I love our devotional music and admire those who provide it for us. Thank you. And thank you for the prayer and the scripture.
As a librarian I would be remiss if I did not recommend to you today a book or two, or maybe, three. The first by President Boyd K. Packer titled Teach Ye Diligently,[1] I wish I had read it and begun applying its principles much earlier in life. It is as much an invitation to teach well, as it is an invitation to parent well; perhaps they are one and the same thing. So you young parents read it soon, don't delay. The other two I will quote from or reference in my remarks today. They are, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life[2] by Terryl and Fiona Givens, a book I began rereading as soon as I finished it, and the other is a little treasure of a book by President J. Reuben Clark Jr. called, Wist Ye Not that I must be about My Father's Business?[3] I encourage you to put them on your reading list.
On Easter morning 2010 Elder Richard G. Scott expressed a belief that caught my attention and has influenced my gospel study ever since. He said, "I believe that it is instructive to try to imagine what the Atonement required of both the Father and His willing Son."[4] As I thought about his statement I determined that I should use my imagination more while studying the gospel. Not in a fanciful way, but in an empathetic way seeking understanding even as imperfect as my imagination might be. To some, suggesting empathy with God would seem blasphemy, but it was He who said if ye love me keep my commandments and then commanded us to be like Him.[5] I'm thankful for Elder Scott's example.
As I have imagined what the Atonement required of our Heavenly Father and Savior my soul has been stirred and inspired with deep feelings of reverence, awe, and love and I have an increased desire to worship them with all my might. When I say worship I mean worship with all its synonyms, revere, venerate, and adore. I think on them with tenderness and deference for their accomplishments and attributes; I regard them as holy and sacred because of their character; I try to pay homage by word and ceremonial, to bow before them; I seek to manifest through obedience to the commandments unquestioning love for them.[6] I believe that the Atonement required agency, both ours and the Savior's. I believe perfect love was also required. I've come to associate the words cost and price with the word require and I am sure that it is impossible to fathom the full and complete price paid by the Father and the Son in realizing the Atonement. But, part of the price was certainly the Savior's perfectly pure, sinless life and His immeasurable love for the Father and us.
Satan "sought to destroy the agency of man."[7] He claimed that he would "redeem all mankind, that not one soul [should] be lost."[8] Perhaps he proposed to rule the world by force or perhaps he proposed to offer us a life free of consequences; but redemption whether by force or by the removal of all consequences would have been no redemption at all. Without agency the Atonement would lose its meaning and purpose; without it there would be no redemptive or enabling power in the Atonement. Part of the cost of the Atonement was the preservation of agency. Cost, is not only what we pay for something; it is also what is lost, damaged or given up to achieve or get something.[9] The Father allowed a son of the morning and a third of the hosts of heaven to be lost in order to preserve our agency.
Agency was also preserved through the miracle we call the veil of forgetfulness. If we arrived in mortality with the memory of our pre-mortal life intact we could not truly be tested or enjoy the full power of agency. Our pre-mortal choice to follow God's plan, as valiant and faith filled as it was, was made in the presence of the Father and the Son. Being with them provided us a great deal of evidence that we were making a good choice. Making choices after having forgotten all reveals our character. Of our choices Terryl and Fiona Givens write, "What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance."[10] All of Father's children who kept their first estate and have come to earth have passed through the veil of forgetfulness. The veil of forgetfulness enables us to really be agents unto ourselves.[11]
The Savior's agency was also assured through this miracle. Of our Redeemer Elder James E. Talmage taught, "He came among men to experience all the natural conditions of mortality; He was born as a truly dependent, helpless babe as is any other child; His infancy was in all common features as the infancy of others; His boyhood was actual boyhood, His development was as necessary and as real as that of all children. Over His mind had fallen the veil of forgetfulness common to all who are born to earth, by which the remembrance of primeval existence is shut off."[12] Under these conditions the Savior's choices revealed His impeccable character.
Eliza R. Snow poetically described this experience we all chose,
For a wise and glorious purpose
Thou hast placed me here on earth
And withheld the recollection
Of my former friends and birth;[13]
This magnificent leap of faith into mortality was such a courageous act, when I contemplate it I'm filled with some sense of admiration and respect for every soul I encounter in this life. Think of it, every person you see stood on the precipice of decision and determined to trust the Savior, leave everything behind, and wake up with no recollection of the past and no certain vision of the future. Such bravery almost demands our love and respect. So here we are on this beautiful earth, each one of us endowed with agency and faced with what Hugh Nibley called "The terrible questions". Where did we come from? Why are we here? And where will we go when this life is through?[14] To the world these questions are terrible because no one knows the answers so they are often avoided; and though the restored gospel of Jesus Christ gives us comforting, soul satisfying answers we still walk by faith. It is our faith in God and trust in witnesses that assures us we have an eternal nature, that we are indeed spirit children of our Heavenly Father who loves us. We are here to be proved, to experience mortality by receiving a body of flesh and blood. We are here to learn to choose the good over the evil.
We hear these glorious truths so often we may be tempted to lightly pass over them. Let me pause for a reminder from Elder Neal A. Maxwell "A superficial view of this life, therefore, will not do, lest we mistakenly speak of this mortal experience only as coming here to get a body, as if we were merely picking up a suit at the cleaners. Or, lest we casually recite how we have come here to be proved, as if a few brisk push-ups and deep knee bends would do."[15] A correct view of our bodies and the formidable reality of our testing are vital to understanding why we are here and where we are going. We will be punished for our own sins and not Adam's transgression. We all enjoy the hope and promise of the resurrection; we believe that through the atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.[16]
The Savior gave us a study guide to the test and insight to the final when to the Nephites He said, "And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end. Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day."[17]
While speaking of the Atonement and agency President Boyd K. Packer called repentance "the escape clause in it all". He said, "Repentance is the key with which we can unlock the prison from inside. We hold that key within our hands, and agency is ours to use it."[18] For us, the Atonement and repentance take the "terror" out of the "terrible questions" without them agency would have been as President Packer says a "fatal gift".[19] But for our dear Redeemer, the answers to the terrible questions were as terrible as the questions themselves. He was the Lamb of God. Agency came to Him without an escape clause, if he landed in prison due to sin there would be no key to unlock the doors for him or anyone else, for Him there was to be no ram in the thicket. When He walked into Gethsemane for the last time and when He was lifted up at Golgotha His life would have to be clean; His soul without blemish or spot. The Atonement required the Lord with His agency to live a perfectly pure life and to willingly submit to the Father. President Packer explained, "The cost of the Atonement was borne by the Lord without compulsion, for agency is a sovereign principle. According to the plan, agency must be honored."[20]
The scriptures do not tell us when or exactly how the King of kings came to know and understand that He was the promised Messiah. In Doctrine & Covenants 93 we read, "And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us. And I, John, saw that he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace; And he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness;"[21]
To assist in the reception of grace for grace during the Savior's childhood two noble and great spirits were carefully chosen. Mary and Joseph were obviously faithful, presenting the baby at the Temple at the appointed time and making the offering of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Mary would have had a significant role in the holy child's earliest development. At age five or six it is likely that He would have attended a local school where the focus of the curriculum would have been the book of Leviticus. Think of how certain passages of scripture have touched your heart and then imagine how these lines might have worked on the heart of this pure little boy who as the mighty Jehovah had proclaimed, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. ... And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy ... And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people."[22]
As the child grew, every year Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover which would have coincided with His birthday. They would have followed all of the protocols associated with that great feast. Joseph would have assured that their house was clean of any leaven, and they would have taken a lamb with them or acquired one at Jerusalem for the sacrifice. When Jesus was 12 years old he would have gone with Joseph up to the temple and assisted in killing the lamb; he would have seen its blood spilt by the priest at the foot of the alter. The Passover meal would have been prepared with the cooked lamb. According to tradition, during the meal the boy Jesus would have stood and asked what was the meaning of all this and the patriarch of the home would have rehearsed the significance of every detail.[23]
Jesus would have learned by study and faith, through inspiration, revelation, and perhaps heavenly visitation, that the law of sacrifice had been instituted long before the Passover, even in the very beginning with Adam. Apparently Adam had the "how" and the "what" of sacrifice down very well. He had been obedient to the commandment for "many days". I wonder what he must have thought as he watched the blood and life drain from the little lambs. Whatever his thoughts, the Lord saw fit to send an angel so that Adam would understand the "why" behind the commandment to worship the Lord God by offering the firstlings of his flocks. "And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth."[24] Thereafter Adam and his posterity, including the mortal Messiah, would understand that the sacrifice of those innocent creatures represented the sacrifice of the Son of God who would offer himself in order to bring us back into the presence of the Father. It is hard to imagine a more vivid symbol of Christ's sacrifice.
Through the ages the true followers of Christ offered up the firstlings of their flocks, from Adam to Noah, and on down to Abraham and Isaac who through astonishing obedience had a most significant experience with the law of sacrifice. Jesus would have been very familiar with their story, imagine again how this story must have worked upon His heart and mind. From grace to grace He would have come to fully comprehend what He revealed through Amulek, "Therefore, it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice, and then shall there be, or it is expedient there should be, a stop to the shedding of blood; then shall the law of Moses be fulfilled; yea, it shall be all fulfilled, every jot and tittle, and none shall have passed away. And behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal."[25]
I am utterly mystified by the enormity of the Lord's responsibility I cannot imagine nor hope to comprehend the weight of His tremendous burden. Most of us, if not all, have at one time held the infinitesimally small responsibility of keeping a room clean in the house. How quickly we bristle when our room is threatened with clutter. Perhaps you have, like me, allowed a cloud of gloomy resentment to darken your heart as you cleaned up a mess left by someone else. In mortality we are plagued by temptation and sin and we often make a mess of things. Lesser souls than the Savior might have observed the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of all those around them and grown resentful at the mounting burden. But He carried no resentment even as the Givens attest, "[His] empathy ... was dearly paid for, each day of His mortal life, filled as it was with all the trauma an uncomprehending world could inflict on perfect innocence."[26]
And yet with magnanimous patience He taught the truths of eternity, with great generosity and kindness he forgave sin. In the face of ingratitude and unbelief he healed the sick and raised the dead. To the faithful he was particularly tender when they relied on His strength. Imagine how sweet the tone of His voice as he soothingly said, "Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace."[27] In extreme agony the depth of His character shone through as He implored the Father to "forgive them; for they know not what they do."[28] The Savior gave His life for us not only in death but in every moment of His mortal life, in every thought, in every word; in every deed He gave us His life. Even knowing that He would have to descend below it all, our Redeemer gave no heed to the temptations that drag us down. He, like all of Father's children was tempted; but unlike all of us he never submitted His will to temptation but obeyed His Father's will and overcame the world. How did He do it?
In a word, "love" His love of the Father and for us is so great that one who walked with him in mortality wrote simply, "God is love."[29] Another prophet declared, "... the love of God ... is the most desirable above all things."[30] Surely our elder brother counted the cost before, He meekly yet boldly volunteered "Here am I, send me."[31] In mortality He taught, "And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?"[32] His love and the strength of his character were sufficient to pay all the demands of justice and to extend to us bounteous mercy. It was His great love that made His yoke easy and His burden light.[33] What He says to one He says to all, "Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love."[34]
In March 1981 Brother Dennis Peterson, a physician in Bountiful, Utah, submitted an article to the Ensign titled, "To Love the Things God Loves". In the article he recounted how, while a missionary, he wrestled with the fear that he might never be worthy of heaven. He explained, "Sometimes I felt as though keeping the commandments was a self-imposed strait jacket, an unnatural posture that the gospel would stuff me into while Satan kept snipping at the seams."[35] After experiencing the great joy of seeing the gospel change the lives of his investigators he became desperate to learn how to overcome sin and temptation. Brother Peterson searched and prayed daily for weeks and then one day he was reading in Jesus the Christ and the bright light of revelation began to dawn on him.
Elder Talmage had written, "The Savior had the capacity, the ability to sin had He willed so to do. ... Nevertheless his insurance against [sin] ... is not that of external compulsion, but of internal restraint due to his cultivated companionship of the spirit of truth."[36] Brother Peterson concluded that a love for God and the things God loves would help him become righteous. Mormon taught him to pray to the Father with all the energy of heart to be filled with the pure love of Christ.[37] Brother Peterson applied his new found knowledge by praying to see things as God sees them, to understand them as God understands them. As he did so his desires began to change; his view of the Sabbath was transformed, a difficult relationship with a coworker became a friendship. Brother Peterson reported it might take weeks for changes of heart to come but that they would come as he pled daily with the Lord.
I first read about Brother Peterson's experiences in 1983 when I was a young missionary having some of the same feelings that he described. Over the years I too have found that true change may come very slowly, and that all of the pleading must be accompanied by determined action. I have found comfort in what Sister Virginia H. Pearce said in a BYU-Idaho devotional as she spoke about change, "Now this may not seem like such a big deal when you are twenty. But, trust me, as you grow older and older and fail again and again at resolutions to do this ornot do that, you will long to not just do things differently, but to actually be different. Self-discipline, personal goals, resolutions, and keeping covenants are vital, but the real miracle of change comes through the Savior."[38]
By speaking about the long road of discipleship I don't want to discourage anyone about repentance or confuse anyone making you vulnerable to the deception that Elder Holland described as a, " ... satanic sucker punch--the idea that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, "I'll change"--and mean it."[39] He goes on to say that of course there will follow real work to prove the permanence of our repentance. May I suggest one change of heart that many of us might pray for in this world where we are bombarded by a hyper-sexualized media and where some come to be stained by the pollution of pornography? Perhaps we could pray with all the energy of heart that we might delight in chastity the way God delights in chastity. Perhaps we could pray to understand gender roles as God understands them. Perhaps we could pray to view human intimacy as He does. As we learn to love what God loves our desires to sin fade away and our ability to resist temptation is fortified.
C. S. Lewis the great Christian Apologist wrote, "Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him."[40]
Therefore what? Therefore let us give our all to God, let us place a broken heart and a contrite spirit upon the alter. Let us "Establish an attitude of ongoing, happy, joyful repentance by making it [our] lifestyle of choice." as Elder Jorg Klebingat encouraged us in our most recent General Conference.[41] May we each seek to love the things that God loves and thereby find strength to overcome temptation until we are finally able to say with complete conviction "not my will but Thine be done."[42] Let us come unto Him and be made partakers of his love, let us heed His call, "Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price."[43] This Christmas season let us imagine what the Atonement required of the Father and His willing Son, I promise if you do your celebrations will be filled with a greater sense of reverence and awe for the tiny babe born in Bethlehem. This Christmas season oh come let us adore Him.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Boyd K. Packer, Teach Ye Diligently, Rev ed. 1991
[2] Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, 2012
[3] J. Reuben Clark Jr., "Wist Ye Not That I Must Be About My Father's Business?", 1947
[4] Richard G. Scott, "He Lives! All Glory to His Name!," May 2010, 75
[5] John 14:15, 3 Nephi 12:48
[6] "Revere, synonym discussion" Merriam-Webster.com 2014 http://www.merriam-webster.com (15 Nov 2014)
[7] Moses 4:3
[8] Moses 4:1
[9] "Cost" Merriam-Webster.com 2014 http://www.merriam-webster.com (24 Oct 2014)
[10] Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, 2012, 4
[11] Doctrine & Covenants 58:28
[12] James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern, Oct. 1922, 112
[13] "O My Father," Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 292
[14] Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos Beyond This Ignorant Present, 1992, 336-378
[15] Neal A. Maxwell, "Willing to Submit," Ensign, May 1985, 71
[16] Articles of Faith 2-3
[17] 3 Nephi 27:19-20
[18] Boyd K. Packer, "Atonement, Agency, Accountability," Ensign, May 1988, 71
[19] Ibid
[20] Boyd K. Packer, "Atonement, Agency, Accountability," Ensign, May 1988, 70
[21] Doctrine & Covenants 93:11-17
[22] Leviticus 17:11, 20:26, 26:12
[23] J. Reuben Clark Jr., "Wist Ye Not That I Must Be About My Father's Business?", 1947
[24] Moses 5:7
[25] Alma 34:13-14
[26] Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, 2012, 27
[27] Luke 8:48
[28] Luke 23:34
[29] 1 John 4:8,16
[30] 1 Nephi 11:22
[31] Abraham 3:27
[32] Luke 14:27-28
[33] Matthew 11:30
[34] D&C 6:20
[35] Dennis R. Peterson, "To Love the Things God Loves," Ensign, Mar 1981, 6-7
[36] James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern, Oct. 1922, 134
[37] Moroni 7:48
[38] Virginia H. Pearce, "The Book of Mormon," Brigham Young University-Idaho Devotional, February 3, 2004
[39] Jeffrey R. Holland, "For Times of Trouble," Brigham Young University Devotional, March 18, 1980
[40] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 2001, 132
[41] Jorg Klebingat, "Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence," Ensign, May 2014, 36
[42] Luke 22:42
[43] 2 Nephi 26:25