Early Lessons from Christ

We, (my wife and I) had met with Christ several times prior to our lessons on the atonement.  We learned everything together and this was no exception.  

There is very little that is as moving as hearing the Savior talk about the atonement. Still, after more than sixteen years, I can hardly write about it without being brought to tears. 

His suffering was so long ago and yet the emotion and sadness in his voice felt so fresh and undiminished by time. Of all the questions about the atonement that I would have thought to ask, his own personal experience would have been the last. And yet it was the main focal point of those early lessons. 

I always saw Jesus as a strong, wise and powerful person.  Yet, here he was sharing with us a side of himself we never knew.  It was a softer side.  A vulnerable side. So many times he had comforted us and now, for the first time we felt the need to comfort him. 

When you’re told that you are going to be taught about the atonement, you kind of expect to hear a detailed discussion about justice and mercy, sin and repentance or some other principle that explains what the atonement was all about, (much like we’ve discussed in this book so far). We didn’t expect to hear descriptive details about how alone and unsupported Jesus felt when his best friends kept falling asleep as he suffered in Gethsemane.  Or about how it broke his heart knowing that Judas would betray him. What did that have to do with the atonement?  

He went on to talk about how he felt when he was spit on, slapped, ridiculed, bound, whipped and abused. We didn’t know that they ripped his clothes off him and crucified him completely naked to further shame him. They were so angry with him and cruel. The more he shared, the more our hearts broke for him.  

This wasn’t a dialog of events. It was about his experience, how he felt throughout each of these events.  His emotional state, his thoughts, what he saw and heard, and how he felt through all of it.  

Occasionally, when he recalled a particularly painful experience, a single tear would form and fall, rolling down his cheek. The pain he felt now was not from the tortures they put him through, but for the sadness he felt for the wickedness of others. (For what people are willing to do to other people.)

He described the different people who were there and their mocking words and tones and how he felt as they yelled their hate filled words. 

While he spoke, we saw visions of the events he described that made it all the more real. We were completely aware of how he felt as the target of their criticism, tormenting and violence as well as the feelings and thoughts of those around him. He didn’t react with anger, threats or violence like most would.  He simply accepted the physical and emotional pain they caused him, and cried.

Each scene he described seemed to highlight a different motivation that caused the people to revile against him; some were motivated by emotions like anger, fear or disgust, some defending their religious view and supporting their leaders, some simply enjoyed the feeling of power and dominance over others, some enjoyed the sickening feeling of watching the suffering of another, and so on. Each motivation caused the people to react to Christ differently, but always cruel. 

I felt within myself, “How could they have treated HIM this way?” 

The awful response came as the visions changed to instances in my own life when, influenced by the same negative emotions, I had treated others with a degree of harshness symbolic of those who tormented Christ.  I related all too well to those awful men who hurt and killed my Savior.  I remembered specific people from my childhood, I saw their faces, and knew their pain. Pain that I had caused them… I cried for them and was overcome with remorse for the pain I had caused. I wished I could go back and change things, do it differently.

He heard the cock crow and sunk within himself knowing that Peter, (one of his best friends), had denied knowing him. I cried because I knew within myself that my fear had also at times caused me to withhold my witness of him.

(I can’t help but cry even now, almost 15 years later, as I write this, sitting in a public airport, the tears are streaming down my face. It had that much of an impact on me!)

He described the feeling of the thorny crown they gave him, and feelings of satisfaction they had pushing it down onto his head. He groaned in pain and suffered their cruelty. Most of us would be filled with anger by this, but he had no ego to defend. He just submitted and allowed himself to be broken. He didn’t put up an emotional wall to defend himself from their attacks, he didn’t insult them back or spit at them or retaliate or defend himself in any way, he just allowed them to hurt him and subjected himself to the full force of the physical and emotional pain they inflicted. 

He was weak, hurt and bleeding when they gave him the beam and told him to pick it up. He told us how heavy it felt and how he felt his legs shake when he carried it when he walked. He knew they would nail him to this beam and that he would die on the cross this beam would create.  He looked forward to the end knowing that this would be but a small moment in time.

He had already suffered in the garden and been flogged by the Romans. He was emotionally and physically exhausted. His strength being spent, his shaking legs gave way and he fell grinding his face in the dirt.

It was clear that he could hardly walk himself let alone carry the beam. The soldiers pulled a man from the crowd and demanded that he carry the cross. Jesus was pulled to his feet and made to continue walking to the place he would die.

Two things stood out to him as he walked through the streets among the jeering crowd.  First was the children.  

He heard their words and saw their hate.  He knew they were just caught up in the emotions of the moment, following the traditions of their parents, but to see little children actively shouting for someone’s death was heartbreaking.  

Second, he saw in the crowd a few people he knew and had taught only days ago.

They treated him as an enemy when he was their greatest advocate. He taught love and peace, his teachings were calculated to end all war and bring peace to the world, (bringing about the millennium of peace).  Instead of accepting peace, they killed him, the Prince of Peace.  

If they had accepted and applied his teachings, if they had only understood and lived what he taught, then they wouldn’t have killed him.  If they believed what he had taught, then he wouldn’t have died at that moment and would have been able to teach them even greater things.  But they didn’t understand, accept or live what he had already taught and because they didn’t, they assented to his death.

Why Christ Was Killed

He began to talk about the different reasons that people had for killing him or aiding in his death.

He pointed out that the High Priest and other church leaders felt threatened by him. He was exposing the moral flaws of the church, their teachings and their financial operations. He was a threat to them, their power and position and their way of life. They had been looking for a way to kill him for a long time, trying to catch him in error, prove him wrong, discredit him and remove him from the picture. In the end, they interrogated him until they could find what they felt was a justifiable reason to kill him. 

Rather than face their error, they hid their shame in his blood. They covered themselves in the cloak of his death and made themselves appear outwardly to be honorable, while underneath the thin layer of facade they were filthy as sin. They covered up their guilt and his death was the cost.

He pointed out that some of the soldiers were just doing their job.  Obeying orders.  They weren’t for or against killing him, just doing what they were told.  Again, I saw my own life how at times I had caused harm to others by simply obeying orders.

Others among these soldiers were doing what they were told, but really enjoyed inflicting pain on him.  They were like attack dogs anxiously waiting to be given the order to attack. They wouldn’t hurt anyone without permission, but enjoyed the opportunity when it came. They really didn’t care who it was, or why, they just liked to feel the dominating power of their position.

Some wanted to kill him because he was a threat to their power or position. Others supported their religious leaders and trusted in their judgments. Everyone that supported his death had a reason.

He talked about what it felt like as the large nails were driven through his flesh, the sting of the cross against the open wounds on his back and the difficulty of choosing between the pain of hanging by the nails in his hands and arms and the pain of standing on the nails in his feet. 

The spirit of God that had been sustaining him withdrew and he cried out,

Which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

God had withdrawn His spirit from Jesus. It had been sustaining him both spiritually and physically. Without the spirit, he would not have survived Gethsemane, he would not have survived the flogging that followed and he would not have endured to die on the cross, (see D&C 84:33). Like Shadrack, Meshack and Abendago who stood unharmed in the fire, this same spirit sustained many prophets allowing them to complete their missions. It had sustained Jesus and now his mission was completed. 

The vision of the events at the cross ended, but the lesson concluded with Christ teaching,