Jesus of Galilee

This week in my class we talked about the time that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before he was capture and tried, and then crucified. This is one of my favorite parts of the New Testament for many reasons, but there is one that I want to focus on now.

There is a very well known section in Mark that says “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch… And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thous wilt." (Mark 14:33-34, 36)

The reason that this section hit me so hard was because even though Jesus knew that he would have to suffer incredible pain and guilt and sorrow in order to atone for our sins and mistakes, he couldn’t fully understand what that would feel like until it was happening to him. In these moments before stepping into the garden to pray to our Heavenly Father on our behalf and to suffer for all the unfair and wrong things of the world, he started to be afraid. He realized that this was going to be an incredibly difficult and painful task, and he started to look for other options.

In my own small and mortal way, there have definitely been days that I have felt so burdened down by the consequences of my own mistakes and sins, and sometimes by my inability to understand the mistakes and sins of others around me, that I felt as if that sorrow and pain would crush me, and that I wouldn’t be able to survive through it. I’m sure we have all felt this way to some degree. Our Savior felt this way as he entered into the garden, but on a much larger scale. If I imagine my most painful and sorrowful moments of my life, I feel like I can almost understand what it would mean to be “exceedingly sorrowful unto death”, although I know that even my most unbearable moments cannot compare to the night that the Savior suffered for not only my unbearable moments, but of all the unbearable moments of all the people who have ever lived upon the Earth.

As comforting to know it is that Jesus Christ has felt this human suffering, and to know that he knows how I feel, it is even more comforting to know that he chose to go through with that suffering even though he didn’t want to do it at that moment. The only reason that he could go through that experience for all of us is because he loved (and still loves) each one of us completely. If he had backed out in that moment, he may have been able to return to our Heavenly Father anyways. He had never committed any sin, and therefore didn’t need a Savior. He was the only one qualified to enter on his own. And yet the rest of the human race depended on those few hours of intense suffering if we were ever to return home.

This is one reason why I love my Savior so much. He never asked why it had to be him that saved everyone else. He never complained that the whole plan was unfair because it depended completely on him dying for all of us. He never belittled others for not carrying a load like his. He simply spent his whole, overqualified life wandering in the countryside, healing people both spiritually and physically. His life was ended prematurely by murders, a death he could have easily prevented just by commanding it to be so. But he didn’t, because he loved us, and he loved our God who had sent him to fulfill this role.

I hope at the end of my life I can stand before Him and show Him that I am completely clean because I used His sacrifice to the fullest in order to change myself from a sinful mortal into a celestial and holy being like Him.