus has already walked the path He asks us to walk. He knows the way.
Brothers and sisters, I bear witness to you there is nothing you can experience in this world that Jesus has not experienced. There is no suffering you can feel that He has not felt. There is no fear, no loneliness, no heartache, no guilt, no shame, no loss, no depression, no sadness, no terror, no pain, no wickedness, and no sin that He has not overcome. He has felt them all. He has overcome them all. He has all power over all things. He can strengthen you and sustain you through anything that happens, no matter what it is.
But there is even more. If you trust in Him and follow Him, if you turn to Him and repent of your sins, He will forgive you. He will sanctify all of your suffering, all of your pain, all of your mortal experience to your blessing both now and in the world to come. Through the infinite, perfect Atonement of Jesus Christ, you may become like Him. You may walk in the newness of life, “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might”[50]—His sons and daughters, clean, pure in heart, filled with the pure love of Christ, blessed with joy and happiness and the peace that “passeth all understanding.”[51]
My dear brothers and sisters, do you take heart in the knowledge that Jesus is your personal Redeemer? Have you confessed your sins to Him and sought His forgiveness? Have you experienced this mighty change of heart of which the prophets have spoken? When times are hard, do you turn to Him and trust your life to Him? I pray that the power and long-suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ will have full sway in your hearts and that you will follow Him and walk in the newness of life.
Conclusion
We have been on a journey today. We have walked with the Savior in the hours of His suffering and seen through the eyes of the prophets the justice, mercy, and grace that are in His Atonement. We have seen the patterns Jesus set for us in His covenant with the Father, in His pure love and service, and in His power to bring forth new life.
When He invites us to follow Him, He is inviting us to walk where He walked, to endure our own Gethsemanes, bear our own crosses, burst our own spiritual tombs. But we do not have to walk alone. He is there with us every step of the way with His matchless strength and power.
In conclusion, I would like to share with you a personal experience I believe captures what we have talked about today. It began in January of 2001 on a Friday night. I was at home with Sue and we got a phone call from our stake president, Lloyd Baird. The call was about a young missionary named Michael, the same Michael I told you about at the beginning of my talk. Michael is our son.
President Baird told us Michael had to come home from his mission. And so, Michael came home.
Now, I can tell you Sue and I did not get off the phone with President Baird and say to each other: “We are about to have one of the most wonderful experiences of our lives.” But that is what happened. And it happened because the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ became a living reality in the life of our son.
Over the next nine months Michael went through the very difficult—but very sweet—process of repentance. He knew the Lord had forgiven him, but he also knew he needed to experience what Alma had experienced. He needed to be born of God, changed to a state of righteousness—a new creature through the mighty change of heart of which the scriptures speak. He needed to deepen his faith and his understanding of the gospel. He needed to be fully worthy to return to the House of the Lord; and he needed to be fully prepared to return to the mission field, there to serve the Lord with all his heart.
And so Michael set up a new life for himself. He got a job working at a local hospital. He set up regular visits with his bishop. He read and studied the scriptures. He prayed often seeking the Lord’s blessing. He sought to be of service and to be active in his ward.
The path was not easy. For example, Michael went to church with us the Sunday after he came home. He had just given a talk in sacrament meeting before he left on his mission, and now he had to explain to people why he was back so soon. But he faced his situation head-on with courage and candor.
During those months Michael met often with the bishop of our ward, Mark Ott. Bishop Ott was a great blessing to Michael. He counseled with him, encouraged him, and loved him. One day he asked Michael to give Sister Naomi Cranney a ride to and from church. Sister Cranney was ninety-seven years old. Every week when she was able to come, Michael would arrive at her home, help her down the steps into the car, drive her to church, help her get to the chapel, and sit with her during sacrament meeting. He would then take her home at the end of church. Sister Cranney had a wonderful spirit about her, and she grew to love Michael dearly. Over many weeks Michael was blessed to come to know and serve a great Latter-day Saint.
During this time Michael lived at home. He would often come into our bedroom at night and talk to us about his efforts. These months were Michael’s Gethsemane. He suffered, and he got discouraged. When discouragement set in, he would come into our room and ask for a blessing. I gave Michael many blessings during those months; and I knew through the Spirit that Michael was changing, that the Atonement was working in his life. Though the path was hard, the Savior was by his side.
And so it went, day after day, night after night for a long time. The dark night was long, but the morning light soon came. Sue and I were eyewitnesses to the miracle of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the life of our precious son. The Savior reached out and took hold of that young man and changed him from the inside out. I will never forget the day Michael came home from his General Authority interview. He had gone to Pittsburgh to meet with Elder Spencer Condie. I picked him up at the airport. As he came off that airplane, he was radiant! The Spirit of the Lord shone brightly in his eyes.
Michael returned to the temple and to the mission field. His mission was not easy, but he served faithfully and well. He became a mighty elder in Israel. His knowledge of the gospel deepened, and his understanding of the Atonement increased. What began that week in January of 2001 continued through his time in British Columbia. And it continues today. He has come to know the Savior in a deep and powerful way through his own experience. I know the Atonement of Jesus Christ has full sway in his heart. And because he has “followed the Son, with full purpose of heart,” he has helped many others to feel the power of the Atonement in their lives.
My dear brothers and sisters, I bear you my testimony that Jesus is the Christ. I know from my own experience that His Atonement is real. I know He is my Savior. He is Michael’s Savior. And He is your Savior. He stands with open arms bidding all to come unto Him and receive the blessings of redemption and salvation now and forever.
I bear witness that the power and authority to administer the sacred ordinances of salvation are in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are living prophets and apostles, priesthood keys, and gifts of the Spirit. There are stakes of Zion, holy temples, and the guiding hand of the Savior himself. The powers of heaven are on the earth, and we have everything we need to follow the patterns the Savior established in His Atonement. We can enter into and keep sacred covenants. We can serve each other in love and righteousness in the kingdom of God. And through the matchless, divine power of the Atonement, we can walk in the newness of life.
I pray that we will all follow the Savior—that His love, mercy, justice, and grace may have full sway in each and every heart. I offer that prayer and leave you with my love, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Alma 42:30
[2] 2 Nephi 31:13
[3] Alma 42:30
[4] Matthew 26:37
[5] Alma 7:11-12
[6] Luke 22:42
[7] D&C 19:18
[8] Mosiah 3:7
[9] D&C 19:18
[10] Luke 22:44
[11] Luke 22:63-64
[12] Mosiah 14:3, 7
[13] Isaiah 53:7
[14] Matthew 27:46
[15] JST Matthew 27:54 (see Mathew 27:50 footnote a)
[16] Luke 23:46
[17] Matthew 27:57-60
[18] Matthew 27:60
[19] Matthew 27:66
[20] D&C 93:17
[21] D&C 138:12
[22] D&C 138:18
[23] D&C 138:30
[24] D&C 93:17
[25] 1 Corinthians 15:20
[26] Acts 1:3
[27] D&C 88:6
[28] Mosiah 16:9
[29] Alma 42:23-24
[30] Mosiah 26:30
[31] 1 John 1:7
[32] 2 Corinthians 5:17
[33] Mosiah 27:25-26
[34] Romans 6:4-5
[35] John 14:6
[36] Abraham 3:27
[37] Moses 4:2
[38] John 5:30
[39] 2 Nephi 9:17
[40] Richard G. Scott, “The Atonement Can Secure Your Peace and Happiness,” Ensign, Nov 2006, p. 40–42
[41] 2 Nephi 9:45
[42] 2 Nephi 9:46
[43] Matthew 11:28-29
[44] Alma 41:14
[45] Moroni 7:4
[46] D&C 88:6
[47] Romans 6:4
[48] Alma 5:26
[49] John 3:16
[50] Ephesians 6:10
[51] Philippians 4:7